CarPlay skips playing music

I have had this issue with my Citroën C3 here in Europe as well. Firmware update of the car system didn’t help. iOS 11 and 12 failed to help. Have an iPhone X so it’s not underpowered— also happened on my 6s. It skips in music, but also the turn-by-turn directions will sometimes stutter, too. There seems to be very little diagnostic information available to help me troubleshoot. Frustrating.

My 2018 Audi A4 does the same with the lightening cable (bluetooth turned off). Amazon Music is completely hopeless as it skips constantly. Pandora plays sometimes and sometimes it skips. Very annoying and disappointing.

This is happening to me, with a brand-new 2019 Subaru Outback with H/K and an iPhone 7. When connected with CarPlay via USB wired connection, audio playback skips intermittently, every minute or so. It seems to happen somewhat less the longer a given album/playlist/radio station plays, but it's noticeable and annoying nonetheless.

I have tried soft- and hard-resetting the iPhone, hard-resetting the Starlink multimedia unit (hold the on/off/volume button for 10 seconds or so), making sure both the iPhone and Starlink have updated firmware, trying different authentic Apple-brand Thunderbolt cables, quitting all applications on the iPhone - all to no avail.

Bluetooth audio playback (using the same iPhone) is flawless. So too is radio reception (including HD and SXM - I almost prefer SXM's horribly compressed audio to CarPlay, simply because it doesn't stutter and skip).

Leave it to Apple to sweat the tiniest of tiny details on any number of insignificant, superfluous UI flourishes, and then blow it on basic functional matters like uncorrupted audio playback.

Don't know what to do except complain here, and also to my dealer when I bring the vehicle back for scheduled maintenance under warranty. There is ripe terrain for each party to blame the other - Subaru blaming Apple, Apple blaming Subaru, etc., but my hunch is that this is an Apple fumble - otherwise, why would all the other audio (including Bluetooth playback) not exhibit the same skipping/stuttering issue?

Bla-Bla

Have had the same problem with new 2019 WRX. Have tried different USB cables. Wife’s phone, my phone and sons phone all work perfectly in my car and sons car with apple car play but not with the new wrx. Subaru are about to replace the head unit so are just waiting to see if that fixes the problem. Have also asked them to replace USB connectors but they want to test the head unit first. Very frustrating problem.

Been dealing with this issue on my 18' Subaru Crosstrek for almost a year. iPhone 7, ios 12.1.2, Apple lightning cable, latest firmware update. I get horrible crackling noises after about 10 minutes of playing from the phones music library and it only gets worse to the point where I have to unplug it in favor of Bluetooth which takes a few minutes of playback itself to clear itself of any remaining audio distortion until it's perfectly clear again. No issues at all if just using Bluetooth from the start.

Very frustrating as Sirius was not an option on the factory radios in 18 which is why I want to use CarPlay.

I just got a new 2019 Subaru Legacy. Same issue here. No skips with Bluetooth or radio, but only with Apple Car Play playing music from Spotify or Apple Music. Very frustrating, I hope it can be fixed with a software update as I plan to have this car for a long time.

Just bought a 2019 Subaru Forester Sport and I've been noticing this since the drive home two weeks ago. I've also tried restarting phone, changing cable, etc. Never had this problem with my Civic that didn't have CarPlay. Doesn't sound like it's specific to a make/model. I could charge with a different port and use Bluetooth but then you lose all the other functionality of the CarPlay. I also have the Harman Kardon head unit.

Can we please get a rep from Apple to acknowledge this issue?

I've had this same issue for over a year now on my 2017 Subaru Impreza. It's almost unlistenable. I've tried everything, several iOs updates. No solution.

Same exact issue on 2019 Forester. Blips/pauses about once a minute for a few milliseconds.

However - it does NOT happen on my 2017 Civic or 2018 Fit with the same phone.

This has to be head unit, not Apple, related.

I have also had this same issue with a 2018 Subaru Outback. Just recently had the Jan 2019 recall done on the head unit. While this seems to have fixed the connectivity issue (CarPlay or Bluetooth would randomly not connect and could not play music via CarPlay or Bluetooth), it has not fixed the random crackle/skip every minute or so. This only seems to happen while hard wired, and not while streaming with Bluetooth.

Just to let you and others know: I took my 2018 Impreza into the dealer... Confirmed the skipping in the music via USB... We then attempted the same operation on a 2019 model and it didn't happen. They took the USB assembly out and put it in my car, and attempted to reproduce the issue and it did. So, the head unit will be replaced.

Yes, also just got my car back from the dealer for the recall. Honestly, not noticing much of a difference with the Subaru software update. Still having the millisecond skipping issue, with an Apple OEM cable. The skipping is a little less frequent now, but not solved for me. I wish we had some certainty on the culprit and an easy fix. No such luck.

Great question. It seems there were many faulty devices. The "fix" will be confirmed after a new unit is installed. It's entirely possible there's an incompatibility between the iPhone X and the head unit but that's not known yet. They gave me a window of about 2 weeks for the new head unit to arrive - so on about March 4th or there about.

I do not believe this is an issue with the head unit. Ours was replaced in my19 WRX and made no difference. I also do not believe it is a compatibility issue with different phone models as my wife phone is the iPhone 7 and it still does it. Our USB connectors are due to be replaced next week so will update on if that fixes the issue. Trust it will or we may have to take up with Subaru Australia. Surely with all of the comments in this forum they need to fix the issue.