CarPlay Disconnecting - iPhone XS Max

I solved the problem - at least for me. I have a 2018 A5 which was working just fine with my iPhone X but disconnects regularly with my xS Max.

Until - just the other day - I tried a genuine Apple lightning cable. And voila, problem is solved. I am suddenly having no issues at all, can run as many apps as I want. I even tried running Waze and Apple Maps at the same time and it was rock solid.

I have generally used high quality third-party cables (usually Anker) and have rarely had issues elsewhere. But all I can say is try the genuine Apple cable and see if it helps. It worked for me.

I had this exact issue on my 2018 Audi Q7 and iPhone XS Max, the way I was able to fix it was that I restored Audi Mmi back to factory settings. I no longer have problems with Apple CarPlay and hasn’t disconnected once since the restore. Hope this helps!

I can confirm that deleting Google Maps and sticking with Apple Maps solved my issue this morning during my commute. An hour in the car with zero disconnects. Everything worked as expected.

Temporary solution: I purchased a usb power meter from Amazon for £7 to see what happens to the wattage as the phone disconnects. It turns out that the iPhone does not disconnect when connected via this intermediary device. It’s called Muker 10VA USB Multi-Meter.

Installed 12.1.3 on iPhone XS Max today connected to 2018 Audi Q7 and had 0 disconnects for an hourlong ride. Ran Apple Maps, Apple Music, and made phone calls at the same time, no issues. Pushed Siri requests, texts with Podcast and Maps apps running and no issues. Very promising update.

I may have found a cause of the disconnect issue. My 2017 A4 is doing the exact same thing as described by most here (XS Max etc.). So I started to see if I could determine a pattern of the disconnects. Sure enough it turns out alerts that show up on the lock screen were causing my disconnect. Most of the alerts were from Apple Maps on my phone telling me it would take X minutes to get home.

Basically if an alert showed up on my lock screen it would disconnect for up 20-30 seconds then reconnect. It seems if I had the phone in do not disturb while driving all other alerts were silenced but apple maps would still alert and cause the disconnect. Interestingly even if I had the phone unlocked and an alert from say Homekit came through it would disconnect. I see there is an OS update to 12.1.3 so I am going to try that out and see if it fixes the issue.

Mine (2018 A5, iPhone XS Max) now seems to be nice and solid after the latest IOS update. I had mostly fixed the problem by using an original Apple cord but now my "other" cords all seem to work fine as well.

Drove around with both Apple Maps and Waze running today and it was rock solid.

Hi All, The issue I've discovered on Bentley is this. Bluetooth when its on is what the car looks for so if you have a wired phone to USB and unless you have ticked the box which says don't ask again, the car will always be looking for a bluetooth connection. The answer is to try ticking the dont ask again box which tells the car to stop looking for a bluetooth connection. If that fails to resolve the issue, try disconnecting the car in the iphone under bluetooth and it should now only work if wired in. Doing a reset can also resolve the issue but not always. So I connect with a cable, disconnect all available bluetooth options and tick dont ask again.

Check your lightning jack with a wooden toothpick and make sure there isn’t lint stuck in there.

If you read through this entire thread most of the Audi users had their problem solved with a firmware update from Audi combined with the release of 12.1.4. Check with your Audi dealer.

Yes, deleting the VPN also cleared my issues.

Same problem. 2018 Audi A5 Sportback. Switched from an iPhone X running the iOS 12 public beta. No problems. Upgraded to an iPhone XS Max (256/AT&T/gold) running 12.0. Same problems as OP. Tried hard resets: did nothing to solve the problem. Did a full restore: nothing. Wiped the phone and started from scratch: nothing. Went to Genius Bar, reported the problem, got a replacement unit (same specs): nothing. Upgraded to 12.1 public beta 2 (the one that’s supposed to fix the charging problem, figuring it was related): nothing. Problem does not happen when plugging in my old X, my wife’s 7S Plus, or my daughter’s 8, all running 12.0.

There does seems to be some correlation between when the car’s Wi-Fi is doing something and when the CarPlay cuts out. Trying to figure out whether there’s a way to disable it (turning it off in the Audi settings doesn’t appear to be enough). Weirdly, if I put the phone into Airplane Mode, then connect it to the USB port, the problem doesn’t occur. (Of course, this is useless, since the phone is now offline.) But if I wait about five minutes and then switch it back to regular mode, the problem didn‘t return. Only tried this once, so I need more testing. Not sure what that would mean, other than to suggest a conflict betwen the iPhone’s Wi-Fi (or Bluetooth, or both) and the car’s.

I have had some success by deleting Google Maps from my phone. Not a fan of this solution but for now it has been the only thing that has worked...it is driving me cra cra!

Able to use Waze and listen to Apple Music and podcasts now...let me know if this works for you.

Set up another support call for tomorrow. I'll post if I learn anything new.

Dear all.

I'm writing from Chile, South America.

Have the same problem with a new Iphone XS connected to my 2018 Audi A5 Sportback. iOS 12.0.1

Carplay randomly disconnects. Sometimes every 10 minutes, sometimes every 10 seconds, etc, etc….

Tried all the possible solutions suggested in this community, but nothing work at the moment.

Today a tried turning off WIFI and Bluetooth in my iphone before connecting it to the car (USB 1) and finally I got a 30 minutes trip with no disconnections (Carplay Waze and Spotify working ok) .

I will try to continue testing this way during next days. Hope this works….

Nothing is going to fix this (with exception of some people having success with USB meters), until Apple releases a software fix. iOS 12 introduced a power management issue it needs to solve. Our best bet for anyone with this issue, is to report it to Apple support if you haven't already done so.