Everything works in Apple CarPlay except navigation apps

[iPhone X] Updated to IOS 12.1.3 last night, drove 60 miles to work today. Not a single issue with Waze , so far it is showing accurate location. This is just a single data point. Will continue using Waze on iPhone X IOS 12.1.3 and Alpine ILX-107.

Till the next update.

@joelfromberkeley,

I spoke to Technical Support this morning, he told me to send the head unit to Service for "repair". All I needed was to try a new antenna. How did you manage to get an antenna replacement? Appreciate the help.

Thanks.

I posted a few weeks ago about my CarPlay losing my location mid-drive. At that point it had happened a few times about 45-60 minutes into a drive. My car icon would just drift off the road. This had never happened before using either my phone for nav, or my in-car nav, and happened the first times I used CarPlay.

I don’t know if I’m ready to call my issue fully resolved, but since swapping my lightning cable for an actual Apple branded cable, it has not happened. I’ve used it on many 20 minute drives and a couple drives of 90 minutes. My previous cable was Apple certified, but not made by Apple.

Anyone having similar issues should try an actual Apple cable and see if that changes anything.

Well, that worked, at least partially. Now I’m still having cases where the GPS freezes for 100 yards, but then it recovers accurately instead of landing and staying on some side road, and generally doesn’t lose the route. I'd say it went from unusable to mostly usable. Thanks jiskco.

Still a bummer that the gps is freezing (maybe it is losing signal?) and a bummer that I can’t use the OBD integration, but much, much better than before.

@MrRegularGuy, @jisko, JimAppleDanYell

I finally got the chance to swap in the replacement GPS antenna Alpine sent me and tested it on this mornings commute. It worked flawlessly, for the first time ever. Granted the antenna head and the bundle are both on top of the dash currently.

Next I'm going to try:

1) Placing the bundle under the dash (but away from the head unit). This has to work because I can't have a mess of wires on top of the dash.

2) Turning OBD back on (optional in my mind, but nice to have)

3) Mounting the antenna head on the bracket behind the gauges under the dash, where the factory GPS antenna would be mounted in the Subaru Forester (also optional, I can live with it on the dash if necessary)

If #1 above works, then it was most certainly a faulty antenna with the original iLX-107 because I had already tried with the antenna head on the dash previously.

Will keep you posted in case it helps your case.

@joelfromberkely

Good to hear replacing the GPS antenna worked.

Their tech support is not the kindest people on earth, it's hard to get information from them. The person I spoke with told me to just UPS or Fedex the unit with my name, address and write a description of the problem on a piece of paper and that's it! They don't even have an RMA system. At least, to the tech support I spoke with named "Derek".

How did you manage to "swap" a GPS antenna with Alpine? And who did you speak with? Customer service or tech support?

Thanks.

I finally solved my problem. I returned the second iLX-107 and bought a Pioneer AVIC-W8400NEX. Admittedly I like the iLX-107 design and simple interface more, but the Pioneer has more features and, most importantly, the GPS works. I mounted the antenna under the dash in my Subaru Forester and it is perfectly accurate. Google Maps, Apple Maps and Waze all work great, as does the native navigation. The ugly UI and other Pioneer annoyances like the obnoxious click-through warning screen everytime you turn it on are a bummer, but the extra features like HD radio, Android Auto and additional inputs/outputs are kind of nice. It has DVD and a remote which feel outdated, but whatever. Plus I leave it in CarPlay most of the time so it doesn’t matter.

I’ve been using it for a week now and really like it, especially after wasting 2 months and countless hours trying to get the iLX-107 to work. Hope the rest of you are able to find a solution that works for you. Props to Crutchfield for having great support and return policies. I would never buy car audio equipment from anyone else.

RKPedersen -- I actually used the same app for troubleshooting, but someone earlier in this thread rightly pointed out that if the app doesn't support CarPlay, it likely isn't measuring the car's GPS but the phone's GPS. Sounds like you are still seeing a difference, which I can't explain, but I didn't see much of a difference using GPS Diagnostic when connected vs. not connected to CarPlay.

The GPS position in the car is correct, I know this because the car always displays the map in the digital dashboard correctly even when waze goes crazy in the infotainment display (the bmws have this digital dashboard with speed, tacometer and map)

I’ll try to gather more info but my money right now would be on the iphone doing some form of optimization when it gets too hot or when to much energy is being drained in a short period of time. The optimization causes the data to arrive in a corrupt state to the navigation apps.

If I quit waze and restart it right away the problem persists. If both the car and the phone “rest” for 30 minutes or so then the GPS works correctly for another 2 hours or so.

Location on the car is correct as it displays correctly at all times in the digital dashboard.

And yes, wireless carplay requires the car to supply all location data, it’s very important that everyone in the thread is well aware of this fact

thqnks!

MACThornhill wrote:

It has my correct location when I start app - but in middle of drive it doesn’t note me turning or even moving - waze arrow actually disappears and becomes a dot - so it loses me - and then eventually finds me. I switch to google maps and that one had me driving the opposite way on map. This doesn’t always happen - but when it does it makes Apple CarPlay useless and I switch back to using app without CarPlay - which ***** because I paid for a car with CarPlay - help!

I also get the opposite direction issue but in waze. Manufacturers will be able to resolve our issue faster with more info. I suggest that anyone who has this issue reports the iphone model, exact OS, car brand and infotainment version if possible and a summary of the issue always at the end of the post (as a signature). I'll start here:

Phone: iPhone 8 Plus

IOS: 12.3.2

Car: 2019 BMW 3 Series (G20) with iDrive 7

Infotainment version: See version menu item not available in my country =(

Problem: Wrong location in waze and other navigation apps after ~2 hours of use, location is always correct in the car's navigation.

It usually didn't take a couple hours but my commute was only 30 minutes. It did seem to be related to the strength of the GPS signal. I live in a city with a lot of big hills, so plenty of obstacles. There were a few locations where it would always happen, and it was always worse when heavy overcast.

Keep in mind that a lot goes into navigation location. The GPS antenna could be one possible problem. But then the head unit also uses speed and acceleration data to set position. It may also use it's own map data to help keep the position on a road when the GPS is less accurate. But all of this would happen in the head unit in the case of wireless carplay.

Excellent info!

This weekend I have a long drive to a very sunny part of the country and I'll take 2 iphones with me. As soon as the issue happens I'll switch iphones and take notes on the results.

If my theory is correct the fresh iphone will work for ~2h and fail, at which point I'll switch again.

Phone: iPhone 8 Plus

IOS: 12.3.2

Car: 2019 BMW 3 Series (G20) with iDrive 7

Infotainment version: See version menu item not available in my country =(

Problem: Wrong location in waze and other navigation apps after ~2 hours of use, location is always correct in the car's navigation.

Today when using navigation apps with CarPlay - my location worked but was delayed - so it was always half a block or so behind where I was - which means turning etc is delayed. I didn’t use it much and didn’t go far.

Summary of findings reading through this and other threads:

The fix

• Various brands of cars/head units were affected in various countries, you are not alone with this issue
• Most people got it fixed by either replacing their head unit OR performing a software upgrade

So, I suggest the very first thing you do when you have this issue, is upgrading the firmware.

Possible (likely?) cause:

• It's not likely your phone as the GPS works fine by itself
• It's not your head unit or the GPS sensor either (if mounted properly)
• Changes were made to the World Magnetic Model due to polar magnetic drift, see here: https://www.sciencealert.com/navigation-systems-finally-caught-up-with-the-mysteriously-north-pole-shift
• To fix this an update was issued to GPS equipment manufacturers
• Your unit might not be updated yet (a new one probably is)
• When your phone is connected to the head unit, the phone receives the location data from the head unit GPS sensor
• The mismatch of GPS data between the map on your phone (updated via iOS updates) and the coordinates from your head unit (I guess not updated) results in displaying an offset position

Tips

• Don't stuff the GPS sensor provided with your unit away behind other stuff
• I troubleshooted this issue with the sensor literally lying on the roof of the car in an open area to eliminate this being the issue
• You need to drive around a bit for the software to calibrate, just a few blocks should do it
• Things are more accurate when the VSS (speed sensor cable) is properly connected, e.g. tunnels etc.

Troubleshooting

• You can use GPS Diagnostic software (an app) that shows GPS info. Run this app with and without your phone connected to your head-unit. Is there a difference?