[BIGW0RM]

Anyone else getting occassional audio drops when using car play and spotify, apple music, etc?

I have my music downloaded to my iphone via spotify and it does it. I also tried apple music streaming, it does it. So its not the cell signal. But at least once or twice on my drive to work, my music will just drop for a second or two and pick right back up. The interface and apple maps continues to work just fine in the background. Ive never had this problem in my 4 other past G series M cars.


I have had skip button issues where you get out of the car for a second with your phone, come back and now skip wont work. That issue has been around and the quick fix is to turn off wifi and back on and it resets the carplay connection. At least iphone wise. But thats not my issue.

To my knowledge I have the latest idrive firmware and my iphone 16 pro is on the latest IOS 18.2

So is anyone else experencing audio drops when playing music through carplay?


PS: I have reset idrive doing the 30 second hold. Ive reboot my iphone. Next is to remove and repair BT connection to idrive.

[JABCAT]

I've posted this before, I get a different screen, different CarPlay issue nearly every time I get in the car. I get the "cannot connect to this device" or "this version of bluetooth is not supported" message at least once a week yet it shows its connected to my phone under devices & on my phone.

Sometimes it auto starts the music but the volume is at zero for some reason. Sometimes my screen goes black but the music is still playing, music stops playing but shows the song is playing, CarPlay disappears all together but the screen will show "navigation is being done through CarPlay" but I can't access CarPlay.

The "tech" in this car with regards to CarPlay and keeping settings has been the most frustrating of any vehicle I've owned.

[BIGW0RM]

Originally Posted by JABCAT

I've posted this before, I get a different screen, different CarPlay issue nearly every time I get in the car. I get the "cannot connect to this device" or "this version of bluetooth is not supported" message at least once a week yet it shows its connected to my phone under devices & on my phone.

Sometimes it auto starts the music but the volume is at zero for some reason. Sometimes my screen goes black but the music is still playing, music stops playing but shows the song is playing, CarPlay disappears all together but the screen will show "navigation is being done through CarPlay" but I can't access CarPlay.

The "tech" in this car with regards to CarPlay and keeping settings has been the most frustrating of any vehicle I've owned.

Interesting. I had no issues with ID7 other than skip acting up if I left the car with my iPhone and came back. But never any audio drops. Your issues sound worse than mine. Damn. Seems like it must be an ID8 and up issue.

[sgachko]

Originally Posted by BIGW0RM

Interesting. I had no issues with ID7 other than skip acting up if I left the car with my iPhone and came back. But never any audio drops. Your issues sound worse than mine. Damn. Seems like it must be an ID8 and up issue.

I’m having the same issue where I can’t skip tracks when using CarPlay. Super annoying. 2025 G87.

[JABCAT]

Originally Posted by BIGW0RM

Interesting. I had no issues with ID7 other than skip acting up if I left the car with my iPhone and came back. But never any audio drops. Your issues sound worse than mine. Damn. Seems like it must be an ID8 and up issue.

I rarely have issues with CarPlay in my wife's '22 X3MC w/ID7, so it's definitely issues with ID8+. Funny, my wife custom ordered a '23 Grand Cherokee L Summit fully loaded. Drove 20 hours there & back to pick it up & we got rid of it after 9 months because of basically the same issues with all the software bugs. If there were anything else with the performance features (and less tech) in the M2's category, I'd probably be looking to switch.

I really despise all the software garbage in new vehicles. 95% of it is completely unnecessary. Adds complications, cost to the base price, and then expensive to fix when it breaks out of warranty, which is inevitable.

[BIGW0RM]

Originally Posted by sgachko

I’m having the same issue where I can’t skip tracks when using CarPlay. Super annoying. 2025 G87.

Disable WiFi in control center and back on. That usually resets the skip buttons.

[kenkamm]

Originally Posted by BIGW0RM

Anyone else getting occassional audio drops when using car play and spotify, apple music, etc?

Yes, I get occasional drop-outs, but they are pretty infrequent so I just live with them.

I am having relatively good luck compared to some, but I do get the occasional issue where the center display says "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Track" and the steering wheel skip button's don't work. Not sure how to fix it while I'm in the car. I usually just deal with it, and the next time I get in the car it's fine. Happens maybe 1 out of 15 times I get in the car.

We probably all should be getting into the BMW app every time we have an issue and contacting a "genius" and complaining so these issues at least get logged somewhere by BMW. It's never going to get fixed unless BMW gets a lot of common complaints.

[BIGW0RM]

Originally Posted by kenkamm

Yes, I get occasional drop-outs, but they are pretty infrequent so I just live with them.

I am having relatively good luck compared to some, but I do get the occasional issue where the center display says "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Track" and the steering wheel skip button's don't work. Not sure how to fix it while I'm in the car. I usually just deal with it, and the next time I get in the car it's fine. Happens maybe 1 out of 15 times I get in the car.

We probably all should be getting into the BMW app every time we have an issue and contacting a "genius" and complaining so these issues at least get logged somewhere by BMW. It's never going to get fixed unless BMW gets a lot of common complaints.

The quick fix to that is to toggle your WiFi on and off via the control center. Do that usually resets the unknown artist and skip.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by kenkamm

Yes, I get occasional drop-outs, but they are pretty infrequent so I just live with them.

I am having relatively good luck compared to some, but I do get the occasional issue where the center display says "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Track" and the steering wheel skip button's don't work. Not sure how to fix it while I'm in the car. I usually just deal with it, and the next time I get in the car it's fine. Happens maybe 1 out of 15 times I get in the car.

We probably all should be getting into the BMW app every time we have an issue and contacting a "genius" and complaining so these issues at least get logged somewhere by BMW. It's never going to get fixed unless BMW gets a lot of common complaints.

I’m not convinced these dropout issues are a BMW specific issue. I get the same issues more frequently on the Porsche (although no more than weekly), seems related to CarPlay and the Apple implementation, more than anything.

Exiting the car without shutting it off and staying on the edge of the Bluetooth / wifi range seem to be the most likely trigger for me. Overall seems to be related to wireless signal strength and/or disconnect.

[BIGW0RM]

I switched from paying spotify through carplay to using the actual spotify app in idrive and I have not had a single drop out since.

Not only that, but the sound sure does seem much cleaner going through the spotify idrive app vs spotify app on my iphone via carplay.

And I even have my spotify app on my iphone playing at the highest quality level. I download my music in the app so my spotify audio drop outs from carplay are not because of streaming quality and connection. All my songs are downloaded to the app.

Moving forward, Im using the spotify app in the idrive. It honestly sounds much cleaner. I noticed it right away.

[///MoT]

Originally Posted by BIGW0RM

I switched from paying spotify through carplay to using the actual spotify app in idrive and I have not had a single drop out since.

Not only that, but the sound sure does seem much cleaner going through the spotify idrive app vs spotify app on my iphone via carplay.

And I even have my spotify app on my iphone playing at the highest quality level. I download my music in the app so my spotify audio drop outs from carplay are not because of streaming quality and connection. All my songs are downloaded to the app.

Moving forward, Im using the spotify app in the idrive. It honestly sounds much cleaner. I noticed it right away.

I'm an Android/Google Pixel user, and haven't noticed any of the "Unknown Artist/Song" stuff, or the skip buttons not working, but I do have the occassional 1/2 second audio dropout. Bringing it up because it may indeed be an iDrive 8.5 issue.

With regard to the Spotify app on iDrive... thanks for mentioning this, that you feel the audio quality is better using that than the Spotify app on your phone. I briefly used it right after getting the car, but not enough to compare the audio quality between to the two solutions. Definitely going to give the built-in Spotify app another try.


-Tom

[JABCAT]

I tried the Spotify app in the car yesterday & played the same song back-to-back from CarPlay & then the app in the car. To me, CarPlay sounded noticeably better. There was more bass through CarPlay & I didn't care for the interface of the car app. You can only go forward or back, there's no pause "button". I also hit the "shuffle" box multiple times but the box would not "check", so it only played songs in the order they were on my playlist.

That said, here was my CarPlay screen on my drive in this morning. Spotify music was playing from my phone during the entire trip, however, wouldn't show up on the screen or in the HUD.

[BIGW0RM]

Originally Posted by JABCAT

I tried the Spotify app in the car yesterday & played the same song back-to-back from CarPlay & then the app in the car. To me, CarPlay sounded noticeably better. There was more bass through CarPlay & I didn't care for the interface of the car app. You can only go forward or back, there's no pause "button". I also hit the "shuffle" box multiple times but the box would not "check", so it only played songs in the order they were on my playlist.

That said, here was my CarPlay screen on my drive in this morning. Spotify music was playing from my phone during the entire trip, however, wouldn't show up on the screen or in the HUD.

Yeah, the Spotify car app interface does suck.

I found it a PITA to switch from CarPlay Spotify to BMW Spotify. Mine would hang or not switch and show that same CarPlay screen you posted while still playing music from BMW car play.

I’m still on the fence over which one sounds better. I seem to think I hear things I don’t hear as well via the CarPlay app. Surround seemed more distinct.

However, the BMW interface blows so I went back to CarPlay’s.

Be sure to log out of the BMW app if going back to car play. My screen was looking like yours until I did that.

[JABCAT]

Originally Posted by BIGW0RM

Be sure to log out of the BMW app if going back to car play. My screen was looking like yours until I did that.

Good to know - thanks