[pelantio]

My car is MY19 and I was able to use Apple CarPlay when I first picked up the car. A few days later my wife and I found her phone was no longer connected and Apple CarPlay was nowhere to be found in iDrive. There were 2 navigation updates I chose to download before CarPlay disappeared. Don't know if the updates were related.

At first I thought my wife didn't look for it carefully, but I couldn't find it either when I gave it close look today.

I googled a bit and found 2 other people reporting the same issue on different model of BMW in the past 6 months.
Has anybody here experienced the same and is there a fix to it?

I wonder if this is caused by iDrive getting in a weird state and a reboot might fix it. I recall seeing how to do it somewhere but I couldn't find it through searching.
Could anyone let me know how to reboot/reset iDrive?

[shemazar]

push the volume knob in and hold it. it'll reboot.

[teaston]

Originally Posted by shemazar

push the volume knob in and hold it. it'll reboot.

That does nothing different to the car being locked for 10 minutes!

OP have you tried unpairing the phones (both in idrive and in phones settings) then pair again?

[pelantio]

Originally Posted by teaston

That does nothing different to the car being locked for 10 minutes!

OP have you tried unpairing the phones (both in idrive and in phones settings) then pair again?

Yes I did. Now the car has all phone deleted, and I have the car removed from my phone's Bluetooth device list and cleared its CarPlay car list.

As you can see in the photos I took, there's no CarPlay under cellphone settings and CarPlay isn't an option when pairing new phones.

I also read an instruction from apple saying to connect wireless CarPlay, just hold the mic button on your car to start the connection process, which I tried as well but only got a pair Bluetooth device page in iDrive.

[chicagofan00]

Does Apple CarPlay still show as something that has been purchased under your ConnectedDrive profile on the website? Seems odd that the subscription would fall off after an update but maybe it's worth checking to make sure it's still active.

[teaston]

As chicago says, check if it’s still showing on your connected drive account, and contact connected drive technical support.

[efisher13]

Originally Posted by pelantio

Yes I did. Now the car has all phone deleted, and I have the car removed from my phone's Bluetooth device list and cleared its CarPlay car list.

As you can see in the photos I took, there's no CarPlay under cellphone settings and CarPlay isn't an option when pairing new phones.

I also read an instruction from apple saying to connect wireless CarPlay, just hold the mic button on your car to start the connection process, which I tried as well but only got a pair Bluetooth device page in iDrive.

Silly question did you make sure car play is turned on in your iPhone?

[pelantio]

Yup, CarPlay is enabled on phone, phone is actually searching for cars to connect to.

And yes, subscription is good for another year, bmw assist was able to confirm the same.

Also called tech support / genius line, was able to reboot iDrive (hold the volume button down for 10~20 seconds while ignition's on) and updated Bmw assist, but still no apple CarPlay under mobile phone settings.

They told me to go to the service department now. Looks like I hit the jackpot

Not really a big deal missing CarPlay since I enjoy iDrive navigation with HUD direction just fine. But more things seem to be missing besides CarPlay, i.e. I cannot find how to turn on location service for the car so you could find it from bmw connected (I've seen the setting before). Is it possible that my iDrive went in some kind of compatible mode (with reduced functionalities)?

[MechX3M40i]

Originally Posted by pelantio

Yup, CarPlay is enabled on phone, phone is actually searching for cars to connect to.

And yes, subscription is good for another year, bmw assist was able to confirm the same.

Also called tech support / genius line, was able to reboot iDrive (hold the volume button down for 10~20 seconds while ignition's on) and updated Bmw assist, but still no apple CarPlay under mobile phone settings.

They told me to go to the service department now. Looks like I hit the jackpot

Not really a big deal missing CarPlay since I enjoy iDrive navigation with HUD direction just fine. But more things seem to be missing besides CarPlay, i.e. I cannot find how to turn on location service for the car so you could find it from bmw connected (I've seen the setting before). Is it possible that my iDrive went in some kind of compatible mode (with reduced functionalities)?

Sorry to hear about your trouble, looks like you have checked just about everything. Maybe you have a corrupted copy of iDrive. Time to go in and get a software update or something. Good luck.

[NYCE9088]

I had the same problem. What worked for me was with the car on, go to connect drive and hit the option button( physical button below the scrolling wheel), select update BMW assist and don’t press anything else and let it finish. Shut the car off and lock it and leave it for 20 min. Then go back in and see if it shows up. Might have to pair the device again. Hope that works for you.

[pelantio]

Originally Posted by NYCE9088

I had the same problem. What worked for me was with the car on, go to connect drive and hit the option button( physical button below the scrolling wheel), select update BMW assist and don't press anything else and let it finish. Shut the car off and lock it and leave it for 20 min. Then go back in and see if it shows up. Might have to pair the device again. Hope that works for you.

CarPlay just showed up this afternoon! There was a notification about date and time not set, and auto folding mirror after lock was turned off, which suggested that iDrive was somewhat reset. So updating Bmw Assist might be the fix!

And it only showed up after I parked the car a few hours outside with network reception (my garage has no signal). However, I'm not sure how long it takes and whether network is a key factor.

I don't know how long CarPlay would stick around this time, but I'd reboot iDrive and update Bmw Assist if it disappears again.

[Alexm007]

I had the same thing happen to me these past few days......

I checked my ConnectedDrive subscriptions online, and sure enough, the Apple CarPlay compatibility has "expired". No email, no pop-ups on iDrive, nothing. I was going to bring the car to the dealer to have them diagnose, so frustrating.

I called the ConnectedDrive hotline 1-888-333-6118, and they informed me that I SHOULD have received an email warning me of the impending expiration, but nothing came. They stated that CarPlay is only included with leases for the first year.

This car is a lease, and I must have just passed the 1 year mark.

The ONLY renewal options are, $80 per year, or $300 for 240 months (=20 years). ($300 for 20 years is $15/year)....

I asked if there was a way to pay up front for the balance of my lease term, and the rep said no. Either pay $80 per year, and remember to log in again a year from now, or pay $300 now, and remember to seek a pro-rated reimbursement for the un-used 18 years out of the 20 years purchased.

He confirmed that there is no other way to finish out my lease with CarPlay except for these two options.

Needless to say, this is really annoying, especially since the dealer never told me that my CarPlay was going to "expire", and there was no indication from the car that any expiration was coming. It just disappears, leaving you thinking that there is a technical issue.


Super frustrated, but at least I found out the cause, maybe this can be of help to the next person trying to solve their loss of CarPlay around the 1 year anniversary of their lease.

-AM

[BatMeoW]

I just got the trial version of CarPlay and tried activating in my car. Per instructions, I unpaired and paired again, but did not see option for CarPlay even when I did see a message on the car screen stating that the phone supports CarPlay, and a prompt on phone to allow CarPlay to connect. However, nothing I did showed the CarPlay. I then updated the Apps from Connected Drive menu. Once the update was complete, I rebooted the iDrive (pressing volume button for 10-15 secs). After it rebooted, I had an option to pair the car using Apple CarPlay as an option.

[Tex94]

Facing a similar situation here. CarPlay expired and I purchased the subscription (grrr) and then followed all of the steps to update BMW Assist. The CarPlay option shows up but if I try to connect with it I get a message saying could not connect. I’ve tried several times to do the update, reboot the software, wait ten minutes, etc. No dice.

I called BMW and they were zero help and said the Genius team doesn’t work over the weekend. So now my choices are take time off work to talk to them or take it to my dealer. Ridiculous for something that should be easy. If you are going to charge so much for something you should at least make it work. Not impressed.

[X3_M40i]

Facing a similar issue with my car. Paid for the 20 year subscription back in 5/2018. Now it's not showing as a subscribed service on the ConnectedDrive site, but will gladly sell it again. I also see that under invoices, the order is there, but throws an error when trying to view it.

[zeemar]

My Apple Carplay disappeared as well, I have a 2018 X3 and have used the Carplay service for 8 months and suddenly disappeared. I paid for the service through the Connected Store and it worked fine, now it doesn't even show up. I have the invoice from the past and so I called the BMW customer service and they are now saying that your car doesn't have the hardware to support car play and they have no idea how the connected store allowed a purchase. They are refunding the full amount after more than year since my purchase.

I am just clueless how it worked for so long ...

[X3_M40i]

Originally Posted by zeemar

My Apple Carplay disappeared as well, I have a 2018 X3 and have used the Carplay service for 8 months and suddenly disappeared. I paid for the service through the Connected Store and it worked fine, now it doesn't even show up. I have the invoice from the past and so I called the BMW customer service and they are now saying that your car doesn't have the hardware to support car play and they have no idea how the connected store allowed a purchase. They are refunding the full amount after more than year since my purchase.

I am just clueless how it worked for so long ...

I would call back on that one. I finally got someone in customer service that was able to get my a month trial and file an internal IT ticket to get it resolved. BMW also announced that they are stopping the subscription to CarPlay so I wonder if some of us got messed up in that transition. Really puts me off from the brand either way.

[X3_M40i]

Well, it seems that BMW has created an environment with Car Play were they aren't competent to run a subscription service and shows how little we can do when their end breaks. They have not resolved the issues with my car as now the Connected Store and Car Play are not accessible. The car is even showing me an error message when going to the Connected Store saying that it's expired, yet the web site shows it's active until 2022. Not sure how many more hours I want to spend on the phone dealing with this, but really tempted to dump the BMW in general with all of the issues.

[Cabman]

Originally Posted by X3_M40i

Well, it seems that BMW has created an environment with Car Play were they aren't competent to run a subscription service and shows how little we can do when their end breaks. They have not resolved the issues with my car as now the Connected Store and Car Play are not accessible. The car is even showing me an error message when going to the Connected Store saying that it's expired, yet the web site shows it's active until 2022. Not sure how many more hours I want to spend on the phone dealing with this, but really tempted to dump the BMW in general with all of the issues.

BMW ConnectedDrive Support informed me that the ConnectedDrive Store is no longer available in the iDrive/Vehicle. The only way to access it is to scan the bar code on the message with your phone or from a PC. When you updated BMW Assist the BMW ConnectedDrive store access from the vehicle was removed and replaced with the message with a bar code along with updating Apple Car Play. My Apple Cary Play expired 3 months ago and was not on iDrive at all. After the update it was there with a 20 year expiration date.

I confirmed the with my wife's 2020 BMW which still had access. I checked before the update and it worked. After the update it did not. I am not sure why they did it but they did.

You can uncheck the ConnectedDrive Store in iDrive and it will hide it from the menu.

[X3_M40i]

Originally Posted by Cabman

BMW ConnectedDrive Support informed me that the ConnectedDrive Store is no longer available in the iDrive/Vehicle. The only way to access it is to scan the bar code on the message with your phone or from a PC. When you updated BMW Assist the BMW ConnectedDrive store access from the vehicle was removed and replaced with the message with a bar code along with updating Apple Car Play. My Apple Cary Play expired 3 months ago and was not on iDrive at all. After the update it was there with a 20 year expiration date.

I confirmed the with my wife's 2020 BMW which still had access. I checked before the update and it worked. After the update it did not. I am not sure why they did it but they did.

You can uncheck the ConnectedDrive Store in iDrive and it will hide it from the menu.

When I finally got to a supervisor, they explained that BMW deprecated the ConnectedDrive store. The CarPlay subscription is still an issue so they gave me another 60 day trial while they fight with IT to get things fixed. Seems crazy that BMW created an environment that takes some type of system admin to fix an issue like this. Hate being part of the lesson as to way subscription applications in a car is a bad idea, especially when they decided to give it away for free going forward.

[nyalpine90]

I spoke to BMW Assist regarding Connectdrive store not working in the car. The response was BMW deactivated that feature from working in car. Apple carplay will be activated for all 2019 and 2020 vehicles that came with it by end of January. If by Feb you dont have carplay to give them a call.

[hassan mir]

Originally Posted by zeemar

My Apple Carplay disappeared as well, I have a 2018 X3 and have used the Carplay service for 8 months and suddenly disappeared. I paid for the service through the Connected Store and it worked fine, now it doesn't even show up. I have the invoice from the past and so I called the BMW customer service and they are now saying that your car doesn't have the hardware to support car play and they have no idea how the connected store allowed a purchase. They are refunding the full amount after more than year since my purchase.

I am just clueless how it worked for so long ...

did you ever get to the bottom of this?
i am having the same issue BMW are telling me that my car doesn't have the option for car play but i had been using it