Why is my BMW apple carplay not working?

Had this problem. Tried everything and disconnected my phone and reconnected it, restarted my phone, updated my phone and car software. Nothing worked. Then I rebooted my idrive system by turning off the engine and holding down the volume button for 30 seconds till it turned off. Then let go and Clicked the button again to turn on. Idrive rebooted and reconnected the phone. Problem solved.

I tried all of these things too and so far nothing worked. I can connect the phone via blue tooth, but apple car play does not come up. It appears to have Vanished.

This needs to be addressed it is greatly affecting bmw users

Did the stop engine, hold down volume/power on the radio for 30seconds to power down infotainment unit and when it powered up it worked

If you're having issues with CarPlay in your BMW, remove the Bluetooth connection between your iPhone and vehicle. Restart your iPhone and try to use CarPlay again.

Thank you for the turning off the engine and holding down the volume button for 30 seconds! It worked! 😊Wish I read this sooner.

It is not always possible to restart the phone or the car to use CarPlay. Because most of the time you realize that your CarPlay is not working while you’re already driving. So it effectively makes CarPlay unusable for that trip until you have someone else sitting with you who can restart your phone for you

Hello, Has anyone found any solution to this?I have a 2017 530xdrive and out of no where my cats navigation, weather app, and CarPlay stopped working. I tried doing the usb software update but it was still not working. Like someone else in this thread said,the CarPlay option is just not there anymore. I can connect via Bluetooth but it only works for phone calls through the car not CarPlay. I can still get my car’s Location and status through the app so it is connecting somehow. I called the customer service number and told they had me reboot it by pressing the radio button for 70 seconds but it wasn’t working.

If nothing worked, try going to carplay setting on your phone and ‘forget car’ even if it shows your car. Then it will search again and select your car. This solved my issue.

It was working fine. At some point car play stopped working. Removed device, re-paired nothing is working 😒

I tried every method it’s not working

Hi everyone, was having this issue with my dad's car - his phone connected to CarPlay just fine initially, but when we tried out the splitscreen functionality it disconnected the phone and we could no longer connect it. After trying all the other methods mentioned here and elsewhere, including forgetting the device on the phone's bluetooth etc. I looked into the wifi settings on his phone and pressing the 'edit' button which brings up all the known networks - I then found that the phone had the BMW saved as a known network despite being forgotten as a bluetooth device. After deleting it from the known networks and repairing it to the BMW it connect perfectly fine. Hope this helps.

I reset the BMW sound system by holding the volume knob down for 30 seconds and when it rebooted it connected.

Ok, I had the same issue and nothing was working. Reset my phone and reset iDrive and still nothing. However, I was able to fix it by going to CarPlay in Settings. Go to Settings> General > CarPlay. My phone had an old car listed. I clicked on Forget this Network and then kept CarPlay open. It showed that it was searching for a connection so I got in my car and I was finally able to pair it. I hope that helps someone! This has been so frustrating!

I have tried all of the above suggestions however they work for the time I’m driving BuT if the car is turned off and I come back to it I have repeatedly perform all the steps again to get it to work. This is so annoying and quite frankly I think this is a technical glich that carrier to improve.

Out of nowhere Apple CarPlay just wouldn’t work but the bmw Idrive would connect fine it was so weird so I tried turn of the engine and hold down the volume button for 30 seconds thing I saw on here and that seemed to work, so weird lol

Under the Bluetooth section where you see the bmw code for you car click on the i and see if “car play” toggle is activated. Somehow mine got turned to off and that’s what was blocking my phone from connecting . Hope that helps !

I tried everything and nothing was working, I could connect via Bluetooth to BMW iDrive but as soon as I tried to switch to the Apple CarPlay connection type, it would disconnect. I could even swap between iDrive and CarPlay, and it would connect and disconnect every time. I did the engine off and hold the volume/power button for 30 sec and as soon as my car turned on the pop up showed up on my iPhone asking if I want to connect via CarPlay which I clicked, and it’s working again!

In 20180X3, holdingyhr button downdoesnothing but turn off the radio.

30sec method worked !! Thank you so much

Is anyone still having this issue with a 2023? I have to regularly reset by holding down audio power button.

I have this as my current rental car in October 2023 and I would not purchase the car because of how bad it connects with my up to date iPhone. Screen goes blank on navigation with google maps. It has actually been DANGEROUS. I am used to a functional gps and troubleshooting while driving is bad.

Holding the volume button worked unbelievable

I had the same issue. Thanks to all in this forum for posting. Holding down the volume button to reset the system worked immediately. I can now get back to my life after loosing at least one day trying to fix this myself, typical man behaviour

I have this problem with every phone I try to connect, it’s not the phone it’s my car. 2022x7.

Yes!!! Thank you geniuses. The 30 sec volume/power method worked!

Greg S.

My idrive will not even reboot. Held the button down for more than 4 minutes. Tried multiple times. Ugh.

30 sec worked! Thank you!

I had the same problem. It started intermittent then, bam, wouldn't connect at all. I did contact Apple and they said if BMW says it's Apple, call back. In the mean time, my sister has an iPhone so I tried to connect her phone. Same thing. I finally tried the re-boot for 30 seconds and it did work. Let's see if it's still working tomorrow. Just FYI, I started my car and drove it a little down the street, then I stopped and shut it off and pressed the volume for the full 30 seconds. When it came back on it looked like it was connecting and I saw pop up on the phone, connect to car play. I was so excited. I hope it still works tomorrow.

Had this issue with g20. Solved by pressing volume for a long time. It turned down the I drive, after that the problem is gone! Thanks for helping!

Um no idea.

The 30 sec reset worked to bring back Apple CarPlay. Thank you, thank you, thank you!