CarPlay CarPlay adapter to convert to wireless CarPlay?

[BUXjr]

I feel they can update some files within the firmware with minor updates like the one we just saw. If you hang tight I can test it when I get home in 4 hours. I have a Carlinkit USB-c on 7-8-20 I have nothing to lose on that one.

I will happily await your professional test! There are a handful of people on here, whose opinion I trust. Yours is one of them! Let us know, brother! If it does in fact allow you to downgrade, I will be next in line, directly behind you (well, by six feet, that is). 😉

 

[1215991]

1) I rolled back to 06-17 from 07-08 with no trouble on my CarPlay2Air module.

2) Tested the OTA on my Carlinkit module, but it did not trigger the usual flash between red and green on my USB-C device. Given the update loop, most likely it doesn't do anything aside from change some settings or even permissions, especially since the downloadable version was never recognized by either USB-A or C devices when trying to manually flash.

2a) 2020.07.01 OTA does not allow a roll back to 2020.03.xx or older.

 

[2018 Denali]

1) I rolled back to 06-17 from 07-08 with no trouble on my CarPlay2Air module.

2) Tested the OTA on my Carlinkit module, but it did not trigger the usual flash between red and green on my USB-C device. Given the update loop, most likely it doesn't do anything aside from change some settings or even permissions, especially since the downloadable version was never recognized by either USB-A or C devices when trying to manually flash.

2a) 2020.07.01 OTA does not allow a roll back to 2020.03.xx or older.

Not good on 2a) can’t downgrade to March firmwares.

 

[jpcarro]

Happy to say I was able to flash back to 06.19 (didn't try .17 as I didn't have it readily available).

Do you have the older style adapter, or the newer USB-C based one? Mine is the former--not sure if that is why I was able to flash backwards. But you may want to try 06.19 if you haven't already tried it. It's not as good as 03.04 for me (I sometimes get a black screen, whereas that never happened with the March firmware), but at least it resurrected my adapter!

I have the CPlay2Air non-USB-C. I'll have to give it another try on the rollback...maybe with a different thumb-drive.

Edit: Ah, had my memory stick formatted exFAT. Redid it with FAT32 and rollback worked. Thanks.

 

[mikejd1]

Man. Y’all are crazy. I’m one of the very first to have the Carplay2air from last November. I have 1.22 firmware as that works the best in my Jeep Wrangler and I’m NEVER upgrading again. 😂. No matter what, it stays on 1.22 I went through so much pain and suffering with this company in November, December and January that 1.22 somehow fixed most issues in the wrangler.
It works flawlessly 98% of the time. No Audi distortion, track forward and backward using steering wheel is perfect (minor delay but normal even on Bluetooth)
The only thing I wish worked was the song showing on instrument cluster. Just shows “Apple carplay”.
Oh well.
Sticking with 1.22 4life!

 

[2018 Denali]

I will happily await your professional test! There are a handful of people on here, whose opinion I trust. Yours is one of them! Let us know, brother! If it does in fact allow you to downgrade, I will be next in line, directly behind you (well, by six feet, that is). 😉

So I was able to downgrade it to 3-6-20 but the dongle didn’t activate. I feel since my Carlinkit came with 3-18-20 it doesn’t activate to lower firmware. What firmware did you’re dongle come with originally?

 

[2018 Denali]

I have the CPlay2Air non-USB-C. I'll have to give it another try on the rollback...maybe with a different thumb-drive.

Edit: Ah, had my memory stick formatted exFAT. Redid it with FAT32 and rollback worked. Thanks.

What firmware did you downgrade too?

 

[BUXjr]

So I was able to downgrade it to 3-6-20 but the dongle didn’t activate. I feel since my Carlinkit came with 3-18-20 it doesn’t activate to lower firmware. What firmware did you’re dongle come with originally?

Really?! Wow. Ok, so you applied today's OTA to your Carlinkit v2 and the it subsequently let you flash back to March firmwares?

My CPlay2Air came with 3.18 installed. My Carlinkit v2 came with 6.17 installed.

Did 3.18 have the 5min glitch? I'm not sure that I ever tested it on my rig. They had me update mine the first day I owned it, because I was complaining about the "not being connected at vehicle startup" start up issue. Wish I would have found this forum, first... Little did I know, that issue would be the least of my concerns.

The 5min audio glitch is so strange. The way it manifests itself... Its as if it runs out of buffer space, or is suffering a memory leak, or something. So odd, to work so flawlessly during that first 4 minutes and 45 seconds, then just, out of the blue, start gettin' all crunchy! Hate it.

 

[LarryJoe33]

Man. Y’all are crazy. I’m one of the very first to have the Carplay2air from last November. I have 1.22 firmware as that works the best in my Jeep Wrangler and I’m NEVER upgrading again. . No matter what, it stays on 1.22 I went through so much pain and suffering with this company in November, December and January that 1.22 somehow fixed most issues in the wrangler.
It works flawlessly 98% of the time. No Audi distortion, track forward and backward using steering wheel is perfect (minor delay but normal even on Bluetooth)
The only thing I wish worked was the song showing on instrument cluster. Just shows “Apple carplay”.
Oh well.
Sticking with 1.22 4life!

I’m pretty sure my car shares the same UConnect Infotainment platform. I also have had the same results as you on 1.22 and I’m not going to play with fire.

I also thought the song should display on the instrument cluster, but I realized it doesn’t do this when wired, so not the dongle in my case. Not a big deal, have the song displayed on my giant center screen is enough.

 

[Andiko]

Does anyone of you can upload the manual/guide for Carlinkit USB-A Version? Thank you.

 

[jlhunter2008]

Really?! Wow. Ok, so you applied today's OTA to your Carlinkit v2 and the it subsequently let you flash back to March firmwares?

My CPlay2Air came with 3.18 installed. My Carlinkit v2 came with 6.17 installed.

Did 3.18 have the 5min glitch? I'm not sure that I ever tested it on my rig. They had me update mine the first day I owned it, because I was complaining about the "not being connected at vehicle startup" start up issue. Wish I would have found this forum, first... Little did I know, that issue would be the least of my concerns.

The 5min audio glitch is so strange. The way it manifests itself... Its as if it runs out of buffer space, or is suffering a memory leak, or something. So odd, to work so flawlessly during that first 4 minutes and 45 seconds, then just, out of the blue, start gettin' all crunchy! Hate it.

@BUXjr the 03.18 firmware does have the 5 min. audio glitch. I believe we need the 03.06 firmware to remove the 5 min glitch.

 

[1215991]

So I was able to downgrade it to 3-6-20 but the dongle didn’t activate. I feel since my Carlinkit came with 3-18-20 it doesn’t activate to lower firmware. What firmware did you’re dongle come with originally?

I was able to downgrade my Carplay2air module to 03.06 but can not be activated. It came with 1.22 but I was never able to activate it until 06.17 was released (06.06 might have worked too, but never tried it), so this does not surprise me and makes me doubt that the reason you can not activate your carlinkit is due to it's original version of firmware being newer than 03.06.

 

[2018 Denali]

Really?! Wow. Ok, so you applied today's OTA to your Carlinkit v2 and the it subsequently let you flash back to March firmwares?



Did 3.18 have the 5min glitch?

[/QUOTE

Yes 3-18-20 has the 5 minute audio issue.

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I was able to downgrade my Carplay2air module to 03.06 but can not be activated. It came with 1.22 but I was never able to activate it until 06.17 was released (06.06 might have worked too, but never tried it), so this does not surprise me and makes me doubt that the reason you can not activate your carlinkit is due to it's original version of firmware being newer than 03.06. I suspect the activation servers might be permanently down.

Yes it’s that’s what happened yesterday I downgraded to 3-6-20 but it didn’t activate. I then used the first June manual update which was 6-6-20 and the dongle activated just fine.

 

[1215991]

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Yes it’s that’s what happened yesterday I downgraded to 3-6-20 but it didn’t activate. I then used the first June manual update which was 6-6-20 and the dongle activated just fine.

Like I said, this is a known issue for firmware older than 03.18. It appears that 03.18 (which is what originally came on my Carlinkit unit and activated fine) and higher remove the need for ota activation.

 

[2018 Denali]

Like I said, this is a known issue for firmware older than 03.18. It appears that 03.18 (which is what originally came on my Carlinkit unit and activated fine) and higher remove the need for ota activation.

That’s a possibility.
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[bookemdano]

Yeah the activation server thing was only really relevant when Carlinkit released the gen2 firmware in late December (not to be confused with the gen2 hardware released in March). They did it because there was someone counterfeiting their adapter and this was their way of trying to protect their IP.

If you go back in the thread (quite a chore, I know) the activation server generally worked fine until late January when Chinese New Year happened and was extended several weeks due to the coronavirus epidemic. By then, almost all adapters being shipped already came with gen2 firmware and were preactivated. And many/most people with
adapters with gen1 firmware had already upgraded to gen2, but there were a few unfortunate procrastinators such as myself who had to jump through a bunch of hoops to activate manually.

Ultimately, it seems that Carlinkit scrapped the whole activation idea and removed all traces of it from the newer firmware (as was said, probably beginning with 3.18). That may have been one of the reasons why they removed all the pre3.18 firmware files from their web site--because flashing them onto an adapter that had already been running >=3.18 would cause the adapter to go into an unactivated state. Why the manual activation account/password no longer works I don't know. I still have mine from when I had to manually activate back in February. I'm somewhat tempted to try to flash 3.04 and see if I can still enter that same account and password. But at the same time I don't really want to tempt fate. I'm on 6.19 now and it seems to be behaving OK.

At least we know now that rollbacks are possible, up to a point anyway. I was really concerned that they had disabled that ability entirely. Now it seems clear that we just can't downgrade to anything earlier than 3.18 due to the activation thing. I know that really sucks for the GM people. I think perhaps it might be a good idea for you guys affected by that audio bug to band together and coordinate sending emails and log files at the same time. Maybe that would get their attention more than reports coming in sporadically. Edit: It would probably also help them if you upload a video of when it starts glitching to youtube and link it to them. Maybe some of you have already done that, but given that their command of english isn't the best, a video would probably help them understand better what the problem is.

Just my 2c

 

[1215991]

New update available manually today. As a reminder, I use my activators with an aftermarket headunit not OEM - so you will have to test it yourself to see if it fixes issues or how it affects performance.

PS - Last week I did report the hell out of my experiences with plugging an activator into another activator and the resulting behavior to Carlinkit via WhatsApp and the company website. Future updates could be interesting if they start exploring why they function differently in that scenario.

 

[2018 Denali]

New update available manually today.

PS - Last week I did report the hell out of my experiences with plugging an activator into another activator and the resulting behavior to Carlinkit via WhatsApp and the company website. Future updates could be interesting if they start exploring why they function differently in that scenario.

Installing the update from today as I type this in. Let’s see if the GM audio issue is resolved.

 

[1215991]

Installing the update from today as I type this in. Let’s see if the GM audio issue is resolved.

Looks like they are back to a (roughly) weekly release schedule again.

Btw, can you post 06-06 so I can add it to my archive?

 

[2018 Denali]

Looks like they are back to a (roughly) weekly release schedule again.

Btw, can you post 06-06 so I can add it to my archive?

So today’s update 7-15-20 actually installed firmware 7-8-20. Testing it now with fingers crossed that the GM issue is fixed. 🤞

Yes I will upload 6-6 later today.

Sucks the 5 minutes audio distortion is still there from GM with today’s manual firmware update.
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Looks like they are back to a (roughly) weekly release schedule again.

Btw, can you post 06-06 so I can add it to my archive?

just make sure you unzip the file.

 

[1215991]

Noticed something odd after the OTA update. Used it to roll back my Carlinkit unit to 03-06, where I ran into the activation issue. Reinstalled 06-17 and Carlinkit successfully reactivated itself. I still have the issue with my steering wheel controls, but I have yet to get the blank screen issue.

Could it possibly have reset something besides the firmware lock?
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Why the manual activation account/password no longer works I don't know. I still have mine from when I had to manually activate back in February. I'm somewhat tempted to try to flash 3.04 and see if I can still enter that same account and password. But at the same time I don't really want to tempt fate. I'm on 6.19 now and it seems to be behaving OK.

If you want to send it to me privately, I can test it with my Carplay2Air that is back to version 2020.03.06.

 

[italAlf]

Just want to give some warnings.
Ive had the new v2 usb c version for over a week and it’s being working very well with my 2019 mercedes c class CarPlay.
this afternoon a firmware upgrade showed up on my iPhone so I did the over air upgrade and it reached 90%. I waited a few minutes but no reboot into a menu occurred. The adapter has only a fixed red light and nothing else. I unplugged and plugged in but nothing just a red fixed light indicator. As a desperate measure I tried a manual upgrade using an external usb .... but nothing just the fixed red light indicator.
im very upset as after spending £120 pounds I now have a dead device.
the concerning thing is these confounded updated are easily available but they can so easy brick your expensive devices 🙁.
it is bricked? Or is there anything else I can do?
Anyway just take care with latest updates as they can and do screw up these devices easily 🙁

 

[BUXjr]

Just want to give some warnings.
Ive had the new v2 usb c version for over a week and it’s being working very well with my 2019 mercedes c class CarPlay.
this afternoon a firmware upgrade showed up on my iPhone so I did the over air upgrade and it reached 90%. I waited a few minutes but no reboot into a menu occurred. The adapter has only a fixed red light and nothing else. I unplugged and plugged in but nothing just a red fixed light indicator. As a desperate measure I tried a manual upgrade using an external usb .... but nothing just the fixed red light indicator.
im very upset as after spending £120 pounds I now have a dead device.
the concerning thing is these confounded updated are easily available but they can so easy brick your expensive devices 🙁.
it is bricked? Or is there anything else I can do?
Anyway just take care with latest updates as they can and do screw up these devices easily 🙁

What firmware version was installed on the v2 when you received it? Read: what version did you apply yesterday's "partial patch" to? I believe it was a patch to 2020.06.17.0549.

 

[bookemdano]

Just want to give some warnings.
Ive had the new v2 usb c version for over a week and it’s being working very well with my 2019 mercedes c class CarPlay.
this afternoon a firmware upgrade showed up on my iPhone so I did the over air upgrade and it reached 90%. I waited a few minutes but no reboot into a menu occurred. The adapter has only a fixed red light and nothing else. I unplugged and plugged in but nothing just a red fixed light indicator. As a desperate measure I tried a manual upgrade using an external usb .... but nothing just the fixed red light indicator.
im very upset as after spending £120 pounds I now have a dead device.
the concerning thing is these confounded updated are easily available but they can so easy brick your expensive devices 🙁.
it is bricked? Or is there anything else I can do?
Anyway just take care with latest updates as they can and do screw up these devices easily 🙁

Maybe someone else can confirm, but I think that the solid red LED on the USB-C version is the equivalent of the solid blue LED on the USB-A version, i.e. bricked. To date, I don't think anyone has been able to resurrect a bricked adapter, unfortunately.

But given you just bought it a week or so ago, you should have some recourse with Carlinkit--especially because it's their own shoddy firmware update process that bricked it. I would contact them ASAP and demand a replacement, or if you have the option to return & replace via the vendor you bought it from, pursue that avenue.

Edit: I wonder if one factor in the OTA bricks is perhaps the phone's data connection getting interrupted during the firmware download? I'm not sure actually when the firmware gets transferred to the adapter in the OTA process. It would seem prudent though that the update should transfer to the phone first, checksum verified and only then get applied to the adapter. And their bootloader needs to be massively improved such that if a bad file or interrupted transfer occurs, you can reflash. There's really no excuse in the year 2020 for firmware flash anomalies permanently bricking a device.

 

[MrMister111]

New update available manually today. As a reminder, I use my activators with an aftermarket headunit not OEM - so you will have to test it yourself to see if it fixes issues or how it affects performance.

PS - Last week I did report the hell out of my experiences with plugging an activator into another activator and the resulting behavior to Carlinkit via WhatsApp and the company website. Future updates could be interesting if they start exploring why they function differently in that scenario.

Is this safe to try USB flash on an original CarLinkIt dongle?

May as well try, as you know mines been a brick (as in never worked), since Sep ‘19....

I’m even thinking of paying ‘00’s to get my car system updated to see if any different.

Someone on here said had same system, tried to DM for more details but disappeared now.

Thanks