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CarPlay CarPlay disconnects and reconnects

circatee

circatee

Contributor
Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
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Where I am
With iOS26 when in my car, I have noticed that if I happen to pick up my phone and use it (opening any app, etcetera), CarPlay temporarily disconnects.

Once I put the iPhone down, or lock the device, it reconnects to CarPlay.
If I happened to have Waze running guiding me to a destination, it will ask if I want to resume the trip.

Is this a new 'safety' feature of some sort?

PS: I am connected wirelessly...
 
Last edited:
Wireless CarPlay user here. Have not experienced any of this at all. Try restarting everything, iPhone and car infotainment. I’d also unpair and re-pair CarPlay.
 
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Update:
I disconnected my iPhone 17 Pro Max from my car, then I reconnected it.

Later that same day, I drove my car, and after picking up the iPhone and merely going to the home screen, it disconnected. Once I put the phone back down, it reconnected to CarPlay and CarPlay asked if I wanted to resume the trip.

A tad bit frustrating...
 
circatee said:
Update:
I disconnected my iPhone 17 Pro Max from my car, then I reconnected it.

Later that same day, I drove my car, and after picking up the iPhone and merely going to the home screen, it disconnected. Once I put the phone back down, it reconnected to CarPlay and CarPlay asked if I wanted to resume the trip.

A tad bit frustrating...
Click to expand...

What car do you have?
It works fine on my Chevy Bolt but not on my Hyundai Ioniq5
 
Both my wife and I are experiencing connection issues and badly pixelation with a Mercedes A Class. Me with a 17 Pro Max, her with the Air.

I didn't have no issues with any iOS26 betas. I tried the iOS26.1 beta but no change. Will see if the next public release sorts it for my wife, I'll stick with the betas to try.
 
I should add, with the iOS26 betas I was using a 16 Pro Max and the wife a 15 Pro Max.
 
My 16PM was working perfectly with Carplay on iOS26 beta and the actual release. But my 17PM is a different story.

The problem is not disconnecting. It's stable. The problem is everytime I start my car, it doesn't auto connect. After playing with it, it seems to be a bluetooth issue rather than wifi. Several times I had to delete the BT profile on my phone and reconnect just to get it going.
 
LIVEFRMNYC said:
My 16PM was working perfectly with Carplay on iOS26 beta and the actual release. But my 17PM is a different story.

The problem is not disconnecting. It's stable. The problem is everytime I start my car, it doesn't auto connect. After playing with it, it seems to be a bluetooth issue rather than wifi. Several times I had to delete the BT profile on my phone and reconnect just to get it going.
Click to expand...
Hmm, now that is interesting.

I was trying to solve an issue of my Duo Mobile app not showing notifications on my Mac.
It appeared the WIFI on my iPhone was not connected, so my iPhone couldn't connect to the Phone Mirroring app.

Based on your info above, I am now wondering if the issue is related to WIFI/Bluetooth connectivity...
 
My iPhone 17 Pro drops CarPlay constantly in two vehicles.

Whether I wear an Apple Watch or not makes no difference.

It is strictly a 17 Pro wireless issue with CarPlay for me.

My 14 Pro w/iOS 26 works fine.
 
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I’m glad to hear this isn’t just me; my phone has been disconnecting from CarPlay as well (17PM, wired, 2019 Honda Civic). I had noticed that it seemed to happen if I bumped the phone and thought it might be a bad cable, so I swapped it out but it’s still happening. This afternoon when I got home from work I parked and picked up my phone and it disconnected. It’s definitely just not feeding CarPlay to the unit, because audio and charging are still functional.

It’s super obnoxious because it doesn’t necessarily come back on its own after being disrupted; I had to reboot my head unit while I was driving home yesterday to get it working again.
 
i've had this problem with either wired or wireless carplay on both ios 18 and 26. it's ability to connect to the vehicle (2025 prius) on startup is quite literally 50/50, and will also drop randomly mid drive. it's also a complete crapshoot whether the siri mic will be totally unavailable. rebooting the head unit helps temporarily, but doing this literally DAILY is really wearing me down, especially on a 2 month old car car.

i'm sure that apple and toyota will just point fingers at each other, too, effectively leaving the end user without any real solutions. i feel like i might as well just go back to a car mount for maps at this point, which "just worked" for the past 13 years. and i know its just as likely to be toyota as apple, it just sucks that in general so many software features can be largely broken these days, and yet we keep allowing ourselves to be marketed more and more of these "features." :(
 
So, for the past 3 days no issues with CarPlay/iPhone 17 Pro Max disconnecting when I use the phone.
I will add, I did unpair it from my car, and then reconnected it. I feel as if since then it has behaved and performed better...
 
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I bought a 17 Pro and started encountering this issue immediately, and I'm on the public beta 26.1. It was also happening on my older iPhone 16 Pro. Super annoying, I've had to switch back to a wired experience to prevent it from disconnecting, then reconnecting. I do use a wireless adapter dongle for my car; I might need to try a different brand.
 
Noticing strange behavior from my EV car with 17 Air running iOS 26.0.1.

When I get in and start it, the EV display says I don't have a phone connection.

Then I press "dismiss" and a minute later connects.

Never had that with 16 Pro running iOS 17.
 
I love and use wireless carplay daily. Connectivity in my car is 10/10. This is one of the reasons i have been hesistant to update my 15 pro to ios26 incase it makes carplay buggy.

Commenting so that I can keep an eye on this thread and update in due course.
 
It also happens to me with iOS26 in my Volvo car. I have changed the wireless USB Carlinkit for another brand and it keeps happening. It is solved when I restart the vehicle system and pair the iPhone again
 
I have one of those chinese portable Carplay screens in my car, and am getting dropouts via Wireless Carplay (Wired works fine.) I really hope they figure out what is going on soon, as I doubt I will get much support on a 3 year old unit.

EDIT: Latest ios26 update, iPhone 17.
 
New beta out, iOS26.1 beta 2.

Going to test with CarPlay now. Currently Air & 17 Pro Max with CarPlay pixelisation.
 
Ever since I got iPhone 17 pro max and iOS 26 CarPlay is a nightmare keeps on disconnecting, then reconnecting for no reason. Makes it unusable. Rely upon this for long car journeys so may need to look at other temporary solutions.
 
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