CarPlay intermittently disconnects

Hi All!
I have a 21 Yukon XL Denali and a iPhone 12 Pro. I’ve just very recently been getting worse and worse amounts of disconnects and interruptions in my CarPlay connection. I normally have my phone plugged in via the usb cable. When I go through certain areas, it started out just south of downtown Milwaukee and that are got ever larger, and now other locations have popped up where if I am in that area the CarPlay audio connection will start dropping out and then eventually I will lose the Waze map on the radio display. This morning it got to the point where it was completely useless. I’ve thought about some kind of harmful interference in the RF spectrum but I’m not sure why that would mess with it when it’s plugged in. That said I’ve never fount a USB stick that my car recognizes, so I’m not sure the data part of the usb sockets are doing anything and have no idea how to test that without a usb drive that’s known to work. I have access to a reasonably good spectrum analyzer, so I’m tempted to throw that in the car and see if I see anything bizarre. Anyone have any recommendations?

That's unusual. I've heard of (and have experienced myself) CarPlay not connecting when you turn the car on, but not completely disconnecting for seemingly no reason during driving. You might want to try an infotainment restart and see if that does anything. Put the vehicle in park, hold the "end call" button on the steering wheel for 10-12 seconds, then let go. Infotainment unit will restart. That has fixed some bugs for me, and importantly, is not a full reset so you don't lose all of your settings and whatnot. Worth a shot if you haven't tried already.

If you're wired, there is no interference risk.

99% of the time it is either:
1) A cable CarPlay cable. Even the 'official' Apple ones just randomly start having problems.
2) Pocket lint in your phone port. Use the tip of a paperclip or safety-pin to gently scrape the crap out of there.

Do you have any public WiFi profiles on your phone? Can you have passenger watch the WiFi settings screen on your phone for awhile when in an area this happens?

It’s almost always an airport triggering DFS channel swaps or your phone is dropping the vehicle WiFi for a public or previously know network because it thinks that connection is stronger.

iamlegion said:

Do you have any public WiFi profiles on your phone? Can you have passenger watch the WiFi settings screen on your phone for awhile when in an area this happens?

It’s almost always an airport triggering DFS channel swaps or your phone is dropping the vehicle WiFi for a public or previously know network because it thinks that connection is stronger.

Click to expand...

Yes I've had this issue as well, sort of. I had my home wifi connected to the Yukon, but sometimes when I started the car at home, it must have caused an issue because the phone wouldn't connect to Apple Airplay, but almost always when I was parked in the front of the house closer to the router. I tried some things and eventually I started wondering if it was the wifi connection causing some disruption since it usually only caused the issue when I was close to the router. I disconnected the Yukon from the home wifi - and that completely solved the issue.

Subscribed. My Apple CarPlay situation has changed in the last month or two. Right now I can connect it fine, but within seconds it will disconnect. Unplug and replug the cable, same thing happens. Over and over.

But eventually, once I’ve been in the truck a while (15 minutes?) and plugged it in and out maybe 10-12 times, it will connect and remain connected for the remainder of the trip.

I’ve tried various cables plugged into various inputs, the behavior remains the same.

It’s very odd behavior especially considering that it doesn’t persist. I don’t think my phone jack is dirty, but I admit that is the only conclusion that is at least somewhat logical. It would explain why after unplugging and re-plugging the phone many times it eventually works.

WillCO said:

Subscribed. My Apple CarPlay situation has changed in the last month or two. Right now I can connect it fine, but within seconds it will disconnect. Unplug and replug the cable, same thing happens. Over and over.

But eventually, once I’ve been in the truck a while (15 minutes?) and plugged it in and out maybe 10-12 times, it will connect and remain connected for the remainder of the trip.

I’ve tried various cables plugged into various inputs, the behavior remains the same.

It’s very odd behavior especially considering that it doesn’t persist. I don’t think my phone jack is dirty, but I admit that is the only conclusion that is at least somewhat logical. It would explain why after unplugging and re-plugging the phone many times it eventually works.

Click to expand...

Update - a little googling reveals that this issue is prevalent across iPhone models and CarPlay platforms. It might go away at some point but who knows when. The CarPlay hardware in a 2016 Tahoe is ancient at this point.

I bought a $50 wireless CarPlay adapter on Amazon that works very well and seems to remove the issue. It connects immediately and stays connected.