Apple Car Play Won’t Connect
- Thread starter brianwilkey
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I also have a 2025 Grand Cherokee and it’s having CarPlay issues now too. Have to turn the car on/off for it to recognize our phone. Very frustrating
I’m still very much in testing and diagnosing, but I’m fairly confident at this point that the issues are very much related to WiFi.
My iPhone stays connected to WiFi while I’m in the garage/truck. I’m assuming that it fails to handshake with the truck when the truck is started (the phone doesn’t want to disconnect from the home WiFi). Once that handshake fails, only a restart of the truck will allow it to try again.
When I’m running errands, I never have an issue with ACP. As soon as I get in the truck it connects.
The one time I had an issue while I was out, my daughter had her tablet tethered to my iPhone. So, the consistent behavior is: if the iPhone is connected to WiFi, connection to ACP will be intermittent. If the iPhone is on cellular (and it’s not a hotspot itself) ACP works perfectly.
To test this theory further, I’ve adjusted my WiFi settings so that my iPhone will no longer connect in the garage. Now, any time I get in the truck, it should strictly be on cellular before the truck starts.
Of course, this is all theory based on my personal experiences so far. Some of you may have had issues even when the phone wasn’t connected to WiFi when you started the truck. I’ll post an update after I have a few more days of testing.
My iPhone stays connected to WiFi while I’m in the garage/truck. I’m assuming that it fails to handshake with the truck when the truck is started (the phone doesn’t want to disconnect from the home WiFi). Once that handshake fails, only a restart of the truck will allow it to try again.
When I’m running errands, I never have an issue with ACP. As soon as I get in the truck it connects.
The one time I had an issue while I was out, my daughter had her tablet tethered to my iPhone. So, the consistent behavior is: if the iPhone is connected to WiFi, connection to ACP will be intermittent. If the iPhone is on cellular (and it’s not a hotspot itself) ACP works perfectly.
To test this theory further, I’ve adjusted my WiFi settings so that my iPhone will no longer connect in the garage. Now, any time I get in the truck, it should strictly be on cellular before the truck starts.
Of course, this is all theory based on my personal experiences so far. Some of you may have had issues even when the phone wasn’t connected to WiFi when you started the truck. I’ll post an update after I have a few more days of testing.
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A new head unit will not fix the ACP issues.
Well boys, I think I’m onto something. Ran several tests today in the garage. The phone was always on cellular now that I made the adjustments to my home WiFi. After 4 different startups in the garage, ACP connected perfectly every single time. And much faster than it used to. Since it’s not having to drop the home WiFi connection before it’ll connect to ACP, it just instantly launches when I start the truck. Obviously, I need several more days of testing before I call it solved. But this is definitely progress.
I just deleted and repaired everything in the order suggested by Geno26 in Post 14 and all was well with ACP wirelessly on a 350 mile trip today.
I’ve randomly and furiously deleted and repaired everything countless times before to no avail, so apparently the order does matter.
I’ve randomly and furiously deleted and repaired everything countless times before to no avail, so apparently the order does matter.
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I disconnected my phone from the Apple car play completely. I also rest the radio as well. I reset it up all over again like it was brand new to the truck. I personally haven't had any issues since then. Fingers crossed.
Two more days of testing. Not a single issue with wireless ACP connection. I’m not calling it solved yet, but I’m very hopeful.
TLDR: I adjusted my WiFi settings so that my iPhone and truck could not connect to the home WiFi in the garage.
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That's great news Brian. How did you adjust your WiFi settings to prevent connection in the garage?
Full transparency, I’m a network engineer. So this kind of stuff is in my wheelhouse.
I adjusted my minimum RSSI to -75 dBm. In non-technical terms, this just means “If you don’t have good signal strength, disconnect.”
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Ahhh, well I'm just a dumb pilot. All of these workarounds seem to come back to the WiFi in the truck so if I have the problem I'll just turn off the WiFi there and see what happens. Hopefully won't be necessary.
It’s definitely WiFi related. What I haven’t isolated is whether it’s the phone’s or truck’s connection to the Home WiFi. I’m definitely leaning towards phone, since I can replicate the behavior when the phone is used as a WiFi hotspot away from home.
Well, after several back to back days of zero issues with wireless ACP connectivity, it bit me again.
The difference was: I remote started the truck from the fob (truck was in my garage). I have no idea why that would cause a problem. But it must be due to how uConnect doesn’t fully start up when in remote start. And when you turn on the ignition, Bluetooth/Wifi go into this weird limbo state. With the truck running, I rebooted the main display (held down the power button) two times. After the second reboot, ACP immediately connected.
After encountering this, I was able to replicate the behavior again while out in town. So, remote start does not play nicely with ACP.
What I’m curious of, for my next test, is what happens if I turn off the truck from remote start, and then start up again. Basically avoid the display going from remote start mode to ignition start. I’ll run some more tests and report back.
The difference was: I remote started the truck from the fob (truck was in my garage). I have no idea why that would cause a problem. But it must be due to how uConnect doesn’t fully start up when in remote start. And when you turn on the ignition, Bluetooth/Wifi go into this weird limbo state. With the truck running, I rebooted the main display (held down the power button) two times. After the second reboot, ACP immediately connected.
After encountering this, I was able to replicate the behavior again while out in town. So, remote start does not play nicely with ACP.
What I’m curious of, for my next test, is what happens if I turn off the truck from remote start, and then start up again. Basically avoid the display going from remote start mode to ignition start. I’ll run some more tests and report back.
You’re gonna want to redirect that complaint to Cupertino. Apple is the bigger problem. I have the same intermittent issues in two 2023 Chevys. It took forever for my wife to accept it was not GM’s fault in her Tahoe. Best fix is to delete your phone in UConnect and add it as a new device. Should work until your next iOS update.
Gents, great info here and testing. My CarPlay was working for a while and this weekend it decided it was not going to connect with any combination of things including wired.
I was at home and removed the phone and reset the display multiple times with no success. Also went to the CarPlay app on the phone to forget the truck.
After all this it got worst, and the truck display would only show the phone with the phone and Bluetooth tile and no CarPlay tile….
The Truck connecting to home WIFi as mentioned is definitely a major problem. Use to give me intermittent issues when I drove back home in the afternoons.
Today Grok gave me some troubleshooting tips, disable auto WiFi software updates on Uconnect, also go to iPhone Carplay app -> pick Uconnect -> tap on widgets -> toggle off, go back, tap on App -> remove all non default apps -> go back, make sure CarPlay is toggled on.
I changed the iPhone settings, went back to the truck, disabled auto WiFi update, went to the phone connection pressed the CarPlay tile and it connected immediately.
BTW, prior to doing these changes CarPlay would connect more frequently with remote start for me.
I’ll report back if I keep having issues after these changes. I am crossing my fingers as I am not competent enough to start changing my home WiFi Strength signal like Brian.
I was at home and removed the phone and reset the display multiple times with no success. Also went to the CarPlay app on the phone to forget the truck.
After all this it got worst, and the truck display would only show the phone with the phone and Bluetooth tile and no CarPlay tile….
The Truck connecting to home WIFi as mentioned is definitely a major problem. Use to give me intermittent issues when I drove back home in the afternoons.
Today Grok gave me some troubleshooting tips, disable auto WiFi software updates on Uconnect, also go to iPhone Carplay app -> pick Uconnect -> tap on widgets -> toggle off, go back, tap on App -> remove all non default apps -> go back, make sure CarPlay is toggled on.
I changed the iPhone settings, went back to the truck, disabled auto WiFi update, went to the phone connection pressed the CarPlay tile and it connected immediately.
BTW, prior to doing these changes CarPlay would connect more frequently with remote start for me.
I’ll report back if I keep having issues after these changes. I am crossing my fingers as I am not competent enough to start changing my home WiFi Strength signal like Brian.
One other option to try that I picked up from Barry at CTech, go to Uconnect display -> press vehicle -> press settings -> press My Profile -> Audio Settings -> Auto Play -> Auto On Radio, press Recall Last. I also have Auto Play USB ON.
Thanks for contributing to the process! A few other forum members have reported success following a specific recommended procedure for setting everything back up. But the one thing that stood out to me in that process is exactly what you pointed out here - disabling the auto updates over WiFi.
Through my testing, I’ve discovered that WiFi is the major contributing factor here. If the truck or phone has a WiFi connection at startup, or the phone’s WiFi is being used for tethering, then car play will struggle to connect. Even though Car Play uses Bluetooth to initially connect, it actually uses WiFi on the back-end to stream.
In the current state, I have WiFi updates disabled in uConnect, and my phone has no WiFi connection in the garage at startup. Haven’t had a single connection issue in weeks.
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