[paulymu]

Am i the only one dealing with a bluetooth connectivity issue on my F30? I have a 2016 340 an lately its been not connecting to my phones bluetooth and when it does connect, it disconnects few minutes later. I have a iphone 7+ an on my phone it says connected, but on the idrive, it jus says connecting bluetooth audio. Any suggestions/tips? If anyone dealing with something similar, how did you fix it?
Thanks.

[zamboni]

Try to update the iOS perhaps that would solve the issue.

[Pauloxxi]

Originally Posted by zamboni

Try to update the iOS perhaps that would solve the issue.

I'm not sure if "Pear" still support with updates for version 7.
"Pear" wants us to keep buying new phones.

[Silverlining_m2]

I was informed at the phone store that Apple discontinued updates on iPhone 8 and all previous versions, that are 32g or less. Could that possibly be an issue?

[paulymu]

I'm currently on ios14.4, not sure if that's current or not idk. I have the 128gb version also. Going to try to a system test in the bmw hidden menu or whatever and see if that helps cuz idk about anything else

[Pauloxxi]

Originally Posted by paulymu

I'm currently on ios14.4, not sure if that's current or not idk. I have the 128gb version also. Going to try to a system test in the bmw hidden menu or whatever and see if that helps cuz idk about anything else

So you are on the latest IOS version 👏

[tex2670]

Any time you experience bluetooth issues, step one is to delete the phone and re-pair.

[Wires]

Hmmm... I've getting similar to that on my 2016 340, but with my Samsung S9. I did the factory reset of the phone, repair, and still sometimes just doesn't work right. I don't know if its due to the updates Samsung was pushing to update Android, or what.

Sometimes won't connect, and I need to manually do it. Or it connects, and Spotify can no longer be voice controlled, and it gets stuck playing the same block of songs over and over.

Really frustrating regardless.

[paulymu]

Haven't driven the car since but will see what happens later on when i head out

[smithbh]

Originally Posted by paulymu

Am i the only one dealing with a bluetooth connectivity issue on my F30? I have a 2016 340 an lately its been not connecting to my phones bluetooth and when it does connect, it disconnects few minutes later. I have a iphone 7+ an on my phone it says connected, but on the idrive, it jus says connecting bluetooth audio. Any suggestions/tips? If anyone dealing with something similar, how did you fix it?
Thanks.

In addition to updating iOS, update your iDrove firmware to the latest version. The past few updates have included fixes for various bluetooth mobile device connections.

That said, for anyone currently running the latest version of iOS (14.4), the new Bluetooth "device type" setting (will default your config to "car stereo"), you may experience some frustrating hangs when playing turn-by-turn directions from Apple Maps with iDrive (not Apple CarPlay if you have it). This seems to be due to the fact that iDrive uses two different connection methods for playing media vs. phone calls/turn-by-turn, but is optimizing the connection for the former.

To correct this hang without having to disconnect and reconnect everything, simply tap in Apple Maps for the next instruction or toggle between volume output levels; it should trigger both the start and end of the output correctly and return to your radio or media that was playing. Pretty damn annoying!

[Elvisfan]

Originally Posted by Pauloxxi

I'm not sure if "Pear" still support with updates for version 7.
"Pear" wants us to keep buying new phones.

Apple does a better job of keeping phones up to date longer than the android phones.
The iPhone 7 is almost 5 years old.

[Elvisfan]

Originally Posted by paulymu

I'm currently on ios14.4, not sure if that's current or not idk. I have the 128gb version also. Going to try to a system test in the bmw hidden menu or whatever and see if that helps cuz idk about anything else

You know that if you go into settings and update, it will tell you. BTW. that is the latest version.

[Billfitz]

Originally Posted by tex2670

Any time you experience bluetooth issues, step one is to delete the phone and re-pair.

Mine has the habit of disconnecting when I haven't used it for a while, and then it won't pair up again when I try even though it shows the phone on the list of available devices. What works for me is to turn the phone off and then on again, after which it will pair up.

[paulymu]

Will try that and hopefully it works

[Wires]

Originally Posted by Elvisfan

Apple does a better job of keeping phones up to date longer than the android phones.
The iPhone 7 is almost 5 years old.

Except that every update they do, they break the Bluetooth. If you look at the release notes for the iDrive updates, they are always around "iPhone", and never "Android".

Up to recently (and I think it's more Samsung driving to find a new way to drive consumers to replace their phones since they got caught for the slowdown "issue") I've never had any issues with my car.

Now I did have it in for service last year, and they updated a bunch of modules, so perhaps that's what my issue is. I didn't drive it much last year so maybe.

[SaltyDoug]

Hi I own a 2016 F33 and it started not connecting to my iPhone 8 about a month ago when I try to play music. I used to be able to coax it to connect and play music but two days ago it stopped connecting. I have tried removing the devices in the phone and the F33 then re-pairing but I get no connection. I've tried powering off both F33 and the iPhone but no love. I can make bluetooth phone calls however.

The iPhone will play music to several devices at home and my two other cars, an E39 with the Mediabridge bluetooth adapter and a 2018 Tahoe.
I have used BimmerCode on the F33 to customize a few settings several months ago and my iOS is been at 14.4 for several weeks.
Any suggestions are welcome.

EDIT: Update; My iPhone connects now. I turned off the bluetooth on the iPhone, started the car, waited for the head unit to power up, then turned the bluetooth back on. The iPhone connected properly and will re-connect when I start the car.

[Icarium81]

Been having this same issue with a Galaxy S9, used to always work for calls, now it's only audio. Wifes Huawei p30 pro (??) Still does calls though.
Have deleted and re paired phone. Have tried turning Bluetooth off on phone with the car stationary, then turning it on, still only audio.
can't recall if I checked the OS of the car at that time, but for sure within a couple of months prior it was up-to-date.

Found a new setting in my phone, seems to only show up when I have my earpiece in and the car on (both doing different things with the phone) and it had to be turned off.
CONNECT ACCESS, or ACCESS CONNECT. Turned it off and was able to get the phone back through the car.

[Wires]

Originally Posted by Icarium81

Been having this same issue with a Galaxy S9, used to always work for calls, now it's only audio. Wifes Huawei p30 pro (??) Still does calls though.
Have deleted and re paired phone. Have tried turning Bluetooth off on phone with the car stationary, then turning it on, still only audio.
can't recall if I checked the OS of the car at that time, but for sure within a couple of months prior it was up-to-date.

Found a new setting in my phone, seems to only show up when I have my earpiece in and the car on (both doing different things with the phone) and it had to be turned off.
CONNECT ACCESS, or ACCESS CONNECT. Turned it off and was able to get the phone back through the car.

Mine is a S9 as well. It's been "worse" since a bunch of the updates went through. A large portion I believe was from the Android 10 update which adds a bunch more OS security/restrictions. You can try disabling battery saver and adding the OS apps around bluetooth to "never optimize". Part of me believes it's Samsung's way to force me to dump their "old POS S9" and get a new phone, even though I've only had it for 22 months.

[Desertnate]

Originally Posted by tex2670

Any time you experience bluetooth issues, step one is to delete the phone and re-pair.

Agree.

I've had a similar problem as the OP with my Pixel phone running Android, so it might now be an Apple/iOS problem. The phone will indicate it is still connected to the car, iDrive will show Bluetooth audio is still connected, but it will also show the telephone/voice is not connected. Neither audio nor the phone will work.

Restarting the car doesn't fix it and I often have to resort to deleting the device in iDrive and re-pairing the phone with the car. On at least one occasion the problem persisted beyond doing both and simply started working again the next day as if nothing had happened the evening before.

In those instances it doesn't work I've paired the phone to other family vehicles and everything worked just fine. This eliminates the phone from the equation and points the problem back to iDrive. It's random and infrequent which makes it impossible to troubleshoot.

[paulymu]

Originally Posted by Desertnate

Agree.

I've had a similar problem as the OP with my Pixel phone running Android, so it might now be an Apply/iOS problem. The phone will indicate it is still connected to the car, iDrive will show Bluetooth audio is still connected, but it will also show the telephone/voice is not connected. Neither audio nor the phone will work.

Restarting the car doesn't fix it and I often have to resort to deleting the device in iDrive and re-pairing the phone with the car. On at least one occasion the problem persisted beyond doing both and simply started working again the next day as if nothing had happened the evening before.

In those instances it doesn't work I've paired the phone to other family vehicles and everything worked just fine. This eliminates the phone from the equation and points the problem back to iDrive. It's random and infrequent which makes it impossible to troubleshoot.

Agree with everything you said. This is exactly what i ended up doing as well. Hasn't been giving me connections issues as if late after i unpaired and paired it back again. Just a random issues lol

[Psi5]

Originally Posted by Elvisfan

Apple does a better job of keeping phones up to date longer than the android phones.
The iPhone 7 is almost 5 years old.

Might be true for Samsung or LG phones but Google's own Pixels get regular and timely updates. My family has Pixel 1s, 3s, and 5s in service and all have been recently updated (all all work with our various Bt cars).

[narlus]

Originally Posted by Desertnate

In those instances it doesn't work I've paired the phone to other family vehicles and everything worked just fine. This eliminates the phone from the equation and points the problem back to iDrive. It's random and infrequent which makes it impossible to troubleshoot.

and it's annoying AF. i've been dealing with connectivity issues for at least a year now, and resorted to just running a USB cable from the armrest port to my phone in the cradle. just another thing to get in the way.

my story seems similar to others - once i do get it paired and working, playing audio, it seems to lose connection after shutting the car off and then restarting even though both the phone and the iDrive say the device is connected.

So i do the forget device/re-pair device and that is a stop gap but doesn't last. and the screen itself doesn't update correctly based on what's actually playing on my phone... sometimes the artist/song title info never updates and the lower left info (song # / total song #) is nonsense, like 43/7.

i brought my car in for other service yesterday (can you believe it was $800 to replace the tire pressure monitor?) and they reset the software but that didn't change anything. the maintenance tech noted that if the problem persists, it's my phone causing the issue and not the car. ugh.

any ideas?