Every. Other. Day. "Apple CarPlay Not Connected"

[PhillyYa]

I have a 13 Pro Max and it connects on the F-150 and MachE at least 95% of the time without issue. One consideration is maybe your Wifi where you are. Wireless CarPlay/AA use wifi for the actual data transfer and bluetooth just for the initiation/proximity.

I would be curious if you have this issue more at home than when out and about. The phone may not be releasing its connection to your home Wifi fast enough for the timeout of the car trying to get it to connect and it throws that message.

If it happens the same amount when you get in while at the store or whatever, where your phone isn't connected, then I dunno.

Hmmm. Usually at home, but definitely not exclusively.

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[MachLovin]

Have you ever actually connected your phone using a USB charging cable? For reasons i cant explain when i was having this same exact issue with Carplay, and resetting my sync wasnt' doing anything... When i plugged my phone into the car using a usb cable to try and use Carplay it worked... Then from there on out i didnt ned to use a usb cable and i didnt have any connections issues via bluetooth to use Carplay..

 

[PhillyYa]

Have you ever actually connected your phone using a USB charging cable? For reasons i cant explain when i was having this same exact issue with Carplay, and resetting my sync wasnt' doing anything... When i plugged my phone into the car using a usb cable to try and use Carplay it worked... Then from there on out i didnt ned to use a usb cable and i didnt have any connections issues via bluetooth to use Carplay..

I have done that in the past I think, can certainly try again.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

I haven’t had issues recently with my iPhone but did quite some time ago. Those issues were an iOS issue as it turned out — not a car issue. Currently I’m on 16.6 and doing fine. Did the hard reboot (vol up then immediately vol down the immediate hold the power button) help at all? You might follow that up with a sync reboot although I suspect you’ve done your share of those of late.

 

[leehinde]

My experience is that it fails to connect a lot. I've not measured it, don't know if it's 30% or 70% of the time. But 90% of the time it connects within a few minutes of start. So I've taken to just ignoring the prompt and letting it catch up. I'm not suggesting it's optimal, but gives me one less thing to be distracted by knowing CarPlay will eventually connect.

 

[Mach-Eric]

I came here looking for people that had the same issue. I'm using Androind Auto but get the same message. I spent a good 20 minutes last night trying to figure it out. I used to be able to plug in to the USB-C cable and that would usually solve it, but I've had maybe 3-5 times in the last year when that didn't even work. Last night nothing worked: plugged in USB-C cable, Airplane mode on/off, bluetooth on/off, restart phone, un-pair and re-pair phone, even turning off, open/close door and turning back on car didn't work. I did eventually get it to connect by putting the phone into airplane mode, turning off bluetooth, turning off car, open/close door and wait for lights to turn off. Then when I turned the car back on, waited for everything to stabalize, then turned the airplane mode off, and bluetooth back on. This seemed to work, but such a pain.

I've found that this tends to happen when I'm running errands and haven't gotten far enough from the car for the bluetooth to disconnect. It mostly happens when I park in front of a store/restaurant, run in to pickup something and back out within 5 minutes. It doesn't tend to happen at home because the car eventually disconnects it's self after a certain amount of time. The only time it happens at home is when I run in and right back out, but turned the car off in between. I'm pretty sure it's not the phone because restarting the phone doesn't help. The easiest solution is to turn the car off and get far enough away that it actually disconnects from my phone. I was hoping somebody found a solution that involved rebooting the infotainment center so I didn't have to physically move away from my car to get it to disconnect. I know Tesla's have a way to reboot, but haven't heard of anything for the Mach-E.

 

[leehinde]

My experience is that it fails to connect a lot. I've not measured it, don't know if it's 30% or 70% of the time. But 90% of the time it connects within a few minutes of start. So I've taken to just ignoring the prompt and letting it catch up. I'm not suggesting it's optimal, but gives me one less thing to be distracted by knowing CarPlay will eventually connect.

Of course as soon as I say this it starts disconnecting mid-trip and/or freezing entirely. I take it all back.

 

[lightnin]

This is kind of an old thread but hopefully someone is still watching it...

I had an iPhone SE (2016) which would not connect ("Apple CarPlay Not Connected") via Bluetooth, but would (sometimes with some finagling) connect via USB cable. I got the "Not Connected" message once in a while; I chalked the failure to connect via BlueTooth up to using an old iPhone.

After my phone quit getting updates and it became obvious that Apple wasn't ever going to make another small form factor phone, I upgraded to a (new via eBay) iPhone 13 mini. I looked forward to being able to use the wireless charging pad in my Mach-E and to doing wireless Apple CarPlay. (I initialized my new phone by backing up my iPhone SE, via iTunes, then restoring the image on my iPhone 13 Mini, thus preserving all the apps, WiFi names and SSIDs, etc. from my iPhone SE. This didn't preserve PAK but I had no trouble setting that up for the new iPhone.)

On the one hand, CarPlay connection via USB almost always works the first time, but wireless connectivity via BlueTooth still doesn't work, and now I get the "Apple CarPlay Not Connected" *every* time I turn the vehicle on (after about 30 seconds). Connecting the phone via USB and initiating Apple CarPlay (successfully) this way doesn't solve the problem.

My wife's iPhone SE (2022) successfully connects to Apple CarPlay via BlueTooth (and always has). Another post in this thread mentioned the data transfer for CarPlay is via WiFi, but my wife's phone is not connected to any (visible) WiFi networks while CarPlay is running.

Mach-E software level: 6.8.0 iPhone 13 Mini software level: 17.2.1

 

[MarkP213]

This is kind of an old thread but hopefully someone is still watching it...

I had an iPhone SE (2016) which would not connect ("Apple CarPlay Not Connected") via Bluetooth, but would (sometimes with some finagling) connect via USB cable. I got the "Not Connected" message once in a while; I chalked the failure to connect via BlueTooth up to using an old iPhone.

After my phone quit getting updates and it became obvious that Apple wasn't ever going to make another small form factor phone, I upgraded to a (new via eBay) iPhone 13 mini. I looked forward to being able to use the wireless charging pad in my Mach-E and to doing wireless Apple CarPlay. (I initialized my new phone by backing up my iPhone SE, via iTunes, then restoring the image on my iPhone 13 Mini, thus preserving all the apps, WiFi names and SSIDs, etc. from my iPhone SE. This didn't preserve PAK but I had no trouble setting that up for the new iPhone.)

On the one hand, CarPlay connection via USB almost always works the first time, but wireless connectivity via BlueTooth still doesn't work, and now I get the "Apple CarPlay Not Connected" *every* time I turn the vehicle on (after about 30 seconds). Connecting the phone via USB and initiating Apple CarPlay (successfully) this way doesn't solve the problem.

My wife's iPhone SE (2022) successfully connects to Apple CarPlay via BlueTooth (and always has). Another post in this thread mentioned the data transfer for CarPlay is via WiFi, but my wife's phone is not connected to any (visible) WiFi networks while CarPlay is running.

Mach-E software level: 6.8.0 iPhone 13 Mini software level: 17.2.1

Did you happen to remove your old phone from Sync, then set up your new one in the Mach E?

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Another thought:
When CarPlay fails, is your phone being used as a hotspot for anything else. I used to suffer a lot of failures. Then I figured out that it was ALWAYS when my iPad was connected to my phone or when one of my kids was using their iPod, steam deck, Nintendo switch etc. so now I turn off the hotspot and CarPlay had been WAY more reliable.

 

[azerik]

Have you ever actually connected your phone using a USB charging cable? For reasons i cant explain when i was having this same exact issue with Carplay, and resetting my sync wasnt' doing anything... When i plugged my phone into the car using a usb cable to try and use Carplay it worked... Then from there on out i didnt ned to use a usb cable and i didnt have any connections issues via bluetooth to use Carplay..

This would most likely have been the "Trust this device?" prompt allowing the phone to connect. Deleting and re-adding the phone should have handled this for the wifi side of things.

 

[lightnin]

Did you happen to remove your old phone from Sync, then set up your new one in the Mach E?

The BlueTooth name for my vehicle is "Mustang Mach-E". I deleted my new phone from BlueTooth phones and "forgot" Mustang Mach-e on my iPhone. Is this what you mean by removing my old phone from Sync? (I also deleted my old phone from the list of phones using BlueTooth.)

 

[MachyMikey]

it happens to me where it pairs but I don't have any sound at all, have to restart the car and open the door again and it works, iphone 14 pro

this happens in the Bronco also but more frequent in the Mach

 

[MarkP213]

The BlueTooth name for my vehicle is "Mustang Mach-E". I deleted my new phone from BlueTooth phones and "forgot" Mustang Mach-e on my iPhone. Is this what you mean by removing my old phone from Sync? (I also deleted my old phone from the list of phones using BlueTooth.)

Yes, that sounds correct, unless I’m forgetting something. Just wanted to make sure your old phone was completely out of the picture and no longer showing up in Sync’s list.

 

[adaminca]

I didn’t have problems with my iPhone 15 Pro connecting initially. I bought my car in November 2023 but a recent update to IOS 17.2.11 seems to have impacted my connectivity. It is now having issues connecting and/or staying connected.

My car has version 6.13 and my phone is paired via bluetooth and automatically joins the car wifi. I removed the phone from the MachE settings and removed the MachE from the phone settings then started the pairing from scratch. This did not resolve the issue.

I called Ford and learned they are seeing an increase in calls about this issue. I am sure my issue is related to the iPhone update and hope a future update by Ford or Apple will restore the stability issue with Carplay.

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