Music App Background Refresh issue

Graham Lee77

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May 23, 2015
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Running 11.2.2 on my iPhone 7 Plus.

I connect my phone to my car via a Dension Gateway 500 to allow music playback via my BMW’s iDrive system.

Up until iOS 11.2 came out, this was working as it should.

However after updating to 11.2 (and subsequently 11.2.1 and 11.2.2) I’ve been suffering intermittent disconnections during track playback with the Music App and Apple Music subscription which I didn’t have before. The exact disconnection was the same every time, where within the first 10 seconds of the track playing the head unit and phone would disconnect and reset and then resume playback after about 10 seconds silence.

I contacted Dension support in Hungary who have been really helpful trying to diagnose if it was their hardware at fault or something to do with the handset.

After much messing around, and testing my wife’s iPhone 8 (also running 11.2.2 and having the same issue) I’ve managed to diagnose the fault to iOS 11.2.#.

What I’ve found is that the Gateway interface goes into an iPOD UI interface to pull the track list and playlist information directly from the Music app (I know this because if you force exit the Music app the music playback list resets and plays “All Music” as it doesn’t know what to play until you select and album or playlist).

Firstly I tested the phone under different conditions, such as unlocked and locked which had no affect.

I then left the Music app open in the foreground and tried the phone unlocked and locked. To my surprise the intermittent disconnections didn’t happen. I played and skipped through a 50 track playlist with no issues on both phones.

I then tried again after hitting the home button so the Music app was put into the background and the intermittent disconnections started again.

So, I’ve concluded that the Music app is having some difficult with its background app refresh. As the Music app is an Apple system app, there are no options for this under settings. The short term fix is to just leave the Music app open on screen, but that would mean making sure it is open all the time when you get to the car.

I’ve given a full description to Dension Support who may or may not pass this onto Apple if they can replicate the problem.

It looks like its something Apple has changed since 11.2, but I don’t know how the report the issue to Apple (whether they’d do anything about it anyway).

I just wanted to bring this to peoples attention in case they were having some similar issues whilst connected to a dock, or if someone were able to report it to Apple.

Thanks
 

Ledsteplin

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Oct 2, 2013
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The music app doesn't use Background App Refresh. If the issue is when the music app is closed out, don't close it out. There's no reason to do so.
 

Graham Lee77

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May 23, 2015
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The music app doesn't use Background App Refresh. If the issue is when the music app is closed out, don't close it out. There's no reason to do so.

I’m not closing it.

It’s still open in task manager but if it’s not open on screen then docked equipment struggle getting data. If it’s open on screen then it works.

What I am saying is it worked correctly from iOS 11 to 11.1 but Apple have done something to how this app and possibly others work in the background.

Mail for example also does not refresh when just running in task manager and not on screen until you go back to it if you’ve viewed/deleted/moved an email on another device.
 

Ledsteplin

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I’m not closing it.

It’s still open in task manager but if it’s not open on screen then docked equipment struggle getting data. If it’s open on screen then it works.

What I am saying is it worked correctly from iOS 11 to 11.1 but Apple have done something to how this app and possibly others work in the background.

Mail for example also does not refresh when just running in task manager and not on screen until you go back to it if you’ve viewed/deleted/moved an email on another device.

I see. I'm not on iOS 11, so I can't try to replicate. You can leave Apple feedback here:
Feedback
https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html#mn_p

They do read the feedback.
 

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