Carplay cannot handle a large music library

[ktimamue]

I just bought Sony XAV-AX200 to use with my iPhone 7 plus in a 2007 Volkswagen Golf (Rabbit).

And it turns out that carplay can’t deal with my 50 000 song icloud music library.

I’m very disappointed with this as all the advertising led me to believe that carplay is akin to a projector for your iphone, that it doesn’t do anything itself but projects what’s on your phone onto the car stereo screen.

But it turns out that’s not the case when it comes to Apple’s Music App. My music library works flawlessly on my phone, but not with carplay. It keeps trying to do something and failing.

First it takes 5 minutes to load the playlists. Then when I click on the playlist another 5 minutes to start it. During these times the screen becomes completely unresponsive. And once it finally starts playing a track as soon as I click ‘next’, it jams again and takes minutes to change the track and it often crashes completely so I have to start the process again.

So basically my music app starts jamming and crashing as soon as I connect it with carplay. My analytics data section if full of ‘music.cpu_resource’ log entries where it says my cpu usage is around 80% over 180 seconds. Also there are standard music crash logs. And there are about 10 ‘stacks+music’ logs from a single session. All of them say ‘reason: scene update watchdog transgression: com.apple.music exhausted real (wall clock) time allowance of 10.00 seconds…..’

All the other apps on carplay like podcasts, maps and such work flawlessly but as soon as I click on ‘Music’ the whole carplay jams, and my screen stops responding.

I am using an official apple cable, the latest ios 12.1, and the sony is updated with the latest firmware.

I’ve tried most things I know from my experience with apple products:

-reset all settings
-restore as new
-forget car (in carplay settings)
-change cable

None of this fixed the problem. As soon as the icloud music library is switched on, carplay is in permanent beachball mode.

The only way to use it successfully is to switch off icloud music library. Then it works fine. But that’s obviously not a solution. I’m paying for Apple streaming service and Apple’s car interface to be able to listen to my music.

I’ve read quite a few forum posts with other peoples experiences similar to this, but no solution yet. I find it completely baffling that apple would give you a service like apple music, expecting you to keep adding music to it, and then it would give you carplay, an interface for your phone that cannot handle a large music library. This is shocking to me. Why didn’t anybody mention that carplay apparently has it’s own memory and it just cannot handle an icloud music library with 50 000 songs in it. I wouldn’t have bought this stereo to use with carplay.

So I apologise for the long post, just wanted to explain the issue from all angles.

Since my apple product knowledge is limited, is there anyone out there who knows more about the inner workings of carplay, who could possibly give me some pointers about how to solve this and be able to use it successfully?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Many Thanks

 

[metllicamilitia]

Sorry to hear about your CarPlay troubles. I wish I knew enough about CarPlay to help. My truck has CarPlay built-in but I don’t have as large of a music collection as you do and I haven’t had any issues with it yet.

 

[Just_Me_D]

You said you bought a Sony XAV-AX200 to work with your iPhone 7 Plus in your Volkswagen vehicle. With that in mind, is it possible that Sony device needs a firmware update of some sort? I’m assuming the Sony device is showing up in the CarPlay settings on your iPhone.

What you are describing is something I’ve not experienced and I’ve used multiple iPhone models with CarPlay, but CarPlay capabilities were built-in to my car’s infotainment system.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00199422

In the meantime, check out the information found via Sony’s support site.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/results?query=XAV-AX200

 

[ktimamue]

Thanks for the responses.

I might be wrong but i don’t think sony is the problem here. Because it connects fine and all the other apps work fine. I think its the combination of music app and carplay.

By the way sony is updated with the latest firmware.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Thanks for the responses.

I might be wrong but i don’t think sony is the problem here. Because it connects fine and all the other apps work fine. I think its the combination of music app and carplay.

By the way sony is updated with the latest firmware.

You’re very welcome, and you could also be 100% correct in your assessment, however, I’ve not run into any problems using CarPlay. I frequently travel to and from North Carolina (8-hour drive) and I have Music playlists that can last the entire drive and I have yet to have any problems with it. I wish I could pinpoint the problem for you, but unfortunately, I can’t.

 

[ktimamue]

No worries. I just need to figure out first whether its sony or apple to blame.

 

[ktimamue]

So it seems it's apple's fault and not Sony's. I just tried my phone in a 2018 honda civic and carplay jams in exactly the same way. I need to find out how to report bugs to Apple and possibly get some response from carplay engineers. I couldn't really figure out how to do that yet..

 

[Lee_Bo]

So it seems it's apple's fault and not Sony's. I just tried my phone in a 2018 honda civic and carplay jams in exactly the same way. I need to find out how to report bugs to Apple and possibly get some response from carplay engineers. I couldn't really figure out how to do that yet..

Keep in mind this may not be a bug. Carplay may not be designed to handle a "50 000 song icloud music library."

I also rent a lot of cars for work and have used CP in several vehicles but no music issues. I also use Apple Music but mostly use the radio service and not a playlist.

 

[ktimamue]

Keep in mind this may not be a bug. Carplay may not be designed to handle a "50 000 song icloud music library."

I also rent a lot of cars for work and have used CP in several vehicles but no music issues. I also use Apple Music but mostly use the radio service and not a playlist.

That's true, but in my mind if it's not advertised as a limitation, it's a bug. When you release a product, if it has a known limitation you need to let your customers know so they can make an informed choice. If you bought an iphone that starts jamming once you load 500 apps on it, and Apple told you 'Oh by the way, the iphones are not designed to work with 500 apps', you would feel pretty cheated.

I think that if your iphone can take 50 000 songs, Carplay should too. And if that's not the case and there is a limitation, Apple should be transparent about it. Just my opinion.