cengel

We picked up our 2019 RDX Advance SH-AWD a couple of weeks ago and have been having sporadic issues with Carplay and the infotainment system.

When not using Carplay, the system performs well. It is reasonably responsive and reacts in a consistent and predictable way.

However, when we use Carplay, we experience the following issues:

• The entire system becomes much slower. For example, swapping the two sides of the screen can take up to 7-8 seconds. It's like the CPU is suddenly underpowered.
• The system will freeze for 4-5 seconds at a time and then "catch-up" with commands. Seemingly, commands are being queued - again as if the CPU cannot keep up.
• The system startup ranges form under 10 seconds to well over a minute when the iPhone is plugged in during startup.
• Most frustrating is that when playing music, it skips often. The skips are like an LP skipping and also 2-3 second pauses. In addition, it will occasionally emit 1-3 high pitch beeps while the music is playing.

So what have we tried....

• 5 different iPhones ranging from a 7, 7 plus to an X.
• iOS versions 11.3, 11.4.1 and 12 beta.
• 8 different cables including Apple genuine ones.
• Factory Reset of the infotainment system. That does seem to cure it for several minutes at least, but it comes back.
• Checked the diagnostics and developer menus. Tried a couple things in the developer menus to no avail. In the diagnostics menu, the "AMP" section always reports errors with the current timestamp. But the error seems generic and produces whether Carplay is active or not.
• Tried to check the USB port by playing from a usb key. That works flawlessly.

The kicker is that the issues are not consistent, but do seem to be getting worse. We've had drives where the system worked as expected and it was awesome.

At the same time, we also bought a 2018 Honda Accord Touring, and have a 2016 Accord as well. Both of those work flawlessly. As a side note, the nav system in the 2018 Accord is far superior to the RDX. And that system is super responsive. I actually like it much more.

It feels to me as if these are software issues. I'm sure if I take it to the dealer, it will be one of the times it works as expected.

Has anyone else had a similar set of issues?

Fury63

cengel

Thanks for your response. I too noted that it seems better to plug in after startup. We have tried Apple Music and Amazon music and both have the skipping. At first we thought it was just a streaming glitch, but even locally stored music on the phone does it. I'm hopeful that an Acura update will fix it.

My wife was just out driving for around an hour total (bunch of short trips) and says it was fine the entire time.

One thing I did not mention is that is is worse when using the built in Nav while streaming music. My initial thought was that maybe it overloads the CPU at times. But I sure hope that is not the case as the Accord works brilliantly. It is a simpler system in that it does not have the split screen, but otherwise the feature set is as good or better and the Nav is for sure more sophisticated.

burn1010

I have been using the Apple Carplay for about a week and also have the skipping issue when playing music that is downloaded onto my phone (so its not a streaming/buffering issue). There needs to be some software updates so that there can be some integration with the HUD. If apple carplay is active it locks out most of the HUDs functions. After 3 years with a TLX and its slow interface, to say that Acura dropped the ball on this one after so many complaints on the previous infotainment performance is an understatement.

Catman70

Madd Dog

dukeh62

I found the CarPlay functionality so clunky that I just use the native system.

In regards to skipping...the CarPlay in my 2018 Subaru did the same thing. They were very fast...I'd call it a glitch or hiccup vs. skip.

Catman70

HillbillyInBC

Same here. Took my first extended road trip over the weekend and had time to exercise this and several other features I'd only sampled in my first few weeks of commuting. Every song I played through CarPlay skipped or glitched or paused at least once. These were songs resident on my phone, not streamed over the air. No correlation with navigation in my case; I wasn't using nav nor did I have a map displayed. And the playlist I was using has Apple Lossless files, purchased AAC files from the iTunes store, and AAC and MP3 files I've downloaded or encoded myself. Every type of file exhibitied the same misbehaviour.

I've used CarPlay numerous times over the past few years in rental cars (various brands; Nissan, Ford, Chrysler, GM off the top of my head) with no such deficiencies in playback under any circumstances. Between this and the well-chronicled failures when playing 5.1 FLAC files off a USB drive I'm wondering if there's something fundamentally flawed with the USB implementation.

cengel

Ours has not gotten any better. Still skips and glitches all the time with Carplay. If we have a iPhone connected when we start the vehicle, it is really bad... essentially unusable at times. If we connect after the system has started up, we have much better success. When it is acting up, disconnecting and reconnecting does not fix it. The best solution I've found is to switch to another source like XM and then switch back. That seems to fix it for a while.

It's so strange. Sometimes the system works like a champ and the everything is fast. But when it is acting up (about 75% of the time), it's so annoying.

I think it is software. My hope is that there is an update soon that corrects it. They are supposed to issue an update to enable Android Auto, so maybe that will contain a fix.

I've also used multiple other vehicles with Carplay (including our two Accords) and never had an issue.

Without Carplay, the system has been great.

Madd Dog

cengel

I just opened a ticket with these issues. See what they have to say. Thanks.

Madd Dog

Dizzyg12

Akari

Dizzyg12

ssacuraho

This is very concerning. I'd appreciate hearing from other RDX owners who use Carplay to get a sense for how prevalent the skipping issue is.

fr4c

Really unfortunate to see so many people having issues with CarPlay. Mine has been working fine without any issues, including streaming Spotify and using Apple Maps this past weekend on a combined 4 hour trip. No lagging or music skipping, and many times I left my phone plugged in after returning to the vehicle after parking.

I'm using both an iPhone 8+ and iPhone X, both running the latest 11.4.1. I'm using an short OEM Lighting Cable (0.5M).

DanFun

I used it on a recent 2800 mile vacation with an iPhone SE 64GB with 11.4.1 and an 8+ 256GB with 11.4 with skipping all the time. I wiped and reset the SE of everything but Amazon Music, Audible, Music, and Podcasts with the same results. All content on the SE is locally downloaded as it doesn't have a SIM card any longer. The 8+ has the same issues. I have similar issues with playing over Bluetooth from my Pixel 2 XL, or from my Samsung S3 watch although much less. I am religious about disconnecting the USB cable and taking my SE with me whenever I turn off the car.

NSXFTW

Uggh. I've been patiently waiting since 2012 for my next car to have CarPlay, but it's sounding like implementation on the 3G RDX is not ready for prime time. I hope software updates are timely and plentiful! My RDX should arrive at the dealer any day now.

Akari

MTD

I have an iPhone 7+ running iOS12 Beta and my wife has an X. Both work perfect, music on the devices, Apple Music, Spotify.

Madd Dog

K-redd

DanFun

As a long time, hardcore, techie its very frustrating. My 2007 Lexus GS 350 with VAISTech add-on from 2008 worked without issue leaving the same phone connected for months at a time. I would pull into the garage and it would connect to WiFi and sync whatever I pushed to it or it pulled down. Now it's like I've gone back 20 years to an old Rio MP3 player that would skip if it got too hot or sneeze on it.

ssacuraho

Ack, so the skipping issue is more widespread that just using Apple Carplay? I was thinking "if Carplay is crap, I could just use USB audio or Bluetooth", but I guess that's not the case?

I wonder what the chances are of this being fixable via software updates, or if this problem will exist forever. By the way, how are infotainment software updates applied - through the dealership only?

HillbillyInBC

I've never had a single hiccup with Bluetooth streaming from my iPhone 8 (iOS 11.4.1). Sometimes it's a little slow to commence after starting the car, but it's been a pleasant upgrade from my previous MyFordTouch system. Bluetooth was never better than a crapshoot on that thing (stop the car, shut off the engine, open the driver's door, get out and hop on one foot while biting the left side of your tongue, then get back in and restart and hope it works this time).

As for the USB thing, I swapped out my handy little foot-long Anker MFi-certified Lightning-to-USB cable for an OEM Apple cable to see if that makes a difference with CarPlay. First session during my 20-minute commute had none of the issues that plagued my road trip last weekend. I'll give it another extended trial next weekend and see what happens.

DanFun

It seems to be anything that is multi-channel has issues as my phone conversations over Bluetooth are fine which is single stream, but honestly there are so many variables with cellular audio, its hard to tell what could be a problem. Although I have had several times were the audio on cellular calls doesn't kick in for a couple of seconds and I miss people's "Hello" when answering my call.

Software updates look like they will be available via download or over the air (OTA). I've yet to have a chance to poke around in the Android apps to see if anything like a task manager can be used to kill processes, or bump up or down priority of anything. Given that its a four year old version of Android, many of the codecs and built in daemons have been greatly improved or completely rewritten since then, so unless we get some major version upgrades I'm not sure how much can be improved dramatically via minor updates.

fr4c

No, it's just that Google has never released a solid BT stack. If you're having issues with Bluetooth, go into Developer Settings and play around with the AVRCP profile (change to 1.5 or 1.6), and the default is 1.4 I believe for devices running Android 8.0. The trick with Android + Bluetooth in cars is just finding the right combination that works for you, until the next Android update that is.

NSXFTW

In the 6 years I've owned my 2012 MDX, I've always had intermittent issues with both Bluetooth and USB audio from my iPhone. I've usually chalked it up to Apple's constant iOS tweaking which would sometimes seem to have the unintended consequence of messing up how the Bluetooth connection worked or affected the lag time of the USB handshake, etc. I always thought that when I moved to a vehicle with CarPlay, all those issues would go away. Hmmm, doesn't sound like that is the case here. I have my fingers crossed that one or more software updates from Acura will help.

dukeh62

I just posted this in another thread, but I just spoke to someone at Acura for over 15 minutes regarding issues I was having with the Infotainment system, and also referenced a lot of issue mentioned in these threads. He said they are listening very closely to all feedback right now b/c this is such a new car, so I would HIGHLY suggest you open up a ticket if you haven't already. I had contacted them online, and they repeatedly attempted to contact me via phone (was always busy when they called), so they WILL follow up...but it may take a few weeks.

HillbillyInBC

Spent a few hours in the car today using CarPlay with the OEM cable, and still no recurrence of the glitches and dropouts I suffered last weekend. And I mixed in a couple of stops where I left the phone in the console and connected to the cable, with no issues upon returning and restarting. Next time out I'll switch back to my short Anker cable and see if that causes the problem to recur.

MI-RDX

Over on one of the dash cam forums there's some discussion about Anker 12v-5v adapters causing power problems. The consensus is they're fairly unstable so you could be on to something there.

cengel

I received a call from Acura Customer Support today in regards to the ticket I entered with these issues. They said that they have received a number of concerns about Carplay and are working on improvements. The guy that called seemed tech savvy, and said that he expected an OTA update would be coming. He told me to call back in 4-6 weeks if the problems were not corrected.

I thought about taking it to a dealer, but will just wait for the update to see if that fixes things.

Madd Dog

cengel

I thought I'd update this thread. Received the iOS 12 update this week in hopes it would correct the issues. It does not. They are as bad as ever.

Good news was that Google Maps are now available. Bad news is that the voice search in Google Maps does not work. There is a microphone icon on the screen (not Siri or the Acura voice commands) that you press and then can speak. But it just stays in the listening stage the entire time.

On our new Accord... voice search works perfectly with Google Maps. I'm sorry to report that the Accord infotainment system is superior in every way possible. What a bummer.

I'm thinking about taking it to the dealer, just feel they will not be able to do much as it seems to be software issues.

To top it off, we got a large rock in the windshield yesterday, so that will need to be replaced. Maybe will take it to the dealer and have the check the infotainment system while it is there.

Otherwise the vehicle is awesome.

NSXFTW

My brief experience with CarPlay has been good. I'm using an iPhone X running iOS 11.4.1. I've noticed no hiccups in audio playback and I have had only one instance where I had a failure to connect. Usually, I start the car, let the infotainment system boot up for a few seconds, then connect my phone, and all seems to work well. I started with the OEM iPhone cable, and recently switched to a shorter aftermarket cable made by Anker, and performance has not been affected by the change in cables.

I know others have had issues, so I'll continue to monitor things. As someone else mentioned, there's bound to be a glitch or two going forward as Apple is constantly updating iOS, which can sometimes lead to unintended consequences (fixing one thing breaks something else). I know on my old 2012 MDX, bluetooth performance was always in flux as iOS updates seemed to always mess with things.

Catman70

dekeacura

Slack Machine