iOS 12 Bluetooth in car is flaky

Tech Support
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1

Ever since I upgraded to iOS 12, the reliability of the bluetooth connection in my car has plummeted. The iPhone (6S) connects but often there is no audio. I often listen to podcasts on Overcast during long drives so getting this to work again would improve my quality of life by at least a wee tiny bit.

Sometimes it connects fine and plays normally for hours. Other times it connects but there is no audio. I can see the Overcast info on the car’s screen, and I can see the progress ticking along, but there is no sound. Other times it connects and works for a while, but after a few minutes or so, the audio is dropped.

This never happened, not even once, before upgrading to iOS 12.

Has anyone heard of this issue? Any solutions?

2

Suggestion, delete your phone from the car Bluetooth and re-pair your phone with your car. I had to do that recently with my families Suburu.

3

Unpairing and re-pairing solved it for me.

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4

Thaks for the suggestons, @Jonathan_Davis and @ismh – I’ll give it a try later today.

5-hour drive tomorrow. I hope this works!

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5

This came out this week. Timeless.

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6

iOS 12.0.1, out today, includes Bluetooth fixes.

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7

Thanks. I just re-paired the phone two times, and it isn’t fixed. I’ll see if the update makes it all copacetic again.

8

I’m installing the update, but the release notes say it fixes an issue where the bluetooth could become unavailable. But that is not my problem – I get the phone to pair, and I can see the Overcast controls displayed on the car’s media screen, and I can see the timer on the podcast progressing, but there is just no sound.

I’ll let you know what the update does when I have a chance to test it again.

9

Yeah, but Apple’s release notes aren’t always all that’s going on in an update. I hope it works out!

10

True.

But no go. No audio with Bluetooth. I don’t even get a few moments. Just nothing.

11

Problem solved – maybe. I checked the Apple Watch while I was fiddling about and saw that the sound was muted on it. I tapped the sound icon and boosted the audio and voilà! Sound. For some reason the watch was overriding the phone until I did that.

So maybe the update fixed the original problem, which cannot be explained by the watch, since I sometimes had sound for a while and then it would just stop abruptly. Time will tell. But I drove home from work today listening to podcasts. Sure wish I had them for the long drive yesterday.

I updated watchOS and iOS about the same time, so maybe some interaction between the two caused the entire loss of sound for a while.

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