BMW iDrive 6 - Spotify sometimes doesn't show up

[jkuiper91]

Plan 

Premium

Country

The Netherlands

Device

iPhone 11 pro, iPhone 12 mini

Operating System

iOS 14

My Question or Issue

I have a 2019 BMW 4 series with the upgraded Navigation Professional with all the connectivity gimmicks available for that particular car. My iDrive is able to show a "Spotify" app in the Media section. This works brilliantly and I love to be able to scroll through playlists, albums etc. with the BMW iDrive controller.

One thing does annoy me about It, quite a lot even. Sometimes, the Spotify app simply doesn't show up. It doesn't matter whether Spotify is open of closed on the phone, whether the phone is connected to WiFi or not, whether I used Spotify previously in the car before shutting down, it's completely random. The only solution I have found so far is to completely shut down and restart the car. Sometimes with a bit of fiddling on the phone (close the app, reopen) and on the iDrive (select a different source first before checking the Media section again) Spotify does show up. But even then it sometimes says "app is loading" and it's stuck there, if it shows up at all. The only real solution is really to completely shut down and restart the car.

Above is all relevant to my iPhone 11 Pro, her iPhone 12 mini ever since January when we got the car. So several iOS 14.x versions, several Spotify app updates, still all the same. The car is updated, the phones are updated and the apps are updated.

[gorfo66]

Same happens to me (spotify 8.6.30.968, ios 14.6, bwm f30, navigation pro, idrive 6).
This works like a charm for weeks and suddently the app disappear for days, and come back later.

Since yesterday for instance, impossible to get it working. No recent update of the application nor the IOS version nor the idrive version.

Anything noticed ?

[Jeremy]

Hi there @jkuiper91 and @gorfo66,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community.

In this case we suggest that you perform a clean reinstall of the app. This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

Just to confirm - did you restart your car by turning the ignition off then on again?

We'll keep an eye out for your replies.

Take care!

[jkuiper91]

Thanks for your replies! I did a complete restore the other day for exactly the same issue. So deleted the app, removed all contents, restart the phone when finished and redownload the app from the App Store. Unfortunately no changes and still a “gamble” whether the app will show up in my iDrive.

What I need to do to (sometimes) get it back is to close spotify on the iPhone (swipe it up) and shut down the car. By shutting down I mean killing all power to it, locking it, open it and restart. Sometimes it does show up straight away after rebooting of the iDrive, sometimes only the app shows up on the iDrive but when selecting it using the iDrive controller is keeps saying “app is starting up…”. If the last is the case the app keeps on appearing and disappearing. Another reboot of the complete car is the solution (sometimes). And sometimes nothing happens and not even the app symbol opens up in iDrive. It’s completely random. Sometimes it works for several starts, sometimes it doesn’t. Several starts a day or once a week makes no difference though. Again, completely random.

I really have the feeling that’s it’s either the app in the car itself or the extension of the app on the phone.

[Eni]

Hi folks!

Thanks for getting in touch about this. 

We received confirmation that the BMW Connected Drive feature has been depreciated. As a result, it’ll no longer be possible to control Spotify via the onboard BMW system. You can however still enjoy your favorite music by connecting to your car’s audio system via Bluetooth.
 

If you'd like to have this feature back in the future, you can leave a vote on this existing idea.   

Hope this clears thing up. If you need help with anything else, just let us know. 

Cheers!

[jkuiper91]

What I think you mean is that BMW does not have Spotify in their "Online Entertainment" library. That's the possibility to have Spotify directly installed on your   iDrive systems through the "entertainment" section without having your phone connected. A bit like how Spotify on my tv works. It's not an extension to my phone but a stand alone app. I'm purely referring to the BMW apps section. For as far as I understand this is the iDrive allowing certain apps to connect directly to the iDrive through the connected device. In other words, to allow this you need a device with Spotify (and a extension which streams to the car) connected to the car. A bit like Apple's own CarPlay.

I loved it when I test drove my new car to have access to my library, albums, playlists and songs. A2DP streaming is a possibility indeed, but I need to grab my phone to select different playlists etc., whereas I love the feature of putting the phone in the wireless charging without having to reach out for it to get to a different playlist.