[Catfish454]

IPod working great, turn car off, turn back on later, iPod can't be located. I need to unplug the iPod then plug it back in to get it located. Doesn't do it all the time, but enough to be aggravating. Also tried wife's iPod with same result. Anyone else experiencing this?

[Mobileum]

Originally Posted by Catfish454

Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes

[fat dog]

Yes.

In my case, it seems that the ipod locks up and then can't be located within the i-drive. Sometimes, if I unplug and plug back in, it gets back up and running again. Other times, the ipod freezes (even after being unplugged for a while) displaying the BMW OK to disconnect screen. In these instances, I have to reset the i-pod.

I experience an issue on average around every three hours of use or so. For me, it usually happens after the ipod has been in use for a little while, rather than when first starting the car.

Not sure if it's relevant, but I use ipod classic 6th gen.

Anyone else?

[steve-p]

I've had my car a month and it has happened once so far. On that occasion the iPod (classic) disappeared completely from the menus when starting the car. The iPod was not locked up, and unplugging it and reconnecting it made no difference. At the same time, my bluetooth connected iPhone also disappeared from the music menu in iDrive, so my guess is some process in the car software crashed. It sorted itself out after the car was locked for a couple of hours and then restarted.

[ZAKSM3]

I have had problems since day one with iPod/iPhone connectivity. First and still ongoing is the fact that the cradle for iPhone use is useless. I get random disconnects all the time. The dealership cannot replicate the issue with their iPhone and claim it is my iPhone. I have used 4 different iPhones and they all do the same. Now even connecting via USB I cannot connect to my music at times and the system resets. This is pissing me off and I think is ridiculous for a $50,000 automobile!

[rhinosaur]

I am using a 7th gen iPod classic and I have had the "not found" issue, the "freezed" issue and another one which really annoys me… I have a large music library in the iPod and quite often the albums list is mismatched with the artists they belong to. For example, if I have a list with artists A, B, C and albums A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3, some times when I sort through the albums of artist B I get albums C1, C2, C3… It pisses me off! LOL

[bmwombat]

Originally Posted by fat dog

Yes.

In my case, it seems that the ipod locks up and then can't be located within the i-drive. Sometimes, if I unplug and plug back in, it gets back up and running again. Other times, the ipod freezes (even after being unplugged for a while) displaying the BMW OK to disconnect screen. In these instances, I have to reset the i-pod.

I experience an issue on average around every three hours of use or so. For me, it usually happens after the ipod has been in use for a little while, rather than when first starting the car.

Not sure if it's relevant, but I use ipod classic 6th gen.

Anyone else?

Yeah same here. This has happened twice now in the past weeek after about 2 hours of the iPod running continuously it just disappears from the system. If I reboot it & reconnect its all good...weird.

[jedpause]

I had same problems repeatedly with iPod 160GB.

It is now solved... how? I had the iPod stolen and replaced it with a new one, re-synced songs and it works like a charm, no issues in 2 months. And it is instant.... before it took ages on the old one to recognise etc.

So my 'prognosis' is find a way to reset and re-sync your iPod (many forums for that).

[Sun0000]

I had the same with my 5th gen iPod. According to the dealer this happens if you connect it with Apple's white USB connector. Instead the Y-cable available from the dealer should be used.

[rhinosaur]

Originally Posted by Sun0000

I had the same with my 5th gen iPod. According to the dealer this happens if you connect it with Apple's white USB connector. Instead the Y-cable available from the dealer should be used.

Beware that if you use the Y-cable you won't have any album covers displayed in the control display.

[mayor bloom]

I am having this trouble also. ipod classic 120gb

[MBrown1003]

Same here -- iPod dropping out.

What about BT on your phone? I had a 328xi loaner (surprising how good that four-banger is!) and I happened to buy a new phone while I had it. My contacts were synced to the F30 in about two or three minutes. In my F10, EVERY time I start the car, it takes about 10 minutes before it's fully synched.

[TheGr8Swami]

I've noticed this as well. I have two Ipods and my newer 160GB unit doesn't crash as often as my older 160GB IPod.

What's interesting is that I decided to jailbreak my older IPod with the Rockbox OS and low and behold it stopped crashing. The car just recognizes the unit as a HDD but my playlists and album covers display normally. Actually the IPod performs as well as my 1TB Western Digital external USB drive I use to DJ.

[steve-p]

I've not had any problems since taking my 160GB Classic out of the car and replacing it with an old iPhone 3GS with no SIM in it (i.e. pretending to be an iPod Touch). The disadvantage is it's only 32GB (although with iTunes set to 128kbps I can get everything I need on it, and it sounds OK). The advantages are that it's much faster navigating, the car displays the artwork at full resolution, and because the car is in range of my WiFi when parked outside, I can sync it without ever taking it out of the car

[forbegos]

Always had this problem on my last 4 BMWs. Never been solved. I am getting really frustrated with this problem. It seems to happen only on hard drive based iPods though?

[jedpause]

Originally Posted by forbegos

Always had this problem on my last 4 BMWs. Never been solved. I am getting really frustrated with this problem. It seems to happen only on hard drive based iPods though?

Reset/reformat the iPod and refresh the music. Has worked for me, no issues in 3 months so far

[jedpause]

Originally Posted by jedpause

Reset/reformat the iPod and refresh the music. Has worked for me, no issues in 3 months so far

Another tip... if it disappears as an available device.... just WAIT... iPod is doing a warm reboot and if you are patient it will show again, but continue to WAIT! You must wait 20-30 sec for music to actually start then you can press iDrive controller and access it....

I think the key message is WAIT for music to play BEFORE pressing iDrive controller... cumbersome but works every time for me like this...

[BigK]

Does anyone have a solution for this? I just received my 2013 528i and my iPod nano keeps disconnecting. It happens randomly when playing music and all of sudden I will see the device disappear in iDrive and reconnects moments later.

[chylld]

same problem here; using a 7th gen ipod nano in an f36 (4-series gran coupe)

battery on the ipod is always full so not sure what the issue is. will try a reset at some point, however at the moment i'm just using bluetooth to grab music off my phone and that works great (not sure if it displays album art though)

[bjornand1]

Hi, I've been having the same issue with an iPod Classic freezing. Some say the classic version with harddisk simply is prone to this, so I've almost accepted that. However, if someone can confirm that reformatting the iPod and copying the music library on to it again helps, I'll certainly give that a try.

Those who have tried this, does it indeed represent a long-term solution?