I have turned "Hey Siri" back on to see if issues come back, and I added to 'AdGuard Pro' to not use VPN rules when connected to the wifi that CarPlay is using.  To this end though, this reminds me of a similar problem I had in the early days of using the Alpine ILX-107, a couple of users had it, and it seemed to be related to the iPhones that were using Intel modems (used for both cellular and wifi), now-a-days all the new iPhones use Intel (2020 is supposed to be QualComm again) ... anyways, we found out that if we turned off LTE for the drive, we had no audio drops, (so just using 3G or lower)

Some of the similarities are: when you brought the phone closer to the unit it would not fail.  Using products that didn't have Intel modems worked (older iPhones, and in Thorissr case Samsung is using QualComm).  Since  I have a hard time getting the problem to happen, anyone will consistent failures, can you turn turning off LTE during one of your drives and see if you get audio drops?

21 minutes ago, IvanRaide said:

I have turned "Hey Siri" back on to see if issues come back, and I added to 'AdGuard Pro' to not use VPN rules when connected to the wifi that CarPlay is using.  To this end though, this reminds me of a similar problem I had in the early days of using the Alpine ILX-107, a couple of users had it, and it seemed to be related to the iPhones that were using Intel modems (used for both cellular and wifi), now-a-days all the new iPhones use Intel (2020 is supposed to be QualComm again) ... anyways, we found out that if we turned off LTE for the drive, we had no audio drops, (so just using 3G or lower)

Some of the similarities are: when you brought the phone closer to the unit it would not fail.  Using products that didn't have Intel modems worked (older iPhones, and in Thorissr case Samsung is using QualComm).  Since  I have a hard time getting the problem to happen, anyone will consistent failures, can you turn turning off LTE during one of your drives and see if you get audio drops?

Question....my previous head unit before I purchased the 8600 was a Kenwood 8706S that I used for approximately 8 months before upgrading. I’ve used a iPhone 8 Plus/X and XS Max at different times to run wireless CarPlay on it, and I never ever encountered audio cut outs when running CP. Connection was solid, and Carplay would  open on the 8706s if I left my iPhone on my work bench within my garage...8-12 ft radius. With my iPhone 8 Plus I can barely maintain a connection with the head unit if I placed my iPhone in the back seat of my vehicle.

Given the information you provided with your experience with the ilx-107 and intel chips, maybe just maybe this all points to the WiFi chip(hardware)/coded wireless protocol(software) that Pioneer implemented in the x600 series as being the culprit. If I were a betting man, I’ll place my money on it being a software issue where Pioneer need to tighten up their code to interact more seamless with IOS. Reason why I ruled out it being hardware related is because from my recent testing with wireless AA, the connection is solid without fail. What user’s experienced with the ilx-107 could’ve been software related as well, but since Alpine never released not 1 single firmware for that unit and was soon thereafter discontinued there’s no way to determine whether it was on their end or if it was related to a phone’s chip set.

Your thoughts.

1 hour ago, Thorissr said:

Given the information you provided with your experience with the ilx-107 and intel chips, maybe just maybe this all points to the WiFi chip(hardware)/coded wireless protocol(software) that Pioneer implemented in the x600 series as being the culprit. If I were a betting man, I’ll place my money on it being a software issue where Pioneer need to tighten up their code to interact more seamless with IOS. Reason why I ruled out it being hardware related is because from my recent testing with wireless AA, the connection is solid without fail. What user’s experienced with the ilx-107 could’ve been software related as well, but since Alpine never released not 1 single firmware for that unit and was soon thereafter discontinued there’s no way to determine whether it was on their end or if it was related to a phone’s chip set.

I'm not sure I would say it was Alpine (or Pioneer's) implementation that was at fault since using different iPhones (or Androids) allowed it to work, it makes me think it's more a case of Intel doing something incorrectly and Apple just uses their firmware/chipset drivers.  What gets even weirder is my actual experience with the ILX; before figuring out that "turning off LTE" would work, I actually tried switching cellphone providers ... my thought at the time was as the car was moving it was re-triangulating with cell-towers and doing something that caused intel to drop wifi for a moment.  Maybe some incorrect implementation of cellular protocol, or maybe only with certain tower-set, or maybe frequency range, of the carrier.  I was on Bell, and switched to Rogers, and completely fixed it for me.   A different user was on Rogers, but in a different province and having drops (so it wasn't the cell provider exactly either).   Once we showed it seemed "cellular" related another user turned off cellular completely (since it was all local storage music), which worked for him, after that it became a case of trying different cellular settings, until LTE was tried.  That is why I'm suggesting it first.  A quicker test would be turn off cellular but since so many people use things like Spotify I was trying to keep it easier.  I will try to find the original reddit article on it (but the above is what we found in a nutshell)

found it (it's long) ... 

Gotcha! I see where you’re coming from and makes sense. Next time I pull out my iPhone I will try turning off LTE and report back.

Thanks

On 7/3/2020 at 6:39 AM, MB01 said:

Hi. After many hours of screen presses, I figured it out. The Pioneer DMH-W and DMH-WT models have a special hidden menu bypass requirement. No interface bypass is required, but you can leave it connected if it is already installed. Dean and Fernando at Five Star Audio made a video of it on the tubes if you’d rather see it than read it. Here is how to do it: 
1. Update the firmware to 1.13 
2. Enable the hidden menu bypass by sourcing the radio off (source off, not power off). 
3. Press and hold the bottom left corner of the screen for exactly 10 seconds (use a stopwatch as timing is critical). 
4. Within 1 second, press and hold the bottom right corner (to the immediate left of bluetooth icon) for 10-12 seconds until a small “set on” icon will appear (in the bottom middle of the screen) confirming the bypass has been activated. 
5. If you do not get it the first time, cycle the ignition off and back on and start over. 
6. If you need to reverse this process, reset the radio.

This definitely works! It took me a few times to get it. Thanks for the info!

@IvanRaide For what it’s worth, my carrier is AT&T and my iPhone model is the 11 Pro Max with iOS 13.6 (beta gold master). 

I do NOT have the WiFi drops, but I do have the metallic, mono Siri/phone calls. 

I’d be interested in what carrier everyone is using, what model iPhone folks are using, and what iOS version it is running. Also, include which of these problems you are experiencing. 

16 minutes ago, mapotter99 said:

I’d be interested in what carrier everyone is using, what model iPhone folks are using, and what iOS version it is running. Also, include which of these problems you are experiencing. 

I was thinking we should probably start a new thread about discussing the Siri Mono / Audio disconnect problems, (since we have hijacked this "impressions" article).

My info:  iPhone 11 Pro, iOS 14 beta 2, Canada-Rogers 

iPhone 8 plus

IOS 14 Beta 2

AT&T

8600 NEX

Why dont everyone just get an android.,

9 minutes ago, bonee said:

Why dont everyone just get an android.,

I did

7600NEX/ T-Mobile (US)/ iPhone 11 Pro/ frequent audio drops/ disabling hey Siri didn’t fix. Will try disabling LTE tomorrow. 

Lately my unit is booting into this screen, I would say about 40% of the time.  It knows its CarPlay and playing music from CarPlay, and if I go back to the main menu, I can go into CarPlay .... but this is Pioneer UI?  Is anyone having this?  Is there a way to stop it!    https://imgur.com/a/Wy3nIBI

3 hours ago, IvanRaide said:

Lately my unit is booting into this screen, I would say about 40% of the time.  It knows its CarPlay and playing music from CarPlay, and if I go back to the main menu, I can go into CarPlay .... but this is Pioneer UI?  Is anyone having this?  Is there a way to stop it!    https://imgur.com/a/Wy3nIBI

 

Don’t ever recall it booting to this screen when I was running CarPlay, although I know that there’s an system menu icon you select that would take you to that screen.

Did an install of an 8600 over the weekend in my Mustang.  I am having GPS issues, using the factory GPS antenna with adapter.  System Info says the antenna is OK but not getting signal from any satellites.  I saw something about leaving it disconnected from power for a few minutes for other models, but anyone with similar problems have other fixes?  I can try the GPS antenna that came with the unit, but that's a last resort.

PFA

On 7/13/2020 at 10:24 AM, Thorissr said:

I know that there’s an system menu icon you select that would take you to that screen.

The "mode" button on the IR remote flips between the 2, so now the question is "why" is this happening to me .... Question:  do most people hit the first nag screen or do they let it time out?

On 7/13/2020 at 7:21 AM, IvanRaide said:

Lately my unit is booting into this screen, I would say about 40% of the time.  It knows its CarPlay and playing music from CarPlay, and if I go back to the main menu, I can go into CarPlay .... but this is Pioneer UI?  Is anyone having this?  Is there a way to stop it!    https://imgur.com/a/Wy3nIBI

 

This actually looks like the standard media player screen with Apple CarPlay as the music source.  I have seen something similar with my Android Auto setup.

34 minutes ago, rtsundland said:

I have seen something similar with my Android Auto setup.

For AA they have a setting in the Settings for "auto launch AA", with CarPlay its on the phone, but CarPlay usually auto-starts into the CarPlay interface but this is going into the Pioneer UI interface.  And only about 40% of the time.  Are you saying that sometimes your AA starts in AA, and sometimes it starts in Pioneer UI (connected to AA) ?  Its a bit of a hassle, because I have to hit menu to go back into the Main Pioneer Home display and hit CarPlay from there, (normally it should go right into CarPlay).  This never happened before firmware 1.13 (I'm not blaming it on that firmware), I just dont recall it happening before then?

On 7/14/2020 at 3:05 PM, IvanRaide said:

For AA they have a setting in the Settings for "auto launch AA", with CarPlay its on the phone, but CarPlay usually auto-starts into the CarPlay interface but this is going into the Pioneer UI interface.  And only about 40% of the time.  Are you saying that sometimes your AA starts in AA, and sometimes it starts in Pioneer UI (connected to AA) ?  Its a bit of a hassle, because I have to hit menu to go back into the Main Pioneer Home display and hit CarPlay from there, (normally it should go right into CarPlay).  This never happened before firmware 1.13 (I'm not blaming it on that firmware), I just dont recall it happening before then?

No... I am saying I've seen this screen before when AA is being used as the audio source and I'm not in the AA interface.  It has never booted into it directly (from what I can remember), whether with AA auto-start was on or not.

 

Received this error today, AMP Error. The HU wouldn’t respond or reset. Had to turn car off and back on for it to reboot. I read the Owner’s manual and it states this error could be a result of mismatch speaker wires or unit need servicing. I pulled the unit out and check all speaker wires and they are all zip tied with no exposed wire since I used RCAs for my speaker output. I’ll keep a watchful eye on it and see if it reoccurs again.

Hello all. Has anyone had issues with steering wheel controls not changing to next track in carplay? Volume, Siri and answering call work perfectly fine. Is this an Apple issue or head unit issue? I’m on iOS 13.6.1. I updated the unit to 1.13. The unit is receiving the signal as it works when I’m using the HD radio. Thank you

Has anyone successfully updated to 1.30 firmware with caravassist?

I updated with carassist and it worked the first time.  Took about 5min total. I have driven about 20min total since the update and have not noticed any changes .

I have never successfully updated with caravassist I always get an error. I updated to 1.13 with usb. There’s a new firmware 1.30 only offered on the app right now. I called pioneer at one point was informed that update through the app was unsupported at this time. However there has been an app update since that time and also a new firmware however same results for me, unable to transfer. 

On 10/10/2020 at 9:58 PM, mrbigzeek said:

I have never successfully updated with caravassist I always get an error. I updated to 1.13 with usb. There’s a new firmware 1.30 only offered on the app right now. I called pioneer at one point was informed that update through the app was unsupported at this time. However there has been an app update since that time and also a new firmware however same results for me, unable to transfer. 

Same here. No success via CarAVAssist and there’s no file to manually install via USB. It appears from the firmware notes 1.30 mainly fixed Alexa related issues and of course the usual “minor bug fixes”.

I have gotten to drive around more with firmware 1.3 and have not noted any changes so I am not sure if you’re missing out being on the previous firmware. Maybe it is not relevant but I did happen to read somewhere that when doing the update the parking brake needed to be engaged but I did have it set and the update worked. Not sure why....