[hyde]

I've been away for about 10 days, came back and now neither my phone, nor my wife's will connect to my iDrive. It remembers the phones but won't connect, keeps telling us to retry, but no luck. It also won't let me turn off Wifi or Bluetooth either, it just keeps turning on. I tried to remove phones, no luck.

I tried to add a new phone but our phones don't see BMW in Bluetooth connections.

Any suggestions?

[FullFatDoom]

Just like doing in the old days, reset iDrive?

[jad03060]

You did take your phone out of airplane mode?

[Mail4loys]

Originally Posted by hyde

I've been away for about 10 days, came back and now neither my phone, nor my wife's will connect to my iDrive. It remembers the phones but won't connect, keeps telling us to retry, but no luck. It also won't let me turn off Wifi or Bluetooth either, it just keeps turning on. I tried to remove phones, no luck.

I tried to add a new phone but our phones don't see BMW in Bluetooth connections.

Any suggestions?

Try rebooting iDrive by holding down volume button for 30 seconds and see if the situation changes

[nZtiZia]

Originally Posted by hyde

Any suggestions?

first, reboot iDrive as others have mentioned.

do you normally connect via CarPlay or iDrive?

if CarPlay, did iDrive prompt you to pair? it should. both wifi and BT on your iPhone(s) need to be on initially while it establishes the connection. once connected, the wifi icon will turn 'off' (though it's not off, but rather a 'background' wifi connection is made); BT will remain on.

if iDrive, only BT needs to be on to establish connection.

i find it odd you can't delete your phones from the device list in iDrive.

[hyde]

Thanks, I will try to reset it tomorrow first thing, thanks.
Yes, it's been out of airplane mode for over a day. I restarted the phone few times as well, deleted the bluetooth profile and tried to recreate, both phones same issue.

I am using Android phones, so it's wireless Android Auto, it doesn't connect either. I wanted to connect basic bluetooth streaming even without Wireless A.A. it still didn't work.

I'll report back after 30 second-hold.

[BKX5M]

I have similar issues pop up fairly often. If rebooting the phone doesn’t work I find it’s easiest to just delete the phone from the car, then remove it from Car Play and then go through the pairing process again. It’s tedious but it fixes it every time.

[Rob_G77]

Originally Posted by hyde

Thanks, I will try to reset it tomorrow first thing, thanks.
Yes, it's been out of airplane mode for over a day. I restarted the phone few times as well, deleted the bluetooth profile and tried to recreate, both phones same issue.

I am using Android phones, so it's wireless Android Auto, it doesn't connect either. I wanted to connect basic bluetooth streaming even without Wireless A.A. it still didn't work.

I'll report back after 30 second-hold.

You can also try rebooting the phone. I had an issue tonight where my contacts were not showing up in IDrive.

Resync contacts - no improvement
Remove and re-add phone, sync contacts - no improvement
30 second volume knob hold, sync contacts - no improvement
Remove phone, reboot phone, re-add phone, sync contacts - fixed.

There is something weird going on with android and IDrive where I see icons on the top of the phone screen flickering like crazy while it's connected to IDrive. I've been thinking about doing a factory reset on my phone anyhow. Digital key doesn't work saying my device isn't compatible, but it's an S21+ Samsung. The only thing stopping me is the stupid biometric MFA crap I have on it for work.

Rob

[hyde]

Thank you, removing the bluetooth profile from phone, rebooting the phone and 30 second hold on iDrive knob fixed it. I had to re-pair bluetooth with the code twice and it connected both wifi+BT and AA worked instantly. Thanks for all the replies.

[madlaw1071]

This worked for me, thanks!

[JimVR4]

This has happened twice for me. Rebooting the phone doesn't fix it but rebooting iDrive does fix it.

[callouscrab]

Did any of you have trouble even deleting the phones? I can't get my phones to pair and neither can I delete them. Rebooting iDrive doesn't help.

[jontron]

For me, the fix was to remove the phone from iDrive, "forget" the car from Bluetooth menu, then rename the phone in the about menu. Then reconnect it.

Renaming the phone was the trick for me. I disconnected and reconnected a bunch of times and was getting super frustrated.

Its been connecting flawlessly since figuring out that last step. Someone on this forum posted it in another thread.

[Fatrusty]

Thanks for the information. Had the car for 3 weeks and was out of town and no Phones connected. I was not a happy camper. Did the reset like suggested last night and all works great now!
Thanks for the help.

[callouscrab]

I got my Bluetooth settings to reset today (not be design). We had a previously paired iPhone that connected today. Once this happened, I was able to delete/re-pair the other Android (Samsung) phones. All phones seem to be working via Bluetooth.

I wish I could tell why this stopped working or why exactly it started working again!