Thanks for the info. Interesting to know as when I was using the car last week all was perfect. On Idrive it would pick up from where I left off and I could scroll up to access all the songs in the album/playlist in a file and also I could search the app too so change album playlist on screen. I had a title for next and previous too.
Recently I still get now and next by name and also I can access the whole list of tracks on the screen but I cannot search. I get this weird behaviour sometimes where it just skips a track on next or plays a different track for a split second and then goes to the selected track.
I tried Spotify but that was worse. It literally is what you are playing and no access to any files and no titles for now or next. Shame really as I like the app more than Google's service.
It also won't recognise my phone when connected via USB. It will say download BMW connected app and then keep on switching between connected and not connected.
Too much hassle and it seems BMW are not interested in Android. I can't really see myself going back to Iphone so I'm going to stick with Google play music and use long playlists as a work around so that I can have all the tracks I want for the day on the one list which I can control from Idrive
I did an update on my phone around the time it’s been playing up have you updated recently?
No, I haven't updated since beginning of February so my issue wouldn't be related to that.
I think I have made some progress. When GPM is set to 'download only', it seems to cause an issue on Idrive. It will allow me to see into the folder for what is currently playing but searching for music gives artist name but folders are all empty. It does still however full functionality for the album being played including track names for next and previous. It doesn't have artwork which I believe is an issue with all android phones.
Turning off 'download only' brings back all albums. However, the issue is that when I go into an artist Google seem to include all albums by that artist and not just the ones I have for offline listening. This makes it impossible for me to change album at a red light because some artists have 40-50 albums including compilations.
I looked into playlist and this folder seemed to be much cleaner. I'm going to try deleting my albums and then re-download them as playlists and just name the play list the artist and descrription is the album. This should hopefully resolve the issue and make it useable.
Because my car is an 07 plate and for my budget, I purposely chose a model without iDrive. I figured it would be old, clunky, slow, poor graphics and display and out of date maps.
And I've always used my phone for maps (Waze is fantastic) and Spotify for music so I knew I would continue to use my phone regardless. Don't regret that at all and the iDrive for that age IS ugly and slow.
The CCC iDrive was the first version and it was pretty clunky and slow. I have the HDD version of CIC and it is a lot better.Obviously this has been replaced by newer iDrive systems but it hasn’t aged too badly. I have 2019 maps with 3D and lane assist, etc
I was just about to update this as I think I finally found a solution that suits me.
I tried spoitfy over BT on a S9 and was no good. So I had an old Iphone lying about which I plugged in via USB and that gave full functionality plus artwork. A couple of annoying things were that it had to be unlocked everytime and then would take a while sometimes to open up on Idrive and it does not allow in album navigation. You can only go back or forward and unlike google play it doesn't say the track names before and after when you hover on the options. I got fed up.
By chance I realised that I had missed a step when using google play music on the S9 via BT. Everytime a change is made to the library, it needs to be plugged in, for the connect app to open and then the dismiss message to open. Once this happens BT works flawlessly and it will show all of the play lists on the screen and will enable navigation in the album plus full library. The dowsnsides of this method are it seems only to list playlists in full so albums have to be added as playlists and no album artwork, which I actually prefer.
For some reason my car defaults to random on google play music. I have to go into options and untick it.
FWiW - the reason the iPhone needs to be unlocked each time on USB s probably the same reason this happens with my Alpine and Pioneer head units.A while back Apple blocked the lightning connector from being accessed by accessories when the phone was locked because this was a weakness used to brute force unlock the phones.