Phillyfinest

Good day all,

Is/has anyone else experience issues with Apple Music connecting and playing via Online Music Service in MBUX? When I ask Mercedes to open she tells me it unavailable. When I try to manually connect it never opens, of if it does, it plays for about 2 minutes then stop.

i prefer to listen to Apple Music via the MBUX service as the sound is better than via CarPlay. I have no issue via CarPlay.

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

TIA

Dima

Did you log in? I recall having to log in to Tidal, and Apple Music.

Phillyfinest

yes I am logged in. Apple and Amazon music is doing same thing. I don’t have Tidal or Spotify. Either service is unavailable or it plays for about 20 seconds then stops and lose connection.

crabman

Is it by chance playing the same songs? I ask this because it has an extensive buffer; as I recall 4 or 5 songs but it's been a while.

I'd suggest verifying it's actually connected if you haven't gone there yet. The way to do that is make a search for an artist, song, whatever, as soon as it starts playing. If the MBUX isn't connected it will just spin until it times out.

Dima

so in Mercedes Me Connect ap, when you go to online services, click on it then go to linked accounts, you Apple music there showed as logged in?

Phillyfinest

It will be connected. I can pick anything to play. In Listen now, Library, radio, etc. issue is after it starts playing, about 20 seconds later it stops and the screen is blank. Then when you try to go to vehicle setting, music services is not there. When i ask mercedes to open Apple Music or amazon music, it tells me the service you are requesting is not available.

Phillyfinest

In app, it shows Apple Music and Amazon as linked, and offer a button to remove account……

crabman

It can look like it's working but it's not: Had it happen to me. Don't do listen now, the radio, or any of that, you want to specifically do a search of Apple or Amazon and see what it does. If it refuses to complete a search your connection is hosed, and that's how they check it at the dealership. I had my car in twice for the connection; the first time they failed to make it work, they second a system update was available, and they installed that to see if it would light off; it did.

Phillyfinest

ok. Will try that tomorrow and see. If not sounds like dealer will need to update system as you mentioned. How long ago did this happen to you?

crabman

Year ago, more or less.

Mem30306

While you are listening to Apple Music (during the 20 seconds before it stops), click and hold the power button for more than 5 seconds until the system restarts. This will perform a soft reset of the audio system. It won't delete any of your favorites or settings, but doing this has "fixed" a number of issues for me. You might try it - nothing to lose at this point.

Phillyfinest

Thanks will try this as well.

Phillyfinest

I tried the search feature in Apple Music as advised and it spun, and said no results. Tried searching for several artists and it kept saying no results.

Then I tried, as advised, to play something from my library and then hit power button to make system soft reset. Well now it all works except when i go to search, it still says no results. Go figure. I can play anything from my library, playlist, radio, etc and it doesn’t cut off in 20 seconds any longer.

I’ll wait til I get an appointment for the fuel pump recall and have them look at this as well. Not making a separate appointment.

Thanks for all the input and suggestions.

Mem30306

@Phillyfinest I'm curious how strong your onboard internet connection is in your car? How many cellular bars is showing in the top righthand corner of MBUX? I rarely get all five bars, but when I'm down to one or two bars, internet music is slow, and there are times when Apple music times out like yours does. And to be honest, searching in Apple Music is sloooow. To be honest, I use voice commands to search, as that seems to be much faster for me. "Hey Mercedes, play ABBA's Greatest Hits on Apple Music" seems to always work, doesn't require me to type it in, and seems faster than typing. Might give that a try if you haven't already.

Phillyfinest

Will have to look next time in vehicle on how many cell signal bars are showing. Wouldn’t those bar signals be representative of my cell phone signal, or is there another symbol I should have, or be looking at for the car signal. For the care internet signal, i thought it was represented with just the 4G symbol thing……

Dima

Yes those bars are for cell phone. Better metric is to connect your phone to the car and use Seedtest app

Mem30306



Mem30306

I somehow hit the spoiler button, and have no idea how to get rid of it

crabman

I hate to bust out the technical terms, but hinky is the word I'd use to describe the online music app in the car.

I have both my phone via the hotspot and the car's built in hotspot working and I can get wildly different numbers from them for signal strength and actual download speeds and that's going both ways; using the car for the phone or using the phone for the car. On the other hand, since I got it working I've had no issues with Tidal or Amazon music; I'm on master with Tidal and have whatever the highest tier is with Amazon.

I know that isn't too helpful but I think it's worth knowing that you cant really trust your shown signal bars.. Also that there is hope, people have it working, you should be able to do the same.

That you should have to bother would be fun to talk about because who doesn't like playing a round of "Bash the flawed technology" but, probably not too helpful. lol

jasonbessey

Why do you say quality is better via MBUX as opposed to through CarPlay? The built-in cellular modem in the car is T-Mobile 4G. CarPlay through my iPhone accesses T-Mobile's 5G-UC network which is significantly faster. This allows for lossless audio. The MB can't do that. The interface with CarPlay is much better as well.

Dima

it's not that simple, 4g is enough for high quality stream. If you connect iphone with USB you can get close to Tidal plus in a car, if you connect via bluetooth, than it's not even close. There are too many variables involved. To me personally MBUX streaming sounds a bit better. I also think the carplay just mirrors your phone so I am skeptical of the high quality there

jasonbessey

CarPlay transfers data by WiFi, not Bluetooth. Bluetooth is necessary for the initial connection, but then all data flows over Wifi. My iPhone plays Apple Music high res lossless and WiFi has plenty of bandwidth to send that to any stereo system. Doubt MBUX app is pulling down lossless music, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it's all subjective, so whatever you think sounds better to you. Doubt any of us could truly tell a difference on these speakers in a blind listening test. They're good, but they're still car speakers, not audiophile grade speakers/headphones.

Dima

it is lossless at least for Tidal. You do understand that wifi your phone is using is off the car's hotspot that is 4G minus loss during transmission?

Dima

BTW, MBUX receiver is also made by Burmister. I am not an expert but you have to compare it to the phone's renderer .

jasonbessey

The carplay connection to iPhone runs over WiFi. This has nothing to do with the car's 4G modem – that is what the car uses to talk to the T-mobile cell towers, not with my iPhone. My phone is not connected to the car's hotspot and is instead getting data from T-mobiles 5G-UC network with download speeds around 800 Mbps. This is then sent to the car by WiFi and this is definitively higher speed than what MBUX is getting from a T-mobile tower over 4G. Can argue about whether any of this truly matters, but there's no way the car is getting faster speeds from its modem compared to what my phone is sending by WiFi.