2017 CX-5 CarPlay instability...Any advice?

[GnomeDePlum]

For about the last month I've been having recurring problems with CarPlay. I've been using CarPlay nearly constantly ever since I had the dealer put in the upgrade kit when it became available for my 2017 CX-5, and I've never had issues until now.

When I start up the car and plug in my phone, everything happens as normal. I start listening to a podcast, back out of the driveway, and start driving. Once I'm a few streets away (more than 30 seconds, less than 2 minutes?) the car's infotainment screen blanks out and then shows a Mazda logo for a while, which I interpret to mean that it crashed and rebooted. If the phone is still plugged in, it will then show a message about how CarPlay was not responding, and I should pull off the road and disconnect and reconnect the phone. Once I do reconnect the phone, it works fine for the rest of my trip.

This doesn't happen all the time. But it's 80+% of the time now, after having been ~50% of the time when it first started.

Some things I've tried so far:

• Updated iOS from 16.1 to 16.2
• Replaced the USB cable
• Switched podcasting apps (in the unlikely case it was sending bad audio data)
• Told my phone to forget the car and then repair

From browsing the forum a bit one thing that I haven't tried yet is upgrading my car's firmware; I didn't see indications that it helped someone with a problem like mine, but it might help and probably won't hurt. (I'm on 70.00.335 NA N right now)

But I'm hoping the community can also offer suggestions of other things to try, too. Those may be quicker or have a higher likelihood of fixing my problem.

Thanks in advance!

 

[7eregrine]

Remove the SD card from the slot if there is one there. Test it.
(Friend has a 17 and had this exact issue and this fixed it).

 

[GnomeDePlum]

Remove the SD card from the slot if there is one there. Test it.
(Friend has a 17 and had this exact issue and this fixed it).

I'll give that a shot on my way home tonight!

I assume this means that the car's maps are no longer accessible, which I'm probably ok with. But did your friend have a longer term way to enable both?

 

[7eregrine]

At this point, he's pissed that Mazda wants $400 for a new card. I'll let him tell you.

 

[GnomeDePlum]

At this point, he's pissed that Mazda wants $400 for a new card. I'll let him tell you.

In my drive home from work yesterday I’d taken out the map SD card and got home without the Mazda system crashing. That does sometimes happen, so I’ll want to give it a few more trips before I call this “solved”, but it’s a really good sign!

 

[GnomeDePlum]

Remove the SD card from the slot if there is one there. Test it.
(Friend has a 17 and had this exact issue and this fixed it).

Now that some time has passed, it's meaningful to say I haven't had Mazda infotainment crash a single time while using CarPlay since I made this change you suggested. This is it!