CarPlay "Poor Connection" error in 2025 BMW i440M (ref#P9D4JG)

Support
1

Network Setup

· My only router was provided by my ISP

ARC Status

· ARC is *Ready*

Describe the issue

After an unremarkable 18 months, CarPlay now routinely displays "Poor Connection" announce in my 2025 BMW i440M. A Google search confirms I'm not alone.

Describe your network setup

ISP: Xfinity; WiFi Router: Xfinity 1 GB; Server: Innuos Zenith; OS: MacOs;

2

Hi @Laurence_Landow,

Can you let us know the exact local time and date, and the track playing if that applies? We’d also like to know whether you had full signal at the time, or whether you were traveling through an area with no signal. Finally, is ARC still working as expected at home on WiFi?

3
  1. The “Poor Connection” error message first appeared in ARC late last year. Over the past 6 months, the error message has occurred increasingly more often, such that I am no longer able to connect to the server at all.
  2. I live in the Washington DC area, where signal strength everywhere is strong, with almost no internet signal dead-zones whatsoever.
  3. At home, ARC works flawlessly.

PS: This afternoon I brought my car to the BMW dealer who sold it to me in February 2025. He encountered the same error message when he used my iphone to launch CarPlay in one of the brand new 2026 models sitting on the showroom floor. He strongly believes the cause results from an inherent glitch in the ARC software. A Google search states that connection problems have been reported by BMW owners who use ARC.

May 15th addendum: odd, at least in my case, that the incidence of “Poor Connection” warnings increased as the number of Roon software upgrades increased. Likely not related, but I would be curious to know whether the Roon updates were ever pre-tested for incompatibility between ARC and CarPlay, especially by BMW owners.

4

Hello Noris, no one in the Community has responded to my latest posts about “Poor Connection”. Given that connection problems have plagued Roon for several years and merited Google’s attention, I’m surprised the marketing team has not treated the matter with a greater sense of urgency.

5

The last response was on Friday but it’s been the weekend after that and official support doesn’t work on weekends.

6

Hi @Laurence_Landow,

Thank you for post.

That particular model of car has a built-in WiFi antenna offering a mobile hotspot. Are you relying on that or the phone’s cellular connection?

What do you see in the ARC Settings page under Cloud and Server connectivity when you’re using cellular data on the phone outside the home? If you can share a screenshot here, that will help provide some context for our investigation. Thank you!

8

Hi Connor,

Thanks for responding to my post.

First, let me make clear that ARC is a terrific product IMO. And yes, the WiFi mobile hotspot in my car connects to the server automatically whenever CarPlay is active.

Regarding your second question. For most of last year, ARC functioned flawlessly, with both power lights solid green. Then, the “Poor Connection” message gradually began to appear with increasing frequency. Each time it did, I noticed the upper light was still solid green, but the lower one was solid red. Last week was a particularly frustrating one because both lights turned solid red and I was unable to access my music collection in the normal fashion. I tried switching to the Downloads option in ARC but it’s just too clunky for 2026

Luckily, someone in the Roon Chatroom suggested installing a software program on my iphone called TailScale. I was hesitant to do so at first, but when I saw a favorable mention for TailScale on the Roon website, I felt more comfortable downloading it, which I did yesterday morning. It connected to the ARC Cloud / Server virtually instantaneously and seems very stable. The major downside is that ExpressVPN on my iphone must be suspended when using TailScale, meaning I must remember to switch back to ExpressVPN whenever I exit ARC. A slight annoyance, but still an annoyance.

ARC + TailScale are a great combination, but TailScale may someday go out of business, decide to require a subscription service for individual users, etc. ARC subscribers merit a Roon solution to their Poor Connection problems.

Laurence

9

@Laurence_Landow,

Thank you for the update, and I’m really glad to hear that Tailscale has got you back up and running with ARC in your BMW!

To give you some peace of mind: you are actually utilizing a workaround that we highly endorse. In fact, Tailscale is natively integrated into our Roon OS (ROCK) ecosystem, and it is our go-to recommendation for users facing complex network environments, strict ISP configurations, or tricky cellular-to-CarPlay handovers like the one you’re experiencing.

We completely understand your hesitation about relying on a third-party service that isn’t under Roon’s direct control.

While Tailscale has proven to be an incredibly stable, industry-standard tool for a long time now, we know that technology landscapes can shift.

Please rest assured that we have our finger on the pulse. If Tailscale’s availability or terms ever change in a way that impacts our subscribers, our team will absolutely look into the market for new alternatives or adjustments to ensure our community isn’t left stranded. While we can’t make definitive promises on behalf of third-party platforms or predict exactly what the technical solutions of tomorrow will look like, we are committed to doing our best to keep you connected to your music wherever you go.

For now, enjoy the music on your drives, and thank you for being a part of the Community!