· Odd behavior when playing ARC over bluetooth in my car. The first odd thing is that the album art only updates every other song. So I'm playing a Boston song, and the correct album cover art shows on my iPhone and my car's display. Next song comes on, the song title and artist are correct, but the album art is still Boston. It usually gets updated every other song.
The second strange one I haven't been able to reliably reproduce, but it has happened twice in the last two days. I will be playing from ARC in the car, and then it switches to my Apple Music app. The first time was when I came back to the car. The second time it happened mid-song as I was driving.
Tell us about your home network
· All Unifi equipment. Router is a UDM Pro. I use port forwarding for ARC.
Thank you for reaching out and reporting these behaviors with Roon ARC in your car.
Regarding the issue where Roon ARC switches to Apple Music, this is a known conflict on iOS where the system aggressively prioritizes the native Music app when the connection is interrupted or when the phone reconnects to the car. As a temporary workaround, some users have found success by uninstalling the Apple Music app if they don’t use it, which prevents iOS from defaulting to it.
To help us investigate the metadata lag (album art updating every other song), could you please provide a few more details?
Connection Type: How exactly is your phone connected to the car? (CarPlay via cable/Wi-Fi, or standard Bluetooth streaming?)
Scope: When the artwork lags on the car display, does it also show the wrong track info on your iPhone's Lock Screen/Control Center at the same moment?
Device Info: What iPhone model and iOS version are you currently using?
If you could reproduce the issue again, please note the exact local time it happens and the track name, then go to ARC Settings -> Support -> Submit Diagnostics. This will help our team pinpoint the cause in the logs.
In this case, I am using basic Bluetooth to my car. I have see these same behavior with a Wifi CarPlay dongle, but I don’t use that anymore since it was not reliable.
I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max with iOS 26.3.
I have a car ride coming up soon, and I will get the data you are asking for. From what I remember, the phone showed the correct artwork and track info. The car’s screen showed the correct track info, but the album art was not always correct.
I will update with times this afternoon if this happens again.
I have a couple of examples and some other data. Here are two times when the cover art lagged.
9:48am EST:
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) → I’m Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
Waiting for the Man still showed the Wish You Were Here cover art. The Artist and Title were correct. On the phone, both were correct.
I was driving, so I used Siri to log the time and songs, and that pauses the music. When play resumed, the cover art updated to the correct Velvet Underground.
11:36am EST Just Can’t Get Enough (Depeche Mode) → Paradise City (G&R)
Paradise City showed the Depeche Mode album art (See attachment)
Same thing, if you pause, then the cover art updates properly.
Moving ahead to more songs, 1 or 2 displayed correctly. In general though, the cover art would end up 1 behind. It blinks like it was changing the display, but it then showed the wrong art.
Example from a couple songs after the 11:36am example above:
Purple Haze - showing Purple Haze art
What Am I Gonna Do (Chris Stapleton) - showed Jimi Hendrix art
American Woman (Lenny Kravitz) - showed correct art for the album 5
Devil’s Child (Judas Priest) - started off with 5, and halfway through showed Judas Priest
We All Die Young (Steel Dragon from Rock Star movie) - showed Judas Priest Album art
You Oughta Know (Alanis Morissette) - Showed Rock Star album art
A few interesting observations:
Pausing will reset the album art to the correct one
The phone always shows the correct art and song info
The track title and artist update correctly. It’s only the art that seems to be 1 behind.
This playlist is a mix of CDs that I mixed, HD tracks I bought from HDTracks, and Tital. Some titles do update properly. At first I thought that was Tidal tracks working, and it was my rips that were the problem. However, American Woman from the album “5” is a rip, and it showed properly.
Skipping to the next song would get the title and artist right, but the art would not catch up.
I still don’t see a way to send my logs to you. I must be missing something.
Thanks for sticking with us on this and sorry for delayed responce.
Since a few days have passed, our diagnostic logs have rolled over and cleared out the older data. To get a fresh look at exactly what ARC is sending to the Bluetooth buffer, could you please note the exact local time and track names the next time this album art lag happens?
Additionally, because Bluetooth metadata handling (AVRCP) varies wildly between vehicle manufacturers, we need a bit more context about the receiving end. We already have your phone details (iPhone 16 Pro Max on iOS 26.3), but could you also provide:
The Make, Model, and Year of your car.
The current software/firmware version running on your car’s head unit (infotainment system).
Once we have a fresh timestamp and the vehicle details, we can cross-reference the logs with how that specific car system processes Bluetooth artwork caches.
I’m pretty sure the problem is with my car because my son has the same problem with Spotify. I recently picked up an Apply Play wireless dongle, and that works fine.
Next time I’m in the car, I will get the firmware and some times for you. It’s quite easy. All I need to do is press next, and the song will change, but the art will always be one behind.
Ah, that information is the perfect missing puzzle piece!
If your son is experiencing the exact same “one song behind” album art lag while using Spotify, that definitively points to a bug in how your 2019 RAM 1500’s infotainment system (likely the Uconnect system) is caching and displaying Bluetooth metadata.
When you use standard Bluetooth, your phone sends metadata to the car via a protocol called AVRCP. If the car’s firmware isn’t flushing its image cache properly when a new track starts, it will always hold onto the previous image. Because this flaw is baked into the car’s firmware and affects other major apps like Spotify, there unfortunately isn’t a magic line of code we can add to Roon ARC to force the truck’s display to refresh over standard Bluetooth.
This also perfectly explains why your Apple CarPlay wireless dongle works flawlessly! CarPlay completely bypasses the car’s buggy Bluetooth protocol and uses a much more robust Wi-Fi-based data stream to handle the UI and metadata.
Honestly, since the CarPlay dongle provides a richer interface and completely sidesteps the truck’s underlying Bluetooth bug, sticking with that dongle is definitely your best bet for a smooth experience.
Given this hardware limitation on the truck’s end, we can probably hold off on pulling more logs for now. Are you comfortable continuing to use the CarPlay dongle, and can we go ahead and close this thread?
I’m good with using the car play dongle. This is my second attempt with a dongle, which is why I found the Bluetooth issue. My first dongle worked for a couple months and then was not reliable. Prior to Roon, I was using Apple Music in the car, and I never noticed the one song lag with Bluetooth. I didn’t know about the Spotify issue until I mentioned the cover art lag with my son in the car (Spotify user). He said it always happens when he uses the truck.
I will stay on the dongle. Like you said, it is a much better experience than straight Bluetooth. Plus, I don’t have to find a cord and plu it in all the time.
