· I'm having trouble with Roon ARC
· CarPlay / Android Auto issue
· None of the above
· Other
"Now Playing" icon not showing in ARC in CarPlay (car-specific bug)
n/a - this is an ARC CarPlay issue
For months, I’ve assumed that ARC just does not have a “Now Playing” icon in the top icon bar of its CarPlay app. This is a standard button in audio apps - I just thought ARC didn’t have it.
I mentioned this to another user who told me they do see this button. He provided me with the screenshot below, where the button is visible in the upper right corner.
This appears to a layout bug that is causing it to not be shown in my car - possible due to the narrower CarPlay screen. As you can see, though, from my initial screenshot, there is plenty of room available.
I’m requesting that you create a dev ticket to address this. Thank you.
Hi @gTunes,
Thank you for the report.
What’s the make/model of CarPlay head unit? If it’s an OEM unit that came with the car, the make and year of car will also provide the same information.
Hi, @connor.
This issue isn’t as simple as I thought it was. I played around with it some more and there are cases where the icon does show up as in the picture below.
I believe there are cases where I’m playing music, get out of the car, get back in and expect ARC to either start playing automatically or to at least have maintained the now playing state within itself when, in fact, it doesn’t. In these cases, I go into the ARC CarPlay app and, as my first screenshot illustrated, Now Playing doesn’t show up.
I’m not sure what to say about this. I don’t know if my expectations are flawed or if the app is losing state. I do know, though, that my original theory that the icon was being drawn offscreen almost certainly is wrong.
Thanks for your help and patience with this.
I’ve seen improvements in less glitches on my head unit since a recent update. I know from experience working at several Mini/BMW dealerships that during a service and if asked they’ll do the updates for you.
This is similar behaviour I use to experience. I had presumed the fix came from an Arc update but in fact it might be a mix of updates with Arc and my vans head unit.
We’ve had a chance to clarify this with development. In the current implementation: if the car turns off (ie. the head unit powers off), and ARC is in a paused state (even if a track was playing previously) when the head unit turns back on, there’s unfortunately no mechanism to communicate the Now Playing state to the head unit until playback is manually initiated.
Consequently, you’ll see no playbar when the car starts back up, even if a track was playing in CarPlay when you left the car. We recognize this isn’t ideal behavior and it’s on the roadmap for improvement. We’ll keep this thread open so you can receive notifications if a change occurs.
Thank you. This seems like a reasonable explanation for what I’ve seen.
In my specific car, CarPlay will start off in the playing state if it was in that state when powered off. Unfortunately, it also automatically drops the volume quite low. If I happen to be listening to a podcast or audio book, and CarPlay does this, I can miss a large portion due not knowing it’s playing. I’ve gotten in the habit of pausing audio before turning the car off to avoid this.
The other audio apps I use maintain their internal “Now Playing” state and it’s easy to pick up where I left off. ARC, as we now understand, doesn’t.
I do hope this ends up on the development backlog. It’s a detractor for me.
Thanks very much for looking into it and helping me understand what’s going on.
