Carplay 26 Spotify widget doesn’t show playing song

[djeza]

The Spotify widget on CarPlay 26 does not show the currently playing song. So when I am playing a song via the Spotify native BMW app and I keep the CarPlay Home Screen with the Spotify widget. It does not show the currently playing song and this is an important feature to have for such widget. 

Plan

Premium

Country

Netherlands 

Device

IPhone 13 Pro Max, iOS 26 & CarPlay 26 on BMW iDrive 8

[Joan]

Hi there @djeza,

Thanks for reaching out. We'll be glad to help you enjoy music in the car again.

We've seen quite a few changes to the overall experience on iPhone as well as CarPlay related to the recent update to iOS 26, so we'll gladly look deeper into this for you. Firstly, try disconnecting and reconnecting as well as restarting all devices involved. If after a few resets the issue persists, then could you send us some screenshots or a video of exactly what you see so that we can take a closer look? If the files are too large to attach here in the Community, you can send them to us via Google Drive or as unlisted YouTube videos.

Keep us posted.

[djeza]

hi there, I have reconnected all devices and rebooted them. The issue is persisting. Here you will find a video https://youtube.com/shorts/NCnDxEpiS8M?si=zOalfcyjpBYldmX7

It seems that the car’s native Spotify app is not syncing with CarPlay’s app. The song is currently playing on the BMW’s infotainment Spotify app but the Spotify CarPlay widget doesn’t show the playing song. 

[Maria]

Hey @djeza,

Thanks for including a few more details along with the video - we appreciate it!

We've passed this on to the right team, so they can have a closer look at the app behavior as well. If we have any news to share, we'll keep you posted in this thread.

Cheers!

[AlejaR]

Hey there @djeza,

We hope you're doing great.

We'd like to check, does the same happen if you open the app on your iPhone while playing content from the car’s native Spotify app?

Keep us in the loop!

[keydet]

I have this problem mirrored. I play the song from Spotify Carplay widget, I can see its name there all ok, but nothing is shown in car dash under the steering where bmw spotify app was previously showing the track and picture with Carplay 18. Might be a apple-bmw issue..

[Dessi]

Hey @keydet,

Thanks for joining the thread!

We've forwarded the info you provided to our tech folks looking into this so they can investigate further. In the meantime, it'd be great if you can try @AlejaR's suggestion about opening the app on your phone, since we want to check if this will force a re-sync and update the info shown on all platforms.

Keep us posted.

[keydet]

Did quick testing, this is what I've discovered:

Issue: Spotify Carplay app shows Big album picture and progression bar of the song during playing on the multimedia screen, but it stopped showing it on the dash under the steering wheel as a widget. It only shows miniaturized version of it when I touch the scroll button on the wheel controls to choose the song, choosing the song from steering wheel works perfect but then again no big version of the widget during playing.

I have tried to open the app and to control the song from two iPhones: 6S and 12 mini, it changes the song (but to be honest I didn't see the album picture on the carplay app multimedia screen during playing, only minituarized version as album icon when choosing downloaded album, could be that specific "Young Tender - Bluetooth" release problem) and I am able to fast forward and rewind it but its only reflected on the Carplay multimedia center console, not under the steering wheel.

Tried iPhone 6S iOS 15.8.5 Spotify 9.0.96 and iPhone 12 mini iOS 26 and 26.1 Spotify 9.0.96.

Also my bmw iDrive is not in its home region so it gets no over the air updates, its version is the same as when it worked before.