Plexamp’s carplay app is great, but from what I can find it’s the only one supporting any kind of queue. Prism doesn’t have up next in carplay unfortunately.
However, Plexamp’s up next selector takes 5+ seconds to open. iPhone 13 Pro, Wired Carplay on BMW Connect Drive running iOS 16.3 and the latest version of Plexamp.
Is this just me or can something be done to improve the load times of this screen from Plex’s side?
For clarification, this is the ‘Up Next’ button on the Now Playing Screen on Carplay.
I’ve been playing with this since your response trying to replicate exactly when it occurs. It does still happen for me, but it’s not much of a problem now I know exactly what causes it and have a workaround.
It only happens if I use ‘Play All’ in the downloads menu of Plexamp’s CarPlay app before connecting to the car. I have 1188 tracks downloaded offline, so I use play all as a shuffle of my downloads. My phone is always at 0% volume, so when I do that before connecting it’s playing on my phone silently. This gives me a chance to skip or queue songs. Plus, when it connects to the car, I’m listening to music already and plays in the car.
If I shuffle the library using any other method and keep all other variables the same, Up Next loads quickly as expected. But on my device, that specific routine slows down PlexAmp on CarPlay’s Up Next function.
For now I’ve got a simple workaround by immediately pausing the music after tapping play all and having a shortcut automation that simply is: When connecting to CarPlay → Play and that works enough for me.
I have the exact same CarPlay issue. Big library (~1,600 tracks) and usually listen on my phone, in the gym, to a Play All shuffle. Moving to the car after that has a BIG delay in CarPlay response. Assuming this is the issue, I now know of a few workarounds. Thank you!!
Can you explain “…a shortcut automation that simply is: When connecting to CarPlay → Play…” to me? Thanks again!! Dennis
Glad it helped! Let me know if you figure out anything better, but the shortcut you’re asking for is:
To explain what I did:
In the Shortcuts app, tap Automation along the bottom. Then tap + at the top. Then Create Personal Automation. Then tap CarPlay. By default it should already have Connects ticked, if not make sure it is. Then on the next screen tap Add Action and in the search box type ‘Play’. And under the media heading Play/Pause should be an option. I use this instead of Play Music as that’s limited to Apple Music whereas Play/Pause is generic and works for anything Youtube, Plex etc. Keep the device as iPhone as it will autoplay on CarPlay if connected. Tap the Play/Pause on the newly created action and change it to just Play. This way it shouldn’t ever pause your music if you forget to pause it yourself → instant music in car is very nice. Then tap next, then uncheck the Ask Before Running. A popup will show warning about the Ask Before Running, this is fine just tap Don’t Ask. Then tap Done.
This way it’ll automatically run without you needing to do anything. In that process you could also add actions for things like navigate to work etc. Doing that automatically opens the maps app on CarPlay ready for you → can save an extra few taps or clicks. Hope that helped!
This way it’ll automatically run without you needing to do anything.
