Subaru Outback Forums banner

2018 headunit issues thread.

723K views 2K replies 522 participants last post by  walker 
#1 ·
Test drove an new '18 Limited w/ Eyesight & Nav a couple of times. On at least 2 occasions on different drives, the head unit completely froze up. No response to soft or hard buttons or dials. Turned the car off and on again, but it was still frozen. Turned the car off and left it for a while, and all was OK again.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?:frown2:
 
#3 ·
The first time he was in the car. Said he never saw it before. The second time I was just sitting in the car getting familiar with the head unit functions. Salesman said he couldn't report it to Subaru until I bought the car. I don't plan to buy that one! Just wondering if it was a wide spread problem. :confused:
 
#4 ·
I took delivery of a 2018 Touring Thursday that has that HU.

I've not seen that happen yet.

What I do see regularly is a modal dialog box saying "Signal not found" (I forget the exact wording) and I think that refers to the Sirius satellite radio. It goes away after a few seconds, generally, but it DEMANDS your attention and gets in your way, for something that's pretty much never vital for your current purpose.

I griped at the dealership about that yesterday, told them the people that chose to do that should be shot. Seriously, for a car that's otherwise bending over backwards for safety equipment and trying to not have a distracted driver, how could THAT get past their thinking? I guess they were testing where they always had solid signal quality. Sirius seems to be fragile to a lot of things, including trees, when it comes to signal reliability. What makes me mad about it is it pops up, even when I'm not even trying to use Sirius. At least, I think it's Sirius it's reporting: it doesn't identify which signal!

I wonder if that part of the HU code is open source, and if I can get things built and installed after modifying it according to a sane way of doing things... my fear is the system may require it be cryptographically-signed by Subaru or whomever makes the HU, and won't be possible to modify what's there, short of getting their private key (that'd be a real problem for them were that to happen!).
 
  • Like
Reactions: ShibaMom
#5 ·
I bought a 2018 Outback last month and I continue to have this problem. The touch screen becomes unresponsive but the other buttons like RADIO, PHONE, HOME, etc... all work when pressed. The knob also works for me and helps control Apple Carplay when this happens but so far I have not found an easy fix. I plan on taking it to the dealership for maintenance as soon as possible... I was hoping they would come out with an update for the system soon. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I'm driving an 2018 Outback Premium 2.5i by the way.
 
#8 ·
Then you do the hokey-pokey and you turn your car around: that's what it's all about!

More seriously, these funky ways of getting things done, is there a reference for these things available mere mortals (I'm a software engineer at a huge software company) can get?

I suppose in the regular daily usage, only insane people turn their headlights on and off 10 times in a row in short order...:grin2:
 
#9 ·
2018 head unit freezing

2018 Premier (Canada) (Touring in USA). I've had my head unit freeze up a couple of times now. screen shows a bit of map and the radio plays the last channel tuned. absolutely no control of anything. I can however, zoom and pan around on the map.
dealer suggested forcing a power down of the system by disconnecting the negative battery terminal and holding that against the positive for 10 minutes. not that did anything. the system had rebooted before I did this and after the procedure still had all my settings. maybe not a good contact? anyway, with control reestablished, I did a reset from the settings menu. still working. so.....
 
#235 ·
2018 Premier (Canada) (Touring in USA). I've had my head unit freeze up a couple of times now. screen shows a bit of map and the radio plays the last channel tuned. absolutely no control of anything. I can however, zoom and pan around on the map.
dealer suggested forcing a power down of the system by disconnecting the negative battery terminal and holding that against the positive for 10 minutes. not that did anything. the system had rebooted before I did this and after the procedure still had all my settings. maybe not a good contact? anyway, with control reestablished, I did a reset from the settings menu. still working. so.....
This is exactly what mine is doing. Has happened at least 3-4 time in the month that I have had it.
 
#10 ·
Massive merged 2018 headunit thread.

Well I'm still a newbie here but I'm going to start a post with links and summaries of discovered issues and fixes with the 2018+ 8" Infotainment system. My goal is to use this post and the next two reserved post areas so this can be a "table of contents // index" to threads or specific posts with issues, possible fixes, etc. as time goes on.

Feel free to comment here if you see something (link, thread, etc.) to include in the TOC in Post #2
 
#762 ·
Well I'm still a newbie here but I'm going to start a post with links and summaries of discovered issues and fixes with the 2018+ 8" Infotainment system. My goal is to use this post and the next two reserved post areas so this can be a "table of contents // index" to threads or specific posts with issues, possible fixes, etc. as time goes on.

Feel free to comment here if you see something (link, thread, etc.) to include in the TOC in Post #2
I bought my 2018 Limited in July. Today I experienced the non-responsive head unit. According to the dealer, I need a software update. Subaru has apparently take a cue from Microsoft and Apple and have started beta testing on paying customers. This will be my last Subaru.
 
#11 ·
Reserved for TOC // index of issues

KNOWN ISSUES
------------------

CD Player does not play after car restart (link to discussion in forum)

Users experiencing head unit freezing up and becoming unresponsive

Volume Knob stops adjusting volume, display a map icon --> PROPOSED WORKAROUND, tested and works

Andoid Auto doesn't start, requires unplugging & re-plugging USB cable - Other Subaru reports with links to Google AA forum and search page

Presets that are set to XM radio channels get stuck and say "Initializing" - No known fix

KNOWN ANNOYANCES
-------------------------

When engine shut off, head unit stops playing thumbdrive and switches to XM/FM/etc - actually expected behaviour, see link

Volume blasts you out and can't turn it down immediately when starting car - Thanks to user groberts for notes
 
#12 ·
Common Issue, Android Auto fails to start when head unit claims there is a connection. Going to "Apps" on head unit, pushing Android Auto button, screen goes blank except for background but Android Auto never starts, or Android Auto starts in phone mode and never communicates with head unit

Seems to be a common issue with Subaru's new head unit

Links to people talking about it on the Google Android Auto help pages:

2018 Crosstrek & Samsung S8
2018 Outback & Samsung S7
User phishfood has same problems as above on Nexus 5X (made by LG, branded Google)
2018 Outback and Note 5
2018 Crosstrek issue (different from above)

LINK TO GOOGLE ANDROID AUTO SUPPORT FORUMS SEARCHING FOR SUBARU
 
#15 ·
I have an issue where I'm playing off a thumbdrive, or pandora and when I shut off the engine, it instantly goes to SiriusXM. Shuts off completely when I open the door. As I programmer of touchpanels for automation, I can't imagine a reason why anyone would do this. I'd be willing, if it were possible, to work with Harmon on the bugs in this system, and suggest improvements!
 
#16 ·
The radio will stop playing off the USB thumbdrive because when engine is shut off the car de-powers everything except the radio. So your USB thumb drive loses power and then the radio goes to whatever it may have last been in that is still available. FM, CD, XM, etc.

They do this I assume so someone can't leave something in a USB port like a tablet, etc., that will suck the battery down over a day or two.

If you are careful when turning engine off (if you have a key) you can shut off and leave in accessory mode. I think even then there's a brief power disruption to USB stick.
 
#41 ·
The head unit changes to radio from CD or USB thumb drive when the ignition is turned off, then opening the driver's door turns off the radio. When you restart the car, the radio comes back on and the HU does not resume USB stick playback unless you manually go to "Media" on the home screen. A CD that was playing before will try to unsuccessfully load; you then have to eject and reinsert the CD to get it to resume play.

I don't think the reversion to radio is a power saving design feature to mitigate leaving a tablet plugged in; I think it is just a stupid programming feature and needs to be fixed with a software update.
 
#45 ·
Just as an update, this happened to me again today for about the fourth time in three months in my 2018 Outback Touring. The freeze has been a little different each time, varying from a total freeze to today when it seemed to just affect the Nav system (map, speed limit sign, etc.). Simply starting and stopping the engine and turning everything off didn't change it, but waiting for about 15 minutes, and then restarting, in this case brought all back to normal. Annoying!

My dealer rep told me he has heard that the next Subaru software update will fix this, but he didn't know when that would be. Although he's a good guy, that did seem like kind of a canned answer to me.

Does anyone else have better info on how to get things unfrozen without the wait? Or when the software update may happen?
 
#18 ·
I had a different issue on mine: tried to use voice command to map a route, but that locked out the *audio* and certain other functions. Touch screen itself continued to work (i.e., could manually enter the address and have it map, could see that it was receiving and switching between satellite, HD radio -- just no sound.)

Car works great in other ways, but this is confusing and weird.
 
#19 ·
Yep, same here. Have a 2018 Limited. Head unit freezes about once a week. Usually seems to recover after turning the car on and off but the last time had to pull the navi fuse to get it to come back - no combination of turning off the car, letting it sit, etc etc would do anything.
 
#21 ·
Edits 10/18/2017

1. Added line for the preset button "Initializing" error

2. Modified so instead of just an "Issues" section there is an "Annoyances" section for things that while annoying may not qualify as an "Issue"

3. I managed to get Radio stuck in volume knob doesn't work, shows a map icon and volume doesn't change. Tested proposed fix and it worked as advertised, updated list to show "fix" as working.
 
#24 ·
So, less than 1700 miles on my new 2018 Limited 2.5 and the infotainment system quit. Driving along and went to change station - nothing! Seems then entire left side on the steering wheel controls doesn't work! I can see the tunes changing, can switch to map and other sources, but volume doesn't work and worst...I CAN"T TURN IT OFF! AND, the back up camera isn't working :(

I got home, shut the car off, went in house for 20 minutes, came back to car to see the screen was still on. Not gonna let the battery die in my drive way, so back to the dealer she goes; and driving a loaner till they figure it out.
Anyone out there have same issues?? Any fixes??
 
#30 ·
Another 2018 Outback owner here experiencing the freezing and reboots. We own an '18 Limited 3.6R w/ the 8" multimedia navigation unit. The likelihood of ours glitching seems to be tied to use of Android Auto. The more we plug our phones in and interact through AA, the more likely it is that the headunit fails. Have connected 3 different phones (Pixel, Pixel 2, and Note 8) with the same result.

We also experience audio static through *all* sources (radio, SXM, Android Auto) when the glitching is particularly bad. With every occurrence, the headunit eventually reboots, just a question of when.

Sadly, the upgrades to the multimedia/nav was a key motivator in our decision to purchase an '18 over a '17. Have hoped Subaru would push out a software update that would resolve it, but losing faith. If anyone beats us to the dealership for a service appointment to address, would greatly appreciate your feedback.
 
#32 ·
Here's a list of issues we've experienced in no particular order. Most issues seem can be fixed by turning car all the way off and back on, but not all. Some have required leaving car overnight, at least one has required pulling a fuse.

Pandora app freezing (can't change stations, skip songs, change volume, etc) while other audio sources work fine
Carplay refusing to connect (iPhone shows carplay logo, but nothing on head unit)
Sudden volume changes (e.g. music suddenly much louder after a set of navigation instructions or phone call)
Radio unable to pick up signal (no stations come in, just static)
Touchscreen freezing (touchscreen non-responsive, while steering wheel controls, knobs still work)
Volume adjustment issues (can't change volume in a single app, sometimes across all apps)
Total head unit freeze (touchscreen, knobs, steering wheel controls all non-responsive) - this persisted through multiple on/off cycles. Had to pull head unit fuse to fix this one.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are ones that we've experienced over the last two weeks or so.

I would estimate that we encounter a problem about once every 5 trips in the car. I've never experienced anything like this before frankly. It's clear the manufacturer did absolutely no testing on this system.
 
#34 ·
I am having the same problem. I have an upcoming appointment with the dealership for a "Love-Encore Visit". Per the email from the dealer:

"This is a free appointment where I will meet with you for about 30-45 minutes to review and present all of the features your car is capable of, as well as answer any questions you may have since you have been driving it."

I will bring up the issue, see what they have to say and report back. This is frustrating on a vehicle we have all paid 30k+ for....
 
#35 ·
Same problem also. 8" with navigation froze, none of the buttons worked. Pulled over shut off the car, restarted it, no change screen still frozen. Got home shut off car several hours later started car and screen is normal again. Will be going back to the dealer for service.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top