[Brissy]

Moved from a Liberty/Legacy to a Forester 2019.

In the Liberty, when USB was selected and MP3 tracks playing startup would carry on playing where left off. IE. Jump out and go to shops mid-track, when starting up after return the same track would continue where it left off.

Not with the Forester 2019 - it always reverts back to the radio meaning you have to reselect USB, refind the song and play - it is a real irritation (and has suprised me just how anoying! lol :surprise

Unfortunately I cant see it getting fixed as it is by-design. What happens is that the USB is powered on the Aux circuitry so when getting back in to the car after a general exit/lock, the Infotainment system is powered BUT not the USB ports. The USB is not seen and so Infotainment falls back on the radio. Just an unthoughtout design :-(

 

[F4LL0U7]

I joined this forum to try to find a solution to this issue. It is truly maddening. I use Android Auto, and so I have absolutely no need for the radio at all, not even Sirius. But whenever I turn the car on or off, the audio defaults to Sirius.

I thought I could fix the problem by calling up Sirius and cancelling the trial. But the joke was on me, because now instead of hearing the Sirius radio stream, all I hear is a never-ending promo telling me to subscribe to Sirius. I hear this every single time I turn on or off my car. It absolutely ruins the otherwise fantastic experience of driving a 2019 Forester.

Does anyone know how I can disable the radio without having to manually turn down the volume / turn off the head unit / change media sources every time I turn the car on or off? Preferably without pulling out the head unit and ripping out the radio antenna...

 

[asphaltaddict33]

I like to remind myself that I bought a Subaru, not a Lexus or Audi, when these issues appear.

My radio also, always defaults to the Serius/XM 'preview-promo' station.... even though I have a full and active subscription. Its super annoying but again, its a Subaru. There is only so much a small company can do in developing features and systems for a vehicle. And infotainment systems have been the laggard in vehicle technology for years so I do not find it too surprising that Subaru does not have the best electronics suite. It is a vehicle that is after all sold on the reputation of its AWD system and mechanical reliability, not its prowess for delivering fancy in-cabin tech.

I have not even asked my dealer to try and diagnose or fix the issue for fear of a worse idiosyncrasy appearing. In my 2016 the stock head unit is from Pioneer, so I do not anticipate dealer techs gets extensive procedures to troubleshoot a piece of hardware Subaru buys from a supplier....

So its not a new issue, its just a Subaru

 

[F4LL0U7]

not its prowess for delivering fancy in-cabin tech

Thanks for the reply. The thing is, the 2019 Forester has tons of fancy in-cabin tech. This is literally the only problem I've noticed. They definitely put a lot of thought and hard work into every other aspect of the vehicle and driving experience. The only exception is the radio issue.

I found a partial solution by plugging an audio cable into the AUX port, and selecting that as my audio source. I didn't need to plug the audio cable into anything else. In fact, once I realized that this improved the issue, I plugged in a small audio adapter in order to take less space.

Basically, I think the concept is that if the head unit detects there's an audio source besides the radio, it will default to that. The improvement is that when I turn on the car, I can do so in blissful silence. AUX seems to be selected by default when starting up the car. However, when turning off the car, the Sirius promo continues to play.

Next I'm going to see if I can burn an audio CD of complete silence, and just leave that in the disc drive. Maybe that will supersede all other audio sources.

 

[gumbobtr]

Try this. Go into Settings -> General -> SXM -> and make sure that "Tune Start" is disabled. Turned this off on mine (8" with NAV) and now it auto plays USB or iPod depending on what is connected. Plus it continues playing where it left off. Hope this works for you.

 

[DCUWATCHES]

Does this work when using carplay from an iPhone (or alternatively, Android Auto/Andoid phone)?

This is going to be the first thing I do once mine arrives!

 

[badtlc]

My radio also, always defaults to the Serius/XM 'preview-promo' station.... even though I have a full and active subscription. Its super annoying but again, its a Subaru. There is only so much a small company can do in developing features and systems for a vehicle.

This is actually completely normal when listening to SXM stations if you are on a channel with explicit lyrics. Subaru doesn't want little kids to hear bad words by accident so if the last station you listened to had explicit content, it will switch to the promo station when you turn the car off. If the channel did not have explicit lyrics, it will keep the last channel you listening to.

Really odd setup.

 

[gumbobtr]

Does this work when using carplay from an iPhone (or alternatively, Android Auto/Andoid phone)?

This is going to be the first thing I do once mine arrives!

Well, for me Car Play is hit or miss when connecting after I start the car. Typically it works however it is not 100%. that said the little bit of testing I did if Pandora is playing when disconnected then Pandora starts to play when the engine is started and Car Play starts up. I also played Pandora via bluetooth and when I stopped/started the car the HU popped up an error that it was unable to connect to Pandora. However after the phone and HU bluetooth connected the error cleared and Pandora began to play. My guess is your mileage may vary because things on the phone may change between trips in the car so the experience may also change with that. But at least SXM is no longer the default audio source on every start so hopefully this works for folks using a USB.

 

[asphaltaddict33]

This is actually completely normal when listening to SXM stations if you are on a channel with explicit lyrics. Subaru doesn't want little kids to hear bad words by accident so if the last station you listened to had explicit content, it will switch to the promo station when you turn the car off. If the channel did not have explicit lyrics, it will keep the last channel you listening to.

Really odd setup.

That is very interesting if true, is this stated in the manual somewhere? I will have to pay attention to the station it was left on when it resets now, I felt it was random before but this could explain the inconsistency in reverting to the preview station.

Kind of an interesting feature, but also obnoxious, why does Subaru feel it is their responsibility to monitor these things? And are they really so pretentious to assume everyone who buys their vehicles has kids in them 24/7?

 

[F4LL0U7]

Just a couple of things based on troubleshooting I did last night.

make sure that "Tune Start" is disabled

"Tune Start" was already disabled in my SXM settings. Toggling it on and off again did nothing to improve the issue with Sirius playing automatically whenever I turn on or off the car.

What DID work, and has continued to work after turning the car on and off several times over the past 12 hours was this:

Pull up Sirius on the head unit and navigate to their channel listing. Tap on Channel 0, which is apparently the radio ID or something like that. You should hear nothing but blissful silence. Leave your radio tuned to SXM Ch. 0, and to be extra safe, set your first radio preset as that channel. Since I don't use the radio at all, I set it as every single radio preset.

Now you can connect your phone, USB, AUX, or whatever other input you'd like and listen as you normally would. When you turn off the car and your audio source of choice disconnects, the car will still automatically pull up the radio again, but it will be SXM Ch. 0 (silence!) instead of the SXM promo, static, or any other random radio station. Same thing when you turn the car back on again.

Does this work when using carplay or Android Auto?

Well, for me Car Play is hit or miss when connecting after I start the car. Typically it works however it is not 100%.

I use Android Auto, and it was also hit or miss for me when I first got the car, until I *might* have figured out how the car "prefers" to connect. I noticed that if I plugged my phone into the car before I started the car, it refused to connect properly. The phone will still connect via Bluetooth, but Android Auto refuses to launch.

I realized that if I turn the car on first (or at least turn it to accessory) so that the car and phone establish a Bluetooth connection first, then when I plug in the phone, Android Auto launches immediately with no issues.

---

TL;DR:

1. Set your radio preset to SXM Ch. 0 if you want silence when you turn on/off the car.

2. Turn your car on and wait for Bluetooth to connect before plugging in your phone in order to avoid connectivity issues with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.

 

[badtlc]

That is very interesting if true, is this stated in the manual somewhere? I will have to pay attention to the station it was left on when it resets now, I felt it was random before but this could explain the inconsistency in reverting to the preview station.

Kind of an interesting feature, but also obnoxious, why does Subaru feel it is their responsibility to monitor these things? And are they really so pretentious to assume everyone who buys their vehicles has kids in them 24/7?

I found out during my love encore meeting or whatever it was called. I mentioned it was random and odd and they laughed because it had been a while since they heard someone complain about it.

 

[Brissy]

Anyway - back to the OP original issue.....

It was my bad - In Settings->General set USB Auto to ON and once ignition (or Acc power) is on the USB play resumes. Yeay - one niggle resolved as RTFM lol