Music and media system questions / issues

[slobak]

Hi, fairly new R1S owner here - loving the vehicle and really excited about it! I think the software is a highlight and definitely feels top-tier, you can tell the company focuses on the experience there because it's so essential to a modern driving experience.

That said, I've got lots of questions and feedback, I thought I would bundle related ideas under a single topic. More generally, if there is a better place to pose these I am open to being schooled! Otherwise I'd love to hear your thoughts on whichever you can help with / speak to.

1. I don't want the music to go quiet when navigation pipes up. Navigation speaks all the time, and I can hear it with the music on, I don't want it to be "smart". In fact, the current system depresses music volume a disrupting amount, too frequently, and for too long that it ruins any kind of listening experience so I disable nav voices altogether, which is really suboptimal. Is there any way to tune or toggle this?

(Rivian: can this "feature" be made into an option, or a slider for how much volume decreases with the possibility of zero?)

2. Spotify won't seem to navigate into playlist folders for me, if I click on it just shows a folder, no obvious way to click on subfolders, so all the music inside is inaccessible. This is problematic as I organize lots of playlists into folders and right now the only way I can play them is if I am able to find them under Recent. Seems like a bug?

3. The SiriusXM app has various issues. I don't know how much of this is Rivian-specific or if it's all SiriusXM's client:
a. when it plays in "delayed" mode (vs "live"), often I'll be in the middle of a song and it will suddenly START OVER. I think it's related to when the actual real-time track ends, but it's common and annoying.
b. I only get the track/artist like 20-50% of the time maybe. I live in a big metro area, my cell / Internet is fine, not sure why this is so unreliable.

4. For playing video, do I really have to switch my device to get onto a new WIFI network? Having to go into device settings, screens on the car, etc. to connect and disconnect like that is enough of a pain that I just don't think I will use this. Now if I had like an iPad in the car that was always connected to it then sure, but then what's the point of this feature? It feels like it would be most useful if I have some content on my phone and want to make it more visible / accessible to myself and other riders. Is there an easier way here?

Thanks for your thoughts!

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[COdogman]

Welcome! In reverse order:

4. To cast the video from your phone you need to be on the same network as the destination, which is the infotainment system. So it does have to be the Rivian WiFi.

3. The SXM app is only as good as the ATT reception where you are.

2. I don’t use Spotify so I can’t help on this one.

1. You can definitely control the nav and music volume as you desire:

 

[slobak]

Thanks! For the nav and music volume, I've been in those settings... I can control the nav volume to, say, mute it separately. But I can't seem to change the fact that WHEN the nav comes on, it also LOWERS the music volume, whatever the music volume is set at. So you're getting turn-by-turn directions but every 15 seconds your music drops out for like 3 seconds while the nav says something. It's just unusable for me and so it's this specific interaction I'd like to disable.

Welcome! In reverse order:

4. To cast the video from your phone you need to be on the same network as the destination, which is the infotainment system. So it does have to be the Rivian WiFi.

3. The SXM app is only as good as the ATT reception where you are.

2. I don’t use Spotify so I can’t help on this one.

1. You can definitely control the nav and music volume as you desire:

 

[COdogman]

Thanks! For the nav and music volume, I've been in those settings... I can control the nav volume to, say, mute it separately. But I can't seem to change the fact that WHEN the nav comes on, it also LOWERS the music volume, whatever the music volume is set at. So you're getting turn-by-turn directions but every 15 seconds your music drops out for like 3 seconds while the nav says something. It's just unusable for me and so it's this specific interaction I'd like to disable.

The other place you can control the navigation audio is after you enter the destination and start the route. In the lower left you will see a box with a speaker icon. I stole this pic from another thread since I’m not in my truck right now.

If you have it set on mute and it’s still giving you voice directions then you may want to do a soft reset (hold down both outside steering wheel buttons for 15s until you see the reset start on the screen). After an update you will occasionally find that settings are changed or gone or aren’t working properly. A soft reset often fixes it. Sometimes a hard reset is required, but both are worth trying before calling service.

 

[ErikRivian]

The other place you can control the navigation audio is after you enter the destination and start the route. In the lower left you will see a box with a speaker icon. I stole this pic from another thread since I’m not in my truck right now.

If you have it set on mute and it’s still giving you voice directions then you may want to do a soft reset (hold down both outside steering wheel buttons for 15s until you see the reset start on the screen). After an update you will occasionally find that settings are changed or gone or aren’t working properly. A soft reset often fixes it. Sometimes a hard reset is required, but both are worth trying before calling service.

My R1T gen 2 has the speaker icon on the right of the map (maybe a software selection option somewhere i suppose), but took a while before I learned about x-ing it out to stop the sound disturbance!

 

[COdogman]

My R1T gen 2 has the speaker icon on the right of the map (maybe a software selection option somewhere i suppose), but took a while before I learned about x-ing it out to stop the sound disturbance!

I thought it was on the right also. I think it moved there in one of the software updates. That pic I grabbed was from an older thread.

 

[slobak]

Yeah, I've been able to mute the nav, thanks for the various tips about that. I don't want to keep it muted, though, because then I'm not getting spoken directions. I want to be able to get spoken directions with some volume, I just don't want it to LOWER the music volume too while it's speaking.

 

[DavidM]

SiriusXM periodic and unprompted track restart and/or skip ahead to the next track… this is a unique issue to SiriusXM in Rivian. They decided to not use a satellite antenna on this vehicle, so there is no SiriusXM radio in the vehicle; only an app. As a result, there is also no way to transfer subscriptions, such as a pre-paid lifetime subscription. Also, the transitioning between WiFi connection in garage to mobile (AT&T) the app periodically fails to authenticate; there is no way to restart the app, it just hangs. You either need to reboot the vehicle (like Windows 95) or wait until the next day. This is 100% a Rivian software problem… unacceptable for a $100k vehicle… and super annoying.

Notifying Rivian via the app does nothing. Support has no workflow for accepting these kinds of issues. There is no software support feedback mechanism to route this kind of thing to developers at Rivian. This leaves the only available action; to howl at the moon on this forum.

 

[R1T_Cruising_Male]

Traded up from 22 R1T LE to Gen 2 26 R1S LE. The connectivity is 100 percent worse than my Gen 1. Very frustrating. 4 bars, sketchy connectivity. Appointment with SC in dec. I have Many "captures" to help the tech but tech will will mostly likely say "if I can't replicate the problem, there is nothing I can do". Very frustrating. I'm hoping they have the skill and equipment to test the signal strength from the shark antenna (my guess that is the problem). I doubt the signal strength from the antenna shows up in the error log. I'm very disappointed. BTW, ota update 2025.38.30 helped a little, but connectivity is still sketchy. Any thoughts.

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