I may have accidentally stumbled on the cause and fix for the iDrive reboot problem.
I use an iPhone 5 connected to the iDrive via bluetooth on my 6 month old 320i F30 and I never had any issues until one day, the iDrive kept rebooting itself.
I had recently cleaned my 3 email accounts and contacts. I initially had something like 1,800 contacts. I cleaned it up and replicated the contacts to all 3 accounts. So on my IPhone, I ended up with 4,500 contacts. That was when the problem started. I noticed that the system rebooted itself when the data was being synchronized between the phone and the iDrive.
I have 6K+ songs on my iPod connected to the USB port in the arm rest using an iPhone cable.
I tried by not syncing the contact to the I drive. This is done by deselecting the option on the iPhone Bluetooth device setting. The problem went away. Then I checked the favorites & recent numbers. This resulted in only 10 numbers being synced to the iDrive and the iDrive was stable. But I still needed the full contacts in the iDrive and when I sync again, the iDrive rebooted.
I cleaned up my contacts by removing the triplicates and brought the number down to 1,500 and now the iDrive has not rebooted for 3 weeks.
I suspect the issue has more to do with the volume of data being streamed/transferred/synchronized from your device and the iDrive system. If the volume is large and/or an internal error is encountered, the iDrive will reboot. Reduce the volume of data and the iDrive will be stable. In my case it was the contacts but if you also use your phone for your music, the net result is the same issue.
For those that may not have the problem of the iDrive reboot, check your contacts and songs. Do you sync them with the iDrive and if you do but do not have this problem, I suspect your volume of data is comparatively smaller.
I think there would less likely to be a problem if you connect your phone using a USB cable to the USB port. I can't do this because I use the port for my iPod. I must admit I did not try this route when I had the 4,500 contacts.
I saved myself a trip to the SC and the hassle of a warranty claim.
Hope this is of help. Try it and see if it works.
My next aim is to bulk transfer my contacts into the iDrive. Having to manually save each of the contacts using bluetooth is impractical.
