5GHz WiFi connects but doesn't work?

[Msjulie]

The wireless router in the house, probably like 90% of them out there, has both 2.4ghz and 5GHz antennas. For a while there, I had disabled WiFi to stop updates (see other threads for reasons) but in the last week or so I've had the car connected to house WiFi.

Or so I thought... the UI showed connected and signal strength was good but the UI prompts said to connect to WiFi to download available update. So on a whim I disconnected and reconnected (done this before) but this time connected to the 2.4GHz network. Suddenly the download began

Anyone else see that? Should I have know this from before? Seems pretty odd..

 

[JulienW]

5GHz won't penetrate walls very well. It is mostly line of sight and fairly short range. If using 5GHz in a garage you will probably need an access point in the garage also.

 

[GolanB]

Yep; 5GHz works very well in closer ranges, but you'll need to fall back on 2.4GHz if you're out a greater distance.

 

[Msjulie]

Well the wall where the router lives is the other side of the garage and the car showed full strength.. guess it was actually lying.. update completed so there's that..

 

[galan]

Try deleting the 5 Ghz network entry from the car's list of connected/known networks, and then reselect the 5 GHz network from the networks available list and enter the password (as opposed to just disconnecting and reconnecting).

 

[TomB985]

Yep, the exact same thing happened to me. I’ve updated at least twice on the 5G network without issue, but when I noticed there was an update pending it would not connect for some reason. I had to connect my 2.4 G network to download the update. Not sure if anything changed with the latest firmware, though.

 

[galan]

Yep, the exact same thing happened to me. I’ve updated at least twice on the 5G network without issue, but when I noticed there was an update pending it would not connect for some reason. I had to connect my 2.4 G network to download the update. Not sure if anything changed with the latest firmware, though.

Don't think is firmware issue... I downloaded and installed 2019.24.4 yesterday morning over my 5 GHz network connection.

 

[Twiglett]

nope its not your car. Just the way 5GHz wifi works. As others have already said, 2.4 may be slower but is much better at getting through walls etc.
I switched my home wifi from a single Nighthawk and almost zero 5GHz coverage - to four Ubiquiti UniFi APs and now have excellent 5GHz across the house. It also lets me see when the car connects and how much it downloads and uploads.

 

[ZOMGVTEK]

Even very high end WAP’s have very poor 5Ghz range compared to what the average person would expect. But the cars computer is very slow, so there’s really no benefit to bandwidth beyond 20mbit or so. A good WAP will do a few hundred mbit on 2.4 through a wall or two. 5Ghz on average priced consumer hardware isn’t terribly advantageous past one wall and direct line of sight. Unless you’re in a high density area with a zillion devices on 2.4, then probably just get more than one WAP and chuck them in every room.

 

[Wennfred]

A mobile tech came out to someone’s house, he had that guy switch to the 2.4Ghz side of the router and it worked, I always use the 2,4Ghz side to connect to the Tesla and have had no issues. WiFi antenna is located in the driver side mirror per someone’s observation here in these forums. Make sure to park in the garage where the driver side is facing the router during updates.

Fred

 

[Watts_Up]

I had a similar experience, I was able to connect to my wireless router with my phone inside my car.

Using the car browser I was able to connect to my WiFi, so I connected to Fast.com to check the speed.
The download was very slow compared to my phone and the upload was hanging.

Since I installed a WiFi range extender in my garage and now I get regularly all the new updates, I'm now on 2019.24 .4

 

[JulienW]

nope its not your car. Just the way 5GHz wifi works. As others have already said, 2.4 may be slower but is much better at getting through walls etc.....

Just to add...Slower is relative and NOT at all important in this case. 2.4GHz is plenty fast enough for updates and data sent to Tesla. All that matters is the OP 's car is connected and they are receiving the updates.

 

[jjrandorin]

To answer OP, I had a somewhat similar experience. I have an access point very close to the garage (but not IN the garage) and had the car connected to the 5Ghz side of the network. Full bars, and even did a speed test from the cars web browser and had no issues connecting.... but did not seem to be getting updates.

I even swapped to a mesh network setup (netgear orbi) which I ended up taking back to costco because it used the same SSID for 2.4 and 5 and there was no way to separate it, so the devices themselves were supposed to "just connect to the right one".

When I went back to my asus router + additional router used as a WAP, and swapped the car to the 2.4 network, I started receiving updates shortly after that. I just leave it on the 2.4 (the car) now.

 

[Msjulie]

Leaving the car on the 2.4GHz for now

 

[Trips]

Greentheonly also was pointing out another issue with 5GHz.

July 24th - Hm, I wonder if Tesla is aware on 32 bit platforms when you reach beyond 4G, you start at 0 again. Did anybody even test the new maps deploying on MCU1 cars or is this perpetual verification loop a ploy to make the displays seem even slower than they are?

July 24th - I bet while this loop is ongoing, there would be no firmware updates possible either? I'd say, deploy the teleforce, what do you think? (nb: I cannot believe that guy is still there)

July 24th - Ok, so I wake up and the updater is no longer crashing. After some investigation it looks like the verification actually did complete on one of the next iterations instead of Tesla just withdrawing the maps. So the code is capable, just only *sometimes*?

July 24th - So to MCU1 users, if you just saw your car download ~5G over wifi and then everything became slow - it's the maps. No, they will never finish installing, it looks like (you'll also know it's the maps because it'll show on the software page in settings I guess).

green (@greentheonly) | Twitter