I only recently started seeing the “autosteer temporarily unavailable” while driving on perfectly clear days with no fog, rain, or heavy snow, and it always occurred in the mornings between 6 AM and 7:30 AM. Sometimes autosteer would later become available during my 40 minute drive to work.
Because of the sudden onset of this problem, I thought it might be related to one of the recent software upgrades. And because of the consistent timing of this unavailability of autosteer in the mornings, I thought about the possibility that perhaps autosteer now requires the headlights to be engaged during specific hours in the morning and evening, or when the ambient outdoor sunlight intensity is below a specific threshold.
So I tested that hypothesis and it seems to be correct. The last several times that I had no availability of autosteer in the mornings, I noticed that my headlights were in the “off” setting rather than the “auto” setting. As soon as I changed the headlight setting to “auto”, the small gray steering wheel circle icon on the display was immediately available again, giving me access to autosteer, and it functioned perfectly each time.
To further test this theory, as soon as I turned the headlights back to the “off” setting, the autosteer was no longer available and the gray steering wheel icon was gone from the display, during these morning drives. This is never an issue later in the morning and afternoon, when the ambient sunlight is brighter.
