Car Factory reset itself yesterday!?!

[ybbor]

I was driving over to a friends house yesterday. I put their location in the nav and it just said loading route, but never started giving directions. I figured i might need to reboot the computer, so pressed both steering wheel buttons like i've done 100 times over my 4 years of ownership... The reboot took longer then usual (and always a strange feeling while driving).

When the car computer came back up, the car visualization was wrong (old), and no music, so I started checking. Spotify was logged out. FSD Beta was disabled. All autopilot was disabled. navigate on autopilot was off. Went to the nav dropdown and all my recent nav points, and favors were gone. My Trips (I had a lifetime trip I started 2 miles after getting my car) were gone. Homelink reset. cars remote data was off. The only thing the car remembered was my phone key.

I immediately marked the time, and scheduled service to hopefully have them check the car logs to see what the heck happened.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Seemed super odd!

 

[eCharcoal]

It happened to our Model 3. All driver profiles, homelink, saved locations gone. It even set a glovebox PIN by itself (we never had one set up). After reading some posts, it looks like it happened more often in recent software updates. I wouldn’t worry too much.

 

[Krobbler]

This just happened to my 19 Model 3 40 minutes ago. Nav, radio, and screen were choppy while driving so I performed a two-button reset and the screen stayed black for 10 min. Once it came back nav was showing it was at the Palo Alto Tesla HQ. All settings are gone except streaming and I had to re-setup my phone and keys.

Now it has a pending SW update that is currently downloading.

 

[jjrandorin]

I was driving over to a friends house yesterday. I put their location in the nav and it just said loading route, but never started giving directions. I figured i might need to reboot the computer, so pressed both steering wheel buttons like i've done 100 times over my 4 years of ownership... The reboot took longer then usual (and always a strange feeling while driving).

When the car computer came back up, the car visualization was wrong (old), and no music, so I started checking. Spotify was logged out. FSD Beta was disabled. All autopilot was disabled. navigate on autopilot was off. Went to the nav dropdown and all my recent nav points, and favors were gone. My Trips (I had a lifetime trip I started 2 miles after getting my car) were gone. Homelink reset. cars remote data was off. The only thing the car remembered was my phone key.

I immediately marked the time, and scheduled service to hopefully have them check the car logs to see what the heck happened.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Seemed super odd!

I have seen this reported by members here on rare occasions over the years (since I started reading TMC in 2018) but there does seem to be an uptick in reports of this in the past few months.

I dont work for tesla, but do work in IT for my day job, so I am going to take a stab at a guess on what is going on here. My guess is, when tesla does firmware updates, there is always a chance that "something happens" when you apply a firmware update to electronics. In such cases, to prevent bricking the electronic device or to recover it, you might factory reset the device.

My guess (again its just a guess) is that if certain electronics in the car end up in an error state, they try to correct, and if they are not able to, "the system" triggers a factory flash to recover operability (instead of the electronic device remaining in this error state).

Again, stressing I am just guessing, I also think that this is likely only tied to certain electronics in the car, but one of them must be the same device that holds profiles etc.

During this uptick of people reporting this, I havent seen an uptick of people needing to have car computers replaced or anything like that (there are a couple of posts but not this uptick like I am noticing of "profile resetting").

This would be especially annoying for anyone who was using one of the trip computers to track their lifetime wh/mi (like I am), but its a preferrable thing to the car not being able to operate (if indeed this is what is going on).

 

[ybbor]

Tesla service just responded saying they pulled the system logs and sent them for technical review. I'll post back if they find anything meaningful.

Also, if you have not already, create a new driver profile that syncs to your tesla account. Apparently my original profile before the reset was just a local one, so none of my driver specific settings got saved.

Fingers crossed it's just a bug and not a hardware issue; I'm 6 months out of warranty :-(

 

[EVRider-FL]

Interesting that the OP encountered this when rebooting, without doing a software update. All the other reports I’ve read about happened during a software update. I think software updates reboot the car, so maybe the problem isn’t actually caused by software updates, but rather by the resulting reboot.

 

[ybbor]

Interesting that the OP encountered this when rebooting, without doing a software update. All the other reports I’ve read about happened during a software update. I think software updates reboot the car, so maybe the problem isn’t actually caused by software updates, but rather by the resulting reboot.

Interesting. Yeah, I have not had a software update in about a month. On FSD 10.69.25.2 (2022.44.30.10) since Jan 23 2023. All had been good until the two button steering wheel reboot.

 

[father_of_6]

Interesting that the OP encountered this when rebooting, without doing a software update. All the other reports I’ve read about happened during a software update. I think software updates reboot the car, so maybe the problem isn’t actually caused by software updates, but rather by the resulting reboot.

In my mind, there are 2 ways that your profile data could be saved.

Way #1 would be something like a table of name-value pairs:
carName: "My Model 3"
seatPosX: 41
seatPosZ: 22

Way #2 would be a large single object containing something similar to way #1:
{carName:"My Model 3", seatPosX:41, seatPosZ:22}

That this problem happens at all implies that it's way #2... it's most likely not being "factory reset", it's that when the software tries to read your settings, they are "corrupt".

For instance, imagine the software only wrote half of your profile data on a save and then rebooted:
{carName:"My Model 3", seatP

When the software tries to read your settings again, it can't parse them because they're in an invalid format. It's expecting an object with a closing curly brace and a number of properties with valid values... instead it just barfs.

The logical conclusion would be that the software has *no* settings and thus uses default values for everything (aka factory reset).

This could happen for a number of reasons. It could be a hardware failure - one single memory location on the SSD could be returning a 1 even though a 0 was written there.

It could be poorly written software. Perhaps the scroll wheel reboot doesn't wait until profile saves are complete... or perhaps it needs to halt all saves and then reboot, but it doesn't. In this case, roll the dice, and every once in a while the reboot will happen mid profile save, which could leave you with "half" of a profile.

It could even be that a feature was modified such that the value for a given property changed from a simple numeric value to a sub object of it's own, and the update was responsible for converting it... but it was written poorly or doesn't catch all cases... so in a number of cars it results in saving broken settings.

I thought all profiles were saved remotely since an update last year, but it sounds like we actually have to be proactive and choose for that to happen. I'll be doing that very soon.

 

[tom.t.walker]

Has anyone else ever experienced this? Seemed super odd!

This happened to my son's model 3 this morning shortly after leaving the house. 2019 M3 2022.40.25.5 w/ FSD Beta. Had you put it in gear (reverse or drive) before it happened? It might have happened at the same time I viewed his car (to see his ETA to my house) on my Tesla app, not sure. I accidentally went into the "Controls" screen as I was setting down the phone. Wondering if the bug occurred because I accidentally hit some control while he was driving (e.g. "honk" or "unlock charge port"). It of course should not do that action (honk/unlock,etc) while car is in drive, but maybe the bug was due to that scenario? Were you or anyone else accessing your car on the app at the time?

 

[ybbor]

Had you put it in gear (reverse or drive) before it happened? It might have happened at the same time I viewed his car (to see his ETA to my house) on my Tesla app, not sure. I accidentally went into the "Controls" screen as I was setting down the phone. Wondering if the bug occurred because I accidentally hit some control while he was driving (e.g. "honk" or "unlock charge port"). It of course should not do that action (honk/unlock,etc) while car is in drive, but maybe the bug was due to that scenario? Were you or anyone else accessing your car on the app at the time?

I was driving down the road when it happened. Car was in drive and I was getting on a freeway ramp. I'm the only one with app access, and my phone was in my pocket, so no unusual access from there. Otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary... I put in an address and after about 5 minutes looked down and it still said calculating route and I did not see the route on the map. That's when I pressed the two wheel buttons to reboot it to hopefully get my nav route. Glad I knew where I was going because lost everything when the screen came back a few minutes latter.

 

[father_of_6]

I was driving down the road when it happened. Car was in drive and I was getting on a freeway ramp. I'm the only one with app access, and my phone was in my pocket, so no unusual access from there. Otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary... I put in an address and after about 5 minutes looked down and it still said calculating route and I did not see the route on the map. That's when I pressed the two wheel buttons to reboot it to hopefully get my nav route. Glad I knew where I was going because lost everything when the screen came back a few minutes latter.

For future reference - there are definitely places where Tesla's software deals with asynchronous operations and/or failures in a poor manner. Voice commands and navigation routes are some of those places.

I've found when the nav is "calculating route" for too long, just cancelling it and trying again is usually successful.

 

[jjrandorin]

In my mind, there are 2 ways that your profile data could be saved.

Way #1 would be something like a table of name-value pairs:
carName: "My Model 3"
seatPosX: 41
seatPosZ: 22

Way #2 would be a large single object containing something similar to way #1:
{carName:"My Model 3", seatPosX:41, seatPosZ:22}

That this problem happens at all implies that it's way #2... it's most likely not being "factory reset", it's that when the software tries to read your settings, they are "corrupt".

For instance, imagine the software only wrote half of your profile data on a save and then rebooted:
{carName:"My Model 3", seatP

When the software tries to read your settings again, it can't parse them because they're in an invalid format. It's expecting an object with a closing curly brace and a number of properties with valid values... instead it just barfs.

The logical conclusion would be that the software has *no* settings and thus uses default values for everything (aka factory reset).

This could happen for a number of reasons. It could be a hardware failure - one single memory location on the SSD could be returning a 1 even though a 0 was written there.

It could be poorly written software. Perhaps the scroll wheel reboot doesn't wait until profile saves are complete... or perhaps it needs to halt all saves and then reboot, but it doesn't. In this case, roll the dice, and every once in a while the reboot will happen mid profile save, which could leave you with "half" of a profile.

It could even be that a feature was modified such that the value for a given property changed from a simple numeric value to a sub object of it's own, and the update was responsible for converting it... but it was written poorly or doesn't catch all cases... so in a number of cars it results in saving broken settings.

I thought all profiles were saved remotely since an update last year, but it sounds like we actually have to be proactive and choose for that to happen. I'll be doing that very soon.

When cloud profiles became a thing, I had 2 profiles in my car, one that had my email address (which was the cloud profile) and the other one which just had my name, which was the local profile.

I had both in there for a bit, then removed the local profiles to ensure I was just using the cloud ones. One nice thing about the cloud profile, since I have 2 teslas, when I switch back and forth between them, "my" spotify and apple music accounts load under my profile, and same for my wifes spotify and apple music when she is under her profile.

Im not sure how it is saving the information, but your explanation sounds very plausible.

 

[ybbor]

Just got a response back from Tesla. Looks like a software bug and they know what the root cause is, so will fix it going forward.

From Tesla Service:
"Good afternoon Robby, this is Daniel from Tesla Service Miramar. I am a technician remotely reviewing your factory reset concern. I apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this issue may have caused. I performed diagnostics and detected no hardware faults indicating repairs are required at this time. After further reviewing vehicle logs, I confirmed what you experienced was due to a software issue.

Our Service Engineering team has root caused this issue and will be implementing a fix in a future firmware update. At this time we do not have an ETA on when this will be released. I did however, create an internal ticket to flag your VIN as affected by this issue. Although we cannot guarantee this won't occur again before the fix version update, having this internal ticket linked to your VIN will increase visibility on the issue and can possibly result in having the update sent out sooner."

 

[brkaus]

Ours did the same sometime last year. Acting funny. Rebooted. Came back up at factory reset state.

They said no hardware faults detected.

 

[father_of_6]

Just wondering... we're any of these cloud profiles? Or are those indeed spared from this bug? Actually seems like it shouldn't matter (cloud and local can both be destroyed by this bug).

 

[jjrandorin]

Just wondering... we're any of these cloud profiles? Or are those indeed spared from this bug? Actually seems like it shouldn't matter (cloud and local can both be destroyed by this bug).

Probably (I am agreeing with you that both can probably be impacted). The difference would be that the could one can be easily re downloaded by the car, so "recovery" is less an issue for the end user owner.

 

[ybbor]

Just wondering... we're any of these cloud profiles? Or are those indeed spared from this bug? Actually seems like it shouldn't matter (cloud and local can both be destroyed by this bug).

Good morning. I had a local profile. I had read last year about how profiles were now tied to your account and should be backed up. I assumed that was an automatic process that would just save my original local profile.... turns out I was wrong and you need to create a new one that seems to be linked to your email (New one shows my tesla account picture).

I have the car set back up how I like it. The only thing I'm really sad about is the lifetime trip meter I started the day I picked up the car showing my lifetime energy usage and Wh/m.

 

[ybbor]

Question.

So since I first got my car up until it was reset, my map showed the satellite view during the day, and when it went into dark mode at night, the satellite view auto switched to the dark street view mode.

Now ever since the reboot, it always stays in satellite view mode, day and night.

Is there a toggle somewhere to have it auto switch from day satellite to night street view? I can't seem to find a toggle for it anywhere. It's probably somewhere obvious i'm just not seeing.

 

[brkaus]

Question.

So since I first got my car up until it was reset, my map showed the satellite view during the day, and when it went into dark mode at night, the satellite view auto switched to the dark street view mode.

Now ever since the reboot, it always stays in satellite view mode, day and night.

Is there a toggle somewhere to have it auto switch from day satellite to night street view? I can't seem to find a toggle for it anywhere. It's probably somewhere obvious i'm just not seeing.

I believe it’s on the “display” pane of the menu. Day/night- day,night,auto

 

[eCharcoal]

Question.

So since I first got my car up until it was reset, my map showed the satellite view during the day, and when it went into dark mode at night, the satellite view auto switched to the dark street view mode.

Now ever since the reboot, it always stays in satellite view mode, day and night.

Is there a toggle somewhere to have it auto switch from day satellite to night street view? I can't seem to find a toggle for it anywhere. It's probably somewhere obvious i'm just not seeing.

My car has been doing that even before the reboot. I’ve discussed this issue in another thread.

Map stuck on satellite mode even at night

Since V11, my Model 3’s map does not switch to night mode at night. It’s always in satellite mode. It’s now on 2022.44.30. Did not fix the issue. I did a hard reset. Didn’t help. I looked around the menu and settings in the map and couldn’t find a way to change it. Did I miss something? I was...

teslamotorsclub.com

One day it just decided to do it and now it does that occasionally. There’re no toggle switch for this.