Car not updating? Try a factory reset.

[bcsteeve]

I have to acknowledge that it is possible this comes down to coincidence, but hmm...

I've never had an update since taking delivery of my car a couple months ago. That didn't bother me except after hearing about the "chill mode" update I got curious about how many versions I was back, and found a website that tracks these things, which suggested less than 2% of vehicles were on the same version as me. So I hit the forums and called Tesla and everything said the same stuff: make sure you're on wifi; be patient; no rhyme nor reason (Tesla provides, my son. Trust his wisdom and he shall guide you to salvation).

So a month ago I installed a WAP in my garage to be sure the car had a solid wifi connection (that really helped with summoning, btw) but still no update. Today I decide to monkey around with hardware resets and I performed a factory reset. Within an hour, my car is updating its firmware.

Coincidence?

 

[bcsteeve]

I would like to reintroduce my findings above. Again, after months of not receiving any updates and learning that there were some significant improvements recently... I tried a factory reset. Within an hour, I had the update to most current.

I don't know why my car has trouble getting updates in a timely manner... but I'm pretty convinced (well, 2 for 2 anyway) that a factory reset does the trick.

 

[jelloslug]

Have you brought it up with your local service center?

 

[bcsteeve]

My "local" centre is 5 hours away, but yes i called then and was given the same answer as their national call center gives... that it just wasn't my magical time.

This isn't unique to me. Lots of people have posted about not getting timely updates.

 

[speedy]

I would like to reintroduce my findings above. Again, after months of not receiving any updates and learning that there were some significant improvements recently... I tried a factory reset. Within an hour, I had the update to most current.

I don't know why my car has trouble getting updates in a timely manner... but I'm pretty convinced (well, 2 for 2 anyway) that a factory reset does the trick.

As someone stuck on 2018.12, I have two questions:

1. Has anyone else on here tried the factory reset and achieved the same result?
2. Does a factory reset reset the trip meters? They would not be considered personal/profile information but I'd like to keep my lifetime data and want to make sure it won't be erased

 

[bcsteeve]

Trip A and B are both reset. So does current trip and trip since last charge, I think. Lifetime... that's your odometer, and if that got reset then everyone would be doing it

However, that I believe only keeps your miles driven and not energy used. So if you've kept Trip A or B going consistently since you got the car, then yeah you'd lose that. I wouldn't consider that data to be "safe" in any case.

 

[speedy]

Trip A and B are both reset. So does current trip and trip since last charge, I think. Lifetime... that's your odometer, and if that got reset then everyone would be doing it

However, that I believe only keeps your miles driven and not energy used. So if you've kept Trip A or B going consistently since you got the car, then yeah you'd lose that. But I've lost that after an update too, so I wouldn't consider that data to be "safe" in any case.

Many of us that have the car from new rename Trip B to Lifetime, and use that for the lifetime statistics. It DOES keep track of the energy used and also provides the average W/mile. So loosing that wouldn't be good...

 

[bcsteeve]

Yeah, I get that... but as I said, that isn't safe data anyway. A factory reset, a visit to a service center, or any particular update *could* wipe that (a reset *does* wipe it). To each their own, but I would consider getting the latest update far more important than a tripometer reading.

What I would recommend to Tesla though... is that the odometer just have that info. Surely the car keeps track of that outside of the two re-settable trips. It just doesn't (currently) report it.

 

[icefree]

I'm still on 2018.12, and I am hoping to get the latest firmware so I can enjoy the faster map redraw on MCU1...so I did a Factory Reset as suggested,. So far no joy (not quite 24 hours though). I'll post back if I get a firmware update in the next couple of days.
Factory reset isn't too bad, except setting up the Homelink again was a bit of a pain. And as mentioned, do it in the driver profile you want to keep, so you can save it as a new one without readjusting your seat position.

I did it in my garage, and after the Factory Reset, it put my GPS location as the Tesla HQ in Palo Alto! But once I drove out into open sky, it reset my position and clock correctly.

The Factory Reset did fix my missing MAC address problem, though. So crossing my fingers it helps summon the Firmware gods.

 

[bcsteeve]

OK, so if you're many hours later and got no love yet... then I'd say either my 2 for 2 was just a fluke, or else we're missing another element critical to the process. I've read before that you should be on WiFi to get the updates. In my cases, I re-connected wifi after the factory reset. I didn't mention that in my initial reports. Did you connect? And confirm you have a decent signal (go to fast.com in the browser and see if you're getting a reasonable score like at least 1.0Mbps)

 

[speedy]

What I would recommend to Tesla though... is that the odometer just have that info. Surely the car keeps track of that outside of the two re-settable trips. It just doesn't (currently) report it.

That would be a good idea, as that's where lifetime belongs anywhere. The car BMS DOES keep track of total energy used but that includes all the vampire/idle drain power as well, so a simple Total Energy Used/Odometer gives a much higher W/mile than would be representative of actual driving average. My Scan My Tesla results based on my current energy usage and mileage gives me 441 W/mile, while my Lifetime Trip meter gives 336 W/mile, for example. There doesn't appear to be a pre-calculated W/mile equivalent to the trip meter though, at least in the currently visible parameters...

 

[icefree]

OK, so if you're many hours later and got no love yet... then I'd say either my 2 for 2 was just a fluke, or else we're missing another element critical to the process. I've read before that you should be on WiFi to get the updates. In my cases, I re-connected wifi after the factory reset. I didn't mention that in my initial reports. Did you connect? And confirm you have a decent signal (go to fast.com in the browser and see if you're getting a reasonable score like at least 1.0Mbps)

Yes, I made sure I was back on the wifi. I'm getting 2.5Mbps (I thought it would be higher, hmm, I'll have to see why my Orbi mesh network isn't going faster for it). I'll give it a full 48 hours. Sadly, though, I suspect you've been luckly. I really wish the would get the firmware request system in place soon!

 

[bcsteeve]

It isn't your network. I've got 150Mbps service and my phone can easily hit 60Mbps in the garage... but my car is 1.0 to 2.5... maybe 3 for a few seconds.

 

[nevrenuf]

Following this thread, I did a factory reset on Tuesday. I remain stuck on 2018.12. Checking my wifi activity, I have only moved 21mb over the more than 48 hours since the reset.

 

[bcsteeve]

Well, it seems my 2-for-2 was just coincidence. Sorry for getting your hopes up

I'm not throwing out my results completely though. I'm going to go through the same process the next time and if I'm 3-for-3 then clearly something is triggering it and then its a matter of figuring out what the X-factor is.

 

[Devoldinho]

Same occurance for me. Car was on 2018.10.xx, did a factory reset, and one hour later got update available.

Curious thing, the GPS initially after the reset put my Model S location on the map to be Fremont, California. There was some specultation for a time that cars closer the Fremont were prioritized, so maybe that triggered it.

 

[bcsteeve]

Oh, snap! (do people still say that?) You might be on to something there!

I wonder, because yes my GPS stayed on Fremont until I drove out. So maybe it sits there thinking I'm in California whereas the people above were able to get GPS signals showing their true location before the update initiated? @icefree... can you confirm if you "fixed" the GPS before waiting long enough?

 

[ucmndd]

I think the variable is whether or not your car has been issued an update from the mothership.

Scenario 1: Your car has been blessed with a new update but for some reason it doesn't successfully install or otherwise gets "stuck", in which case the factory reset unsticks things and the pending update is finally applied.

Scenario 2: You have NOT been given an update yet, so nothing is stuck, therefore there's nothing to unstick, and a factory reset does nothing. This seems likely in the case of the user on 2018.12 above - this person isn't "stuck" anywhere as a substantial amount of the fleet is still on this firmware release by design.

So a factory reset may install an update you've already been granted, but isn't going to magically grant you an update that you haven't otherwise already been authorized for.

 

[icefree]

Oh, snap! (do people still say that?) You might be on to something there!

I wonder, because yes my GPS stayed on Fremont until I drove out. So maybe it sits there thinking I'm in California whereas the people above were able to get GPS signals showing their true location before the update initiated? @icefree... can you confirm if you "fixed" the GPS before waiting long enough?

I only waited about 10 hours after the Factor Reset before getting the GPS re-sync. That might not have been enough time. Being on 2018.12 I'm not that far behind, but I wanted to add a data point to the test cases. I'm wondering if a Factory Reset would be more effective for someone that is back on say, 2018.10.4 or earlier.

 

[GatorGuy]

I'm on 2018.12 as well. I really don't want to have to reprogram my home link which is the main reason I haven't tried the factory reset yet.

Guess I'll give it a few more days.