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Center Screen Freezes

How often does your center 17" screen freeze?


  • Total voters
    43

hybridbear

Member
Oct 6, 2015
664
230
Minneapolis
How often do other owners have their 17" center screen freeze? What causes it to freeze?

Since I took delivery of my Model S on August 15th the center screen has frozen at least once per week. It has frozen twice when touching the "not this time" button for autopark, twice when doing a pinch to zoom out of the navigation map and once while manually adjusting climate control settings. I have since stopped pressing the "not this time" button for autopark since it froze the first two times I did it so I don't know if it would continue to freeze in that situation.

The local Tesla service center says that there is nothing wrong with the car and that freezing is normal. This seems excessive to me...

Each time I have had to hold the two steering wheel scroll wheel buttons to reboot the screen.
 

ArtInCT

Always Learning
Sep 2, 2014
1,713
433
Southern Connecticut
I have had my media play lock up or freeze when I go into an area with no LTE or WiFi.... it will eventually come back to life when I enter an area with LTE , other than that, no freezing here.
 

Moonwick

Member
Dec 4, 2014
84
20
Atlanta, GA
The service center is feeding you a line; something is definitely not right with your MCU. I've had perhaps 10 occasions over the year and a half I've had my car where I've needed to reboot the MCU, and they've all been due to features (almost always problems with internet radio) misbehaving; I can't think of a single time where I needed to do it because of a complete freeze.

Definitely press the matter with them; what you're experiencing is not normal, and it's pretty absurd that they would claim that it is.
 
  • Helpful
Reactions: hybridbear

SoxFan2004

Member
Mar 20, 2016
33
30
New York
I get screen freezes or crashes a couple of times a month. It is excessive. All software has bugs but I've never used anything that freezes this frequently. I got one last night and this morning there's a software update waiting... perhaps that will fix things?
 

mikeash

Active Member
Oct 26, 2014
1,105
699
Fairfax, VA, USA
I just had a freeze today. I was at a public charger and came back to the car to find that the instrument cluster showed 208 miles of range, while the center screen showed only 191. I tried to fiddle with it and it was completely unresponsive. Reboot cleared it right up, of course.

Once a week is way too often, though. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a complete freeze before today. I have seen extremely bad performance that I fixed with a reboot, and a couple of times I've seen it spontaneously reboot on its own, but even those are only once every month or two.
 

S4WRXTTCS

Well-Known Member
May 3, 2015
5,315
5,957
Snohomish, WA
Used to happen to me about once a month, but I haven't had the issue for a few months.

Of course it tended to follow murphy's law when it would happen when I wouldn't want it to. I haven't really had any of those situations lately so it's likely just waiting for me to have one.
 

SJFlorida

New Member
Sep 25, 2016
1
0
Boca Raton, Fl
I took delivery 1 week ago. Mine freezes on the internet radio. Actually happened the first time on the way home from taking delivery! I called and they instructed me to reboot the screen. It has now happened 10 times in just the first week. Sometimes I reboot and it fixes it. Sometimes that doesn't work. When its off for a few hours, seems to start up ok.The "concierge" girl (what a laugh, such poor customer service) sends me emails about the service dept checking the logs, but then never does and nothing happens. Also tells me "probably the update will fix this". Such utter nonsense. So my car has glitches that the screen freezes - so wait a few weeks, maybe it will get fixed.
I have never seen a high end luxury car delivered with such an obvious defect. And the service dept just gives you a run around.
I really hope Tesla responds. I am just shocked that this is how they treat their customers. I bought a P90D, so you can imagine i paid more than I paid for my Porsche Panamera. This is just shamefull.
 

bob_p

Active Member
Apr 5, 2012
3,594
2,748
I've had my classic P85 since early 2013 - and the software quality continues to be a source of frustration.

As someone who has been responsible for major software projects (including software more complex than the Tesla onboard software), it's disappointing to see how Tesla continues to underperform on both functionality and quality.

It would not have been acceptable for us to ship any software with the functionality, usability and quality issues we've seen with our Model S. I'm not aware of any other major company that would accept this in released software.

It was understandable the Tesla onboard software would be limited and have issues when the Model S was first put into production 4 years ago. With 7.0 and 7.1, we are still missing expected functionality (playlists, waypoints, ...) and we've had periods when the center console had to be rebooted periodically.

Hopefully 8.0 will fix this...

If it doesn't, the clock is ticking... If the Bolt has more functional onboard software (Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, better navigation software, ...) and it doesn't suffer from quality and usability issues, Tesla might start seeing Model 3 reservation cancellations.

And, because there's a response time for implementing software improvements, if Tesla waits until it starts impacting their sales, it may take them too long to make the needed improvements to their software and development process.
 
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habanero69

I Dont Need Cialis. I Drive an EV.
Jul 29, 2016
410
226
KY
They need what is commonly called in the software development world, a QA department. Not the code writers reviewing their own work. If there was a QA process in releasing the software (at least better than what is currently done) there is no way this many issues would still be occurring. I work on software, I know...
 

scottm

Legacy account
Jun 13, 2014
3,070
2,233
Canada
I took delivery 1 week ago. Mine freezes on the internet radio. Actually happened the first time on the way home from taking delivery! I called and they instructed me to reboot the screen. It has now happened 10 times in just the first week. Sometimes I reboot and it fixes it. Sometimes that doesn't work.

This does sound like a bad piece of hardware... or early failure that you're enduring.

A center computer replacement is a pretty standard procedure that that takes about an hour to do and it's one big part.

Probably before doing that, Tesla would want to put the latest software on the car to see if that process cleans it up. Or maybe you'll just be lucky in the next few days to get 8 and find that does clear it up.
 

scottm

Legacy account
Jun 13, 2014
3,070
2,233
Canada
They need what is commonly called in the software development world, a QA department. Not the code writers reviewing their own work. If there was a QA process in releasing the software (at least better than what is currently done) there is no way this many issues would still be occurring. I work on software, I know...

..DevOps: if you can build it, it can be deployed!

Iteration 2 will catch what wasn't right the first time.

Iteration N will catch what wasn't right in N-1 or earlier.

Wait for N, everything will be fine! The masses (us) will continue to be the beta testers of something that is always in motion.

versus

QA: Nice try. This isn't hitting prime time. So sorry you'll miss the schedule for AP 2, explain to Elon yourself why your code doesn't work.
 

AvengerBB

Member
Aug 15, 2016
128
75
Cincinnati, OH
For what it's worth, I was having the lock up/reboot issue a least once a week for a bit on 7.1. Now on 8 things seem much smoother although a smaller sample size obviously. Will be interesting to see if this changes for others as well.
 

habanero69

I Dont Need Cialis. I Drive an EV.
Jul 29, 2016
410
226
KY
..DevOps: if you can build it, it can be deployed!

Iteration 2 will catch what wasn't right the first time.

Iteration N will catch what wasn't right in N-1 or earlier.

Wait for N, everything will be fine! The masses (us) will continue to be the beta testers of something that is always in motion.

versus

QA: Nice try. This isn't hitting prime time. So sorry you'll miss the schedule for AP 2, explain to Elon yourself why your code doesn't work.

Pretty much true as we sadly know... :oops:
 

bob_p

Active Member
Apr 5, 2012
3,594
2,748
After having 8.0 installed for only a few hours, already encountered the first auto-reboot, while the car was in motion.
 

hybridbear

Member
Oct 6, 2015
664
230
Minneapolis
Since I installed the latest fixes in version 7.1 (2.36.31) I have not had the screen freeze. Perhaps this was one of the "minor bug fixes" referenced in the release notes.
 

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