Cruise control not available

[Ellsworth]

Fyi

Thanks for the chat screen. Very interesting.

It suggests that they can’t do the firmware update without the owner’s permission or initiation - though that may just be a courtesy. But I’m still looking for evidence that they didn’t fix my car without my knowledge.

FWIW, I’ve had ZERO recurrence of the problem since 5/6/19. Maybe it was pulling the DashCam drive. Maybe it wasn’t.

 

[Ellsworth]

After a day+ of nothing working, I'm functional again. If I had to guess it fixed itself because:
a) magic
or
b) was disconnected from the Internet when I parked underground
or
c) I fixed the corrupt USB ThumbDrive, and re-inserted it

My data points...
3, LR, AWD, EAP/FSD, 2018.08 delivery, so likely not HW3
05/03/2019 = 2019.12.1.2 installed; no problems
05/12/2019 = Lane markings, cars, pedestrians gone from screen, No AP, Cruise Not Available, Sentry Mode didn't seem to work
Tried every soft/hard reboot, power off, sleep, charge combination I can imagine -- no dice. All this while dashcam claims it's working and will happily "record" a video... Gave up and went to bed
05/13/2019 = AM, still broken; drove to work in an underground lot, parked, removed USB thumb drive to see contents; noticed my system wanted to fsck it; all files post-5/3 (firmware install date) were 595 bytes; Thumb Drive is 256GB; was ~50% used; did a mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sda1, mkdir TeslaCam again and plugged the ThumbDrive back in the car at 6pm -- AP/Cruise/Camera-related things were working -- I was unable to verify functionality w/out ThumbDrive, as I did not think to check for that condition.

Yay, but good grief, this is exactly why I can't buy my parents one.

Ah! So maybe this IS finally some supporting evidence for my theory that just unmounting the USB DashCam drive resolves the problem. Hoping to hear from someone else with similar results.

 

[Ellsworth]

Had the same thing happen on my Model 3 Dual Motor running firmware 2019.12.1.2. Always got the Alert, "Cruise Not Available" when trying to turn on autopilot. Tried all the possible reset methods and none worked, so I scheduled Tesla Service call. I took the car in, and the technician reset the car via his diagnostic laptop and then it worked. We test drove it and everything was working fine so we did the paperwork and I was on my way in 15 minutes. Apparently this is a somewhat common problem, and Tesla is aware of it, and it happens on all the different models they make, but I don't know how prevalent it is. They uploaded my car logs to the software team to examine to try and figure out where the problem resides. Hopefully the next version of 12.1 firmware will fix the problem. Unfortunately when it happens the only way to fix it for some users is the diagnostic laptop reset which you have to go to a Tesla Service center to get. It looks like it has something to do with initialization of the car after a firmware update, and perhaps one of the sensors isn't initialized correctly thus causing the car to assume auto-pilot isn't working so the firmware rightly disables auto-pilot and cruise control. The car will drive fine when this happens, just no auto-pilot or cruise which is annoying.

Pmurphjam,

Were you running a Tesla DashCam at the time? And if so, when you picked up the car from service, was the USB drive still inserted? (I wouldn’t be surprised if pulling owner devices from the USB bus was a service department procedure.)

-Ellsworth

 

[k4ylr]

Quick update from us. Again software is 2019.2.1.2 5c87371

Pulled the USB stick (long pressed icon before removal) and all of my recent-ish footage is 1KB and unplayable at least as far back as May 9th in the SavedClips folder. My RecentClips folder is full of 1KB MP4s that are unreadable.

With stick removed, car in park did a brake pedal + double nubbin reset. Car came back and took it for a drive on a fairly busy road around the block. No lanes, no traffic sensing, no avatars whatsoever. Pulled back in; did another brake+nubbin reset and still the same.

We do have the top-down 360 view when in proximity still. Hoping they can mobile ranger or OTA fix this because our nearest SC is 3 hours away.

 

[danwassink]

I am having the same issue. Was fine yesterday. Woke up this morning for a 10 hour road trip, and no cruise, autopilot, or cameras. Powered off, reset several times. I read in another forum it could be due to a corrupt flash drive. I have since removed that, Same thing. I’m hoping it comes back before the drive home. I did setup an appt with Tesla. I’ll post if anything changes... and watch if anyone has any suggestions or solutions.

 

[maglianera]

+1 Same thing happened on 12.1.2. Issue was resolved by re-formatting the corrupted USB drive. I had (one day previously) removed it without saving due to a Sentry alert, and the autopilot/cruise stopped working the moment I re-inserted the drive.

 

[Ellsworth]

I got a reply on 5/13 from email about “Cruise not available” I sent to Tesla Support 5/6. When the support rep asked for details, I sent him a version of my long post #9 here. His response:

“In this instance I would recommend scheduling service at the closest Tesla service center to you so we can bring in the vehicle and run a full diagnostic on the issue at hand. Our expert technicians will be able to pinpoint the exact cause of your concern and will be able to further assist in getting it addressed in service.”​

I’ve had a 5/16 Tesla Service appointment scheduled (via mobile app) since 5/6 (independent of this Tesla Support email incident), and was going to take the Model 3 in tomorrow, but 10 minutes ago I get this text message:

“Good morning Ellsworth ,
This is Saeed with Tesla Motors, diagnosing your Model 3 remotely.
Regarding the autopilot and cruise control issues, I reviewed your vehicle data and noticed a known firmware bug caused this issue. It is going to be fixed in firmware version 2019.16.
At this time there is no need to bring the vehicle to the service center and the firmware will be sent to your vehicle when it is available to release.
Do you like me to cancel your appointment?
Looking forward to hearing from you.”​

So this is Tesla acknowledging that this is a software bug that they think they can fix. I’ll recap that our Late 2018 Model 3 LR RWD is currently running 2019.12.1.2 5c87371.

I’ve canceled the appointment and am hoping for the best.

For what it’s worth, my “Cruise not available” condition has never returned since 5/6. But its resolution and absence may turn out to be completely coincidental.

 

[sodakar]

Glad to hear they've acknowledged the bug, and have an ETA for a fix.
I wish the tech would've shared:
a) root cause
b) fix/workaround
c) chance of recurrence

If the Thumb Drive was the cause, then that answers a) + b), so even if c) is bad, I can get around it.

But... if it's *not* the Thumb Drive, I would really like to know what c) is -- if the magical repair is one-time, and I don't have to worry about it anymore, then that's fine... If it's going to happen again at some time, it makes me nervous, as I have a few 1+k mile trips planned, and would really hate to lose all those safety features.

Side note: While most posts mention cruise/EAP, my main worry is the loss of forward collision warning, lane departure warning, collision avoidance, etc, which kicks me back to the early 2000's.

 

[Pmurphjam]

Pmurphjam,

Were you running a Tesla DashCam at the time? And if so, when you picked up the car from service, was the USB drive still inserted? (I wouldn’t be surprised if pulling owner devices from the USB bus was a service department procedure.)

-Ellsworth

Ellsworth,
I had pulled the dashCam before I took it in to get serviced, and tried all the different Resets to no avail. The problem did occur when the dashCam was running though, and I almost always used Sentry mode when I parked anywhere other than home. So at the Tesla Service Center the dashCam was out already when the technician reset the car via his diagnostic laptop which made it then work.

 

[Silvercloud]

For our M3, autopilot not available has been happening randomly as it seems. My message usually has one additional line "Front radar visibility xxxxsomethingxxxx" Autopilot will usually get back to work after a day or two like the French strikes. I do still get lane markings but does not show other cars around me.

 

[tambam]

I just got this today, one day after signing up for TeslaFi. Could that be related?

 

[electrictorque]

Had this issue happen twice. The first time it started to work after a reset.

The second time, yesterday, it started working again by itself after a few minutes.

Both times reported the problem using the car's voice commands.

 

[danwassink]

I had the same issue. I tried resetting and powering off numerous times. Didn’t fix it. I talked to Tesla, they couldn’t fix it. They wanted me to schedule a service appt. I then went and did some research and I read in a forum that the car does diagnostics upon waking up from a sleep. If it finds anything wrong, it shuts everything down. So the key is to let it sleep and when it wakes up, it will do another diagnostic run and, if all is OK, everything will be back. This is what I did and my cameras, cruise, and Autopilot came back. Why wasn’t it able to sleep in the first place? I had a few third-party apps connected to my car. This kept my car awake. I looked at the log files and it has been days, if not weeks, since she slept. So I needed to disconnect all the apps and start over. To do this, just change your password to Tesla. Once you do this, all the 3rd-party apps will be disconnected. Now just wait for a few hours so your car can go to sleep, I waited overnight. When I went back to my car the next morning, everything was working once again. I had a 10 hour drive back home, I was glad to see it all back! Now I can’t say this is for sure what happened, but I tried everything, including resetting and powering off. Nothing worked, until I changed the password. Could be coincidence, but if you are having the same issue, give it a shot, change your Tesla password, let it sleep for a few hours. It may work for you too.

 

[Burrito]

Mine did it again today on my way to Tesla for a different service appointment. I told them this want the third time this has happened. Their answer was your car may have been dirty or shadows. My car was so clean I would eat off it. Basically they said no trouble found....

During my drive I turned autopilot off in the settings and once I came to a stop I put it in park, turned it back on and it worked again.

 

[jdub55]

I've read the entire forum and tried all possible solutions but unfortunately none worked for me. Reaching out to touch law they told me as well that it is a known bug and they're working on a fix. Whether or not it is an actual known issue (and not just an escape from anomalies they don't know about), I'm not sure...but I'll trust them until I have cause not to.

 

[jdub55]

I noticed the corrupted recording files being saved, too. Seems to have just started that behavior either today or yesterday.

 

[Pmurphjam]

Pmurphjam,

Were you running a Tesla DashCam at the time? And if so, when you picked up the car from service, was the USB drive still inserted? (I wouldn’t be surprised if pulling owner devices from the USB bus was a service department procedure.)

-Ellsworth

So the saga continues. Auto-pilot went out again, after being fixed at the Service center by the technician with his laptop. So I went back and read this forum about TeslaFi webApp and also iPhone App Stats. So in the morning deleted all the Tesla iPhone apps on my iPhone except the Tesla App, and changed my Tesla account password, and then cleared my token on TeslaFi and changed the polling value, and then relogged into TeslaFi. I then got in my car to drive home from work around 7PM, Auto-pilot was still off, and then on the drive home it came on and everything worked again! I really think now the problem is related to TeslaFi and polling too frequently. I don't think it's related to the iPhone App Stats, I do iPhone development for a living, and the App would have to employ a background network task to keep itself alive to poll the Tesla Network. Plus if you force close the Stats App the back ground task would be killed, so I doubt Stats is doing anything to cause this problem. TeslaFi however is gathering tons of data and polling frequently, and if it were to set some JSON value wrong during a request it could cause problems, that's not to say Tesla's API doesn't have issues too which it probably does. Anyway, someone should tell Tesla about this. The data on TeslaFi is starting to add up now.

 

[sodakar]

So of course, AutoPilot went out again (2009.12.1.2) the weekend I need to drive 1+k freeway miles, and I did everything I could think of (remove USB, dial button reset, dual button + brake reset, and power off), but to no avail.

Now it’s looking like the real fix is to park it at work where I don’t have signal, so it can sleep. If that is the case, it goes back to the various theories that it might be TeslaFi polling the car 24-7, making it so it can’t properly sleep.

I didn’t want to deal with resetting my password or turning off TeslaFi right before a trip, so I just dealt with no AutoPilot, which was pretty brutal, as it means no Cruise, no Lane Departure, no Collison avoidance, etc...

I noticed a section in TeslaFi’s settings that talks about sleep and deep sleep, so I’m going to see if letting the car deep sleep from 1am-6am might do the trick to bring AutoPilot back.

 

[sodakar]

I adjusted the Sleep schedule (TeslaFi -> Settings -> Sleep), and got an alert that my car had gone to sleep.

Went back to the car after an hour, and sure enough, AutoPilot was working again.

So... while I can’t vouch for everyone else, I would say that for me, this problem seems to be TeslaFi/Sleep-related, and that enabling Sleep on the TeslaFi website has had a positive impact.

Until it breaks again... I hope I get 2019.16 soon...

 

[halfricanguy]

I adjusted the Sleep schedule (TeslaFi ->
Until it breaks again... I hope I get 2019.16 soon...

I wouldn’t get your hopes up just yet. I got 2019.16.2 a few days ago, and I experienced this last night for the first time. No traffic or lanes on my driving visualization, and cruise/Autosteer unavailable.

I came to it this morning and it was back to normal. I didn’t touch the flash drive, and I don’t have any 3rd party services connecting to the car.