Diagnosis of "High Memory Consumption"

[ElectricInsect]

I just got my (2017) S back from the Brea service center. I had two issues that led to the visit. In the first, the center display (but not driver one) would turn black at random intervals. It would remain black until I rebooted the display. The second is that streaming stations would skip and pause, a bit like old car CD players did in the nineties.

The service center looked at the car and informed me there were signs of "High Memory Consumption" that were the cause of the problem. When I picked up the car I was told it was due to (1) browser use, and (2) "a lot" of recent trips stored in memory. I told them that I don't use the browser at all, so they said it's because the car stores a lot of information for each trip and it needs to be periodically cleared. The service adviser first claimed it can only be done during a service appointment, but then a technician showed up and said I can clear individual trips from recent history by swiping each one to the right.

Has anyone heard of high memory usage issues? Why can't a Tesla handle routine usage for a year and a half, during which I searched destinations and drove to them? Can't the system free its own RAM, for example by deleting the oldest trips first? The technician's comments about browser use include "we recommend not visiting sites that use 'live data' and consume high amounts of memory for an extended period of time". Since I don't use the browser, this didn't really apply.

The solution was to delete all my recent trips, which seems to have cleared up both problems. Has anyone heard of this issue or run into it? Does the diagnosis sound correct?

 

[ucmndd]

There are like 10 recent threads on this topic. Yes, it's a known issue with the first generation MCU. Yes, problems like this shouldn't exist.

 

[D.E.]

I just got my (2017) S back from the Brea service center. I had two issues that led to the visit. In the first, the center display (but not driver one) would turn black at random intervals. It would remain black until I rebooted the display. The second is that streaming stations would skip and pause, a bit like old car CD players did in the nineties.

The service center looked at the car and informed me there were signs of "High Memory Consumption" that were the cause of the problem. When I picked up the car I was told it was due to (1) browser use, and (2) "a lot" of recent trips stored in memory. I told them that I don't use the browser at all, so they said it's because the car stores a lot of information for each trip and it needs to be periodically cleared. The service adviser first claimed it can only be done during a service appointment, but then a technician showed up and said I can clear individual trips from recent history by swiping each one to the right.

Has anyone heard of high memory usage issues? Why can't a Tesla handle routine usage for a year and a half, during which I searched destinations and drove to them? Can't the system free its own RAM, for example by deleting the oldest trips first? The technician's comments about browser use include "we recommend not visiting sites that use 'live data' and consume high amounts of memory for an extended period of time". Since I don't use the browser, this didn't really apply.

The solution was to delete all my recent trips, which seems to have cleared up both problems. Has anyone heard of this issue or run into it? Does the diagnosis sound correct?

I have a version 2 car. During a service visit for an unrelated item, the ranger told me that recent trips should be cleared in order to not overuse the memory.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Same issue here. Simply deleted all those stored trips and everything back to normal.

Now do it from time. Ususally do it when stopped at a Supercharger. Simple fix.

 

[Brettski]

There are like 10 recent threads on this topic. Yes, it's a known issue with the first generation MCU. Yes, problems like this shouldn't exist.

Some of us are newer here and repeat topics from time to time can be very useful! I’m an avid reader here but never came across this topic, and I personally found it informative!

 

[quickstrike12]

I’ve tried this “trick” several times.
I have the skipping stuttering music and all of the aforementioned issues a lot since the latest software.
Honestly I’ve seen little to no difference I can tell by clearing the recent trips.
I think there is simply more to it than this.
Others have suggested a deeper problem in frame rate use and things like live traffic being updated way more than it needs.
Most can see this by simply using the sketch pad Easter egg and immediately the problem stops.

 

[RayW]

I’ve never heard of this trick before, so I deleted all my trips back thru 2017 and now Teslawaze is definitely working much better than it has over the past year. The browser was worthless as of last week, on v2019.12.1.1.

 

[Wratran]

How do you clear all trip history at once?

 

[AAARSINIC]

How do you clear all trip history at once?

Unfortunately you can’t.

 

[djlott]

I have cleared 15 months of previous trips. While it helped the overall responsiveness of my MCU1 display, I still have skipping and stuttering for streaming content (TuneIn). This will (hopefully) get corrected with a software update as Tesla makes their code more efficient. I say that with a healthy bit of skepticism and don't believe that this should be an owner's responsibility to manage.

 

[Patrick W]

The solution was to delete all my recent trips, which seems to have cleared up both problems.

Thanks for posting. i'd not heard of clearing the old trips so I checked and saw they were all there going back to when I bought the car in 2016. It took a wile to clear them but now I know to clear any trips that I don't need to save.

 

[P100D_Me]

Has anyone heard of high memory usage issues?

Well majority of owners have experienced it which is why we moan about the operation of the MCU all the time, sadly the people that need to fix it don't seem capable and often make things worse.
The SC staff are simply passing on excuses from HQ, I feel sorry for them.

 

[zanary]

Thanks for posting. i'd not heard of clearing the old trips so I checked and saw they were all there going back to when I bought the car in 2016. It took a wile to clear them but now I know to clear any trips that I don't need to save.

I thought in addition to the Navi History, you have to reset Trip 1 and Trip 2 odometers as well. Is this true?

 

[Patrick W]

I thought in addition to the Navi History, you have to reset Trip 1 and Trip 2 odometers as well. Is this true?

I heard that at the local service center.

 

[whitex]

There are like 10 recent threads on this topic. Yes, it's a known issue with the first generation MCU. Yes, problems like this shouldn't exist.

It sounds more like a problem with the software Tesla wrote for the first generation MCU. Or, and this is more likely, a problem with the software Tesla wrote for second generation MCU and then jammed it onto the first generation MCU because they are obligated to support it, but don't care to spend the time to maintain it separately.

 

[whitex]

How do you clear all trip history at once?

You buy a new Tesla.

 

[whitex]

I’ve tried this “trick” several times.
I have the skipping stuttering music and all of the aforementioned issues a lot since the latest software.
Honestly I’ve seen little to no difference I can tell by clearing the recent trips.
I think there is simply more to it than this.
Others have suggested a deeper problem in frame rate use and things like live traffic being updated way more than it needs.
Most can see this by simply using the sketch pad Easter egg and immediately the problem stops.

Turn off traffic on the nav, that helps quiet a lot. There is whole other thread about this elsewhere on TMC, a friendly hacker pointed out that v9 checks for traffic 1000 times more often than it should (every 120ms instead of every 120s), causing massive CPU load, which leads to overheating, which leads to further slowdown. It has been reported to Tesla since v9 (all MCU browsers died), but nobody has confirmed a released fix (MCU1 fixes are way down the priority list for Elon).

 

[boaterva]

There’s a report that the live traffic issue (at least) is fixed in 2019.16.x. A new version of that (16.2) started rolling this AM so perhaps we can check this out more widely soon.

This sort of thing (Max N recent trips) really should be an easy (trivial) software fix....

 

[murphyS90D]

I thought in addition to the Navi History, you have to reset Trip 1 and Trip 2 odometers as well. Is this true?

If that is true whoever programmed the trip counters is a total failure as a programmer.
It takes a fixed number of bytes to store the trip counters if done correctly.
Clearing them doesn't change the number of bytes.

 

[boonedocks]

If that is true whoever programmed the trip counters is a total failure as a programmer.
It takes a fixed number of bytes to store the trip counters if done correctly.
Clearing them doesn't change the number of bytes.

May be pretty likely this:
https://electrek.co/2019/05/10/tesla-autopilot-restructuring-software-elon-takes-over/