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LTE - 3rd Party apps & connectivity

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AndyWarrington

AndyWarrington

Member
Jan 23, 2022
498
456
Warrington
#1
Hi,

I'm having intermittent issues connecting to the car via LTE, for e.g. I'm wanting to remote start or turn on climate when coming out of the gym or a shop and it the app doesn't connect to car even though I do have 4/5G connection to EE. When I get in Bluetooth range I can operate the functions on my phone's 'front screen' like open boot, unlock etc.

I've put a service ticket in and they suggest it's 3rd party apps constantly pinging & waking the car (every 5-10secs) though they don't have the info to see which 3rd party app/s is doing this. The only 3rd party apps I run are Ovo Anytime charge app and Tessie. I have Tessie set to 'not wake the car.

From the Tesla CS advice I've removed these 3rd party apps access for now and the lack of connectivity is still there.

Admittedly this happens in the same spots, same shop & gym I go to daily (one leads to the other 😂) - though it also happened at my folks house over the weekend. I

I wonder if anyone else has/or had this issue and if the got round it or are just putting up with it?

I'm really trying to understand if it's the 3rd party's or just shite LTE reception...

Is it just a case of crap LTE signal by the car/from the provider (i.e. I always seem to be in black spots?) The issue seems to only occur in these places, I don't really frequent anywhere else.

Edit - currently running 2023.26.8 - though the issue was also prevalent on previous software
 
#2
When you say you've removed the apps, the only sure fire way to stop them is to change your Tesla password which will invalidate any tokens they hold about you and Tesla will just bounce any requests.

I doubt it's got anything to do with yours or the cars connectivity, the Tesla servers do from time to time have issues and it may be a wider problem of 3rd parties spamming the servers and the server having the issue.
 
#3
They've done that, cleared down the tokens and I've changed my password already.

This guy is adamant though, suggesting I get on a different tariff (so change from Ovo ) so the car doesn't pinged so much... He suggested Octopus was known to cause this issue too - that in mind surely 90% of the cars on here appear to be on Octopus so would be experiencing the same using the CS guy's thinking 🤷‍♂️

They've moved it to an 'infotainment specialist' to look into further so hoping to hear more in the next couple of days
 
#4
I'd be sceptical too, seems once you're in range and the car (presumably) wakes up everything is fine.. but when you're not and it's asleep then things don't work.. which kind of implies the car is not being woken up.

I know some of the electricity providers were known for keeping the car awake, but irnically if that was the case, you'd think your issue would be excess phantom drain rather than lack of comms.

We're guessing of course so there could be something we don't know, Maybe Tesla are rate limiting the number of wake up requests.

Just checked my car and it didn;t want to wake up for a while but eventuially did and told me where it was (which was thankfully where my wife said she was going today :)
 
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#6
AndyWarrington said:
In these typical spots where I've issues I can unlock it via Bluetooth when in range, sit in the car and it doesn't connect. It'll only connect when my phone's hotspot comes on 😤
Click to expand...
Odd.. next dumb question.. you've tried the two reboots:

- scroll wheel (which seems to just restart the computer)
- change the wheel design (which seems to force a reload of the car config)

I sense we're clutching at straws and the next software release will magically fix everything while they still claim it wasn;t them...
 
#8
No, can't recall where in the car but you can tell the car it's got a different wheel design to what are actually on the car. It causes a reboot and seems to correct various configuration issues some have experienced. You can change it back straight away. Some do it by changing the language but I then read someone had switched to a foreign language they didn't understand and then had trouble finding the menu option to switch back!

As an aside, it may also be worth checking the app doesn't need updating. I've just looked and mine was out of date,
 
#12
All these "apps" communicate with the Tesla servers and the servers in turn connect with the car. If the car can't get a connection, no amount of app requests to the servers will make any difference. Whoever you've been talking to so far is pulling your chain! I suspect that if connectivity is patchy there's probably something wrong with the antenna.

BTW - waking the car up is done via an SMS message. Once it's woken up, there is an LTE internet connection established. This approach stops the car needing to have an active internet connection 24/7.
 
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#13
Just got off the phone to the technician, apparently there's an issue when the car has been connected to my mobile hotspot and once the journey is finished and connection ceases the car is struggling with full functionality after via LTE - an 'internal ticket' has been raised as they're seeing more tickets come in with this issue. I'm advised it's only resolvable via a future update (pretty sure he said firmware) So once the plan is sorted their end they'll push it out - when; who knows 🤷‍♂️

He also added as a side that my charger app (Ovo) communicates with the car every 10 seconds which I find quite outstanding given it's not even plugged in or been asked to. Also added on the charger app subject was that Octopus is causing more traffic than the Ovo - not sure of the impact of all this apart from maybe battery drain 🤔
Another point mentioned was the black/white out of map squares - this is apparently being caused by particular cell masts and their functionality not being up to speed with the majority of other masts, they're updating cars not to talk to these problem masts to help improve the map experience....

I also run Tessie - though this didn't seem to cause a concerning amount of traffic to the car unless a wake command given

So I'll re-connect my 3rd party apps cos it looks like they're not causing this issue and put up with it until an update resolves it 👍
 
#14
AndyWarrington said:
I also run Tessie - though this didn't seem to cause a concerning amount of traffic to the car unless a wake command given
Click to expand...
Yes, never seen an issue with Tessie ... in fact one way of inadvertently waking the car is with the Tesla app ;) If you leave it on screen when you close your phone you can't avoid triggering a "wake" call when you (or your partner) next activate your phone! At least with Tessie you can open the app without waking the car and check its current status (and all the other parameters and data that Tessie provides).
 
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#15
AndyWarrington said:
Just got off the phone to the technician, apparently there's an issue when the car has been connected to my mobile hotspot and once the journey is finished and connection ceases the car is struggling with full functionality after via LTE - an 'internal ticket' has been raised as they're seeing more tickets come in with this issue. I'm advised it's only resolvable via a future update (pretty sure he said firmware) So once the plan is sorted their end they'll push it out - when; who knows 🤷‍♂️

He also added as a side that my charger app (Ovo) communicates with the car every 10 seconds which I find quite outstanding given it's not even plugged in or been asked to. Also added on the charger app subject was that Octopus is causing more traffic than the Ovo - not sure of the impact of all this apart from maybe battery drain 🤔
Another point mentioned was the black/white out of map squares - this is apparently being caused by particular cell masts and their functionality not being up to speed with the majority of other masts, they're updating cars not to talk to these problem masts to help improve the map experience....

I also run Tessie - though this didn't seem to cause a concerning amount of traffic to the car unless a wake command given

So I'll re-connect my 3rd party apps cos it looks like they're not causing this issue and put up with it until an update resolves it 👍
Click to expand...
Hmm - I'm a sceptic at heart, so let's pull this apart...

Just got off the phone to the technician, apparently there's an issue when the car has been connected to my mobile hotspot and once the journey is finished and connection ceases the car is struggling with full functionality after via LTE - an 'internal ticket' has been raised as they're seeing more tickets come in with this issue. I'm advised it's only resolvable via a future update (pretty sure he said firmware) So once the plan is sorted their end they'll push it out - when; who knows 🤷‍♂️
Click to expand...
You could turn off using a mobile hotspot and see if there's any basis to this.

He also added as a side that my charger app (Ovo) communicates with the car every 10 seconds which I find quite outstanding given it's not even plugged in or been asked to. Also added on the charger app subject was that Octopus is causing more traffic than the Ovo - not sure of the impact of all this apart from maybe battery drain 🤔
Click to expand...
This doesn't sound right. I use Octopus and also TeslaFi. One of the things TeslaFi does is tell you when the car is sleeping and for how long. This is a typical day when I don't use the car - it slept for 23hrs and 40 mins out of 24 hours.

1693914910882.png


Now maybe when it's been plugged in and Octopus are controlling it, it's different, but I don't think so. These are the stats for a day with some journeys followed by an overnight Octopus Intelligent charge:

1693915351551.png


So, the car slept for a total of 12 hours, was driven for 1.5 hrs, was charging for 4.5 hours, and idled for 2 hrs. None of that sounds like Octopus is keeping it awake.


Another point mentioned was the black/white out of map squares - this is apparently being caused by particular cell masts and their functionality not being up to speed with the majority of other masts, they're updating cars not to talk to these problem masts to help improve the map experience....
Click to expand...
What? I'd think there would be a lot of noise from anyone with a smartphone if masts delivered different service levels. Surely map downloads are just, you know, data? And how can making "cars not [to] talk to these problem masts" (aka, being offline) fix it?

This all sounds like someone who doesn't really know what's going on trying to sound like he/she does. It's a common human failing that we're all susceptible to - pretending to know when we ought to say "I don't know".
 
Last edited:
#16
3rd party comms every 10 seconds is possible without waking the car, but the requests are still being made as to whether its awake or asleep. There is a dedicated "wake" commands so the way to do anything with the car is to request its current status (which does not wake it, it just tells you whether its awake, asleep, in service etc), if it's anything but awake any other requyest will pretty much fail, so the app/3rd party need to wake up the car before requesting any info or action.

Now if you're a energy supplier you'll need to know if the car is plugged in before you start a charge. You've two basic options, either, constantly look to see if the car is awake, and if it is, get its status and whether its plugged in, and then remember that and only wake up and start a charge if it was plugged in the last time you saw it, or.. you wakeup the car to see, and if its plugged in when you want to charge and then start the charge, but you've forced the car to wake up which isn't great if it's in a long stay car park, and what happens if you get back home after the cheap rate started, you'd want them to check and manage the charge for you.

Something like Teslafi saying the car is and stayed asleep doesn't mean the Tesla servers weren't polled.
 
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