Model Y does not unlock automatically after sentry mode events

[rwpalmer]

My wife and I use the walk-away door locks, and the car normally unlocks as we approach it with our phone keys. This worked flawlessly on our 2020 Model Y which we traded in for a 2023 Model Y in early August.. It also worked flawlessly on our 2023 Model Y for almost three months. We were therefore surprised when the new car started failing to unlock automatically after it had detected a sentry mode event. We first saw this behavior in the mid-October time frame, and we have had that experience at least 5 times since then. In those cases, we are forced to use a key-card or to use our Tesla app to unlock the car.

This leaves us wondering:
- Is this a "new feature" with a purpose?
- Is it a "software glitch" or a "software configuration" problem?
- Is there something wrong with the car?
- Is there something wrong with both of our phones? (They are both Google Pixel 5 phones, so Google could have made a software change.)

The only thing we know is: that this issue is inconvenient for us ... especially in cold weather since gloves have to come off to use the phone app or key card.

When it comes to troubleshooting: I've reviewed the car's "settings", removed and readded the phone keys, rebooted the car and the phones with my fingers crossed. That has not helped. We are hoping we can find a remedy for this issue. Worst case, we plan to disable sentry mode.

 

[rlsd]

It's normal.
It could be related to the new SW update. I have that several times.

You need to try to open the door a couple times. Sometimes the car is slow to detect the bluetooth signal from the phone right after a sentry mode event and a lot of times it suspects you are a thief.
You can use the unlock button on the phone Tesla app if you don't want to be patient.

 

[rwpalmer]

If this is normal, I have trouble understanding why we never experienced a "sentry mode lockout" once in in our first 38 months of Tesla ownership ... and then we suddenly experience five "sentry mode lockouts" within a single month.

The software update cause makes sense, but that raises other questions:
- I can see some rationale for Tesla to delay unlocking when sentry mode suspects that bad actors may be in the vicinity, but then again ...making a Tesla owner take out their wallet/purse/cellphone standing outside their locked car seems like an invitation for more trouble. What's more, using the phone key or key card is often a two-handed operation. I was carrying a bag and a box last time I was locked out. I was able to set these on the ground to get my phone out. I don't know what I would have done if the ground had been wet. I hope Tesla that did not make such a change on purpose. I did review recent release notes, but saw nothing related to this topic.

- I can also buy that the issue may be related to bluetooth, but there is no excuse for a self-driving car to run out of computer power while it is parked in a parking lot. For grins, I'll try to do some bluetooth diagnostics next time I get locked out.

 

[flixden]

Have you checked that the app isn't sent to sleep mode by your phone? Happened to my wife repeatedly, we are using Android. Once I set the Tesla app to "never sleep", it hasn't happened again, not a single time.
Maybe it's something different for you, but worth a shot.

 

[JHCCAZ]

I agree with the comment by @flixden.

I suspect you are suffering from the rather common problem of Bluetooth wake-up, that causes the car to be slow or downright refuse to unlock. I can't say that I've associated this behavior with Sentry events; there may be something to that or it may be a coincidence.

The usual cure is to go into your app settings for the Tesla app and make sure that it is not allowing battery optimization, i.e. not allow the phone's OS to force it to sleep after inactivity.

Even after doing this, you may find very occasionally that you have a similar problem. If so, close the Tesla app and reopen it, or in the worst case restart the phone.

 

[rwpalmer]

Thanks flixden and JHCCAZ ... I appreciate your comments:
We are currently performing another test. After two-days, bluetooth unlocking has worked 100% of the time. If that continues for a full week, the correlation between sentry mode and the door locks should be largely proven since we've been seeing one or two failures per day lately with sentry mode turned on.

Both of our phones are configured to "Pause app if unused" in "Android speak". I assume this is the setting that you reference, and I agree that "Turning that setting off will definitely be another thing to test. However, I will wait until our current testing has convinced me one way or another related to the correlation between bluetooth and Sentry mode.

 

[dm121721]

Also, the car will not let you manually open the door until the sentry mode big red eye screen disappears off screen. If you keep trying the door handle with that screen on, it just keeps re-triggering the timeout and you'll never get in. You must use the app, keycard or keyfob to unlock.

 

[Tha_Ape]

Then...

This setting is the one they're referring to, I think (as well as the one you mentioned)

 

[rwpalmer]

View attachment 994633

Then...

View attachment 994635


This setting is the one they're referring to, I think (as well as the one you mentioned)

Thanks for the info. I've changed the phone settings. What makes no sense to me is that we owned a 2020 Model Y for 3 years, traded it in for a 2023 Model Y and owned that for around two months without EVER being locked out of our car. We obviously had many Sentry Mode events over that time. Then, suddenly, we are getting locked out of our car multiple times a week.

We have had another problem with both cars that may be related. We occasionally get into unlocked car at home and sit down in the driver's seat and the car asks for our key card even though our phone is in our pocket/purse. We typically just toggle bluetooth on the phone off and on to remedy this problem, but there have been times when I have had to delete and recreate a phone key on the car. We've seen that with both cars and I'm hoping the settings you and others have outlined will help with that problem as well.

FYI: Earlier this year, I installed Generac's "Mobile Link" app on my phone and the Android OS occasionally had to force-stop that app due to bluetooth problems. Those events seemed to put our Tesla's bluetooth communications in a weird state, and I had to reboot the car to recover. After a couple of those events, I removed the Generac app from my phone. While it was a "nice to have", it was not worth my time to diagnose the issue further. I mention this because it is nice to know that external bluetooth forces can also put Tesla's bluetooth stack into a confused state.

At this point, we are still seeing lock-outs, but they are not occurring as often as they were when I originally posted. Thanks again for the information you provided. I look forward to further to testing the new settings.

 

[rwpalmer]

Thanks to those who have tried to help me diagnose/resolve our sentry mode lockout problems. My efforts ended yesterday when sentry mode decided to lock us out of the car at a particularly bad time. That event convinced both of us that our Tesla experience would be improved by disabling sentry mode for the long-term. I certainly won't be doing any more testing until winter weather is behind us.