Soft reboot = Factory reset, what?

[GeneralPlatty]

My car is stuck on 2020.47.104. Spent hours trying to get Tesla service to push an update - something which should take them a couple minutes at most, but a bunch of broken promises for callbacks later, I got absolutely nowhere.

Been having a lot of issues with sentry mode and overall bluetooth connectivity, so I decided to reboot the console by holding the steering wheel buttons down. That turned out to be a bad mistake as the whole car died and would not reboot. I was able to park it, but afterwards it became unresponsive. I was only able to get the console to reappear after I exited the vehicle, locked it with a key card, then unlocked it. Afterwards, the fan spun up really fast and the entire car factory reset itself.

I am fortunate I had my key card, because I don't know what I would have done without it. Seems like a fine way to get stranded.

I've seen people on YouTube reboot their screens while driving on freeways, saying how easy it is and how it'll fix any glitches, etc. It comes right back up for them. But from my experience, it just completely died.

I held the buttons for about 15 seconds before the screen went black. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[GtiMart]

You should always bring a key card, the phone as key will never be 100% safe.
New cars are delivered with some "rare" software and it takes a few weeks for them to become part of the normal software delivery system. Just give it some time.
Yes, rebooting the screen/computer requires holding the scroll wheels a few seconds, that's normal. Then the screen becomes black and it will take a while before the tesla logo appears and it boots.

 

[GeneralPlatty]

In my case, the screen goes black and it doesn't come back. Only way I can get it to come back is to exit the car, lock and unlock it.

This actually happened twice. Yesterday, it didn't factory reset. I thought it was just some bizarre bug. Today, the same thing happened and it actually wiped out everything.

 

[EVRider-FL]

Make a service appointment. What you describe is not normal.

 

[jjrandorin]

@GeneralPlatty

I agree with @EVRider-FL here. If you can remember the approximate date / time of the last time that happened, note it down, and make a service appointment. Let them know the approximate time it happened last, and hopefully they can look in the cars logs and find error messages etc.

What you are describing doesnt sound "normal" though. Occasional glitches happen sometimes but thats not what it sounds like to me in this case.

 

[sundaydrive]

It’s happened to me a while back, just after the holiday update. Normal reset because FM radio wasn’t working reset the whole car. Fan blew very fast, GPS thought it was at Tesla HQ, all settings and trip stats were gone. I was a week into ownership, so I didn’t make an appointment just figured I’d monitor closely and nothing strange has happened since.

 

[Phlier]

My car is stuck on 2020.47.104

New cars are delivered with a firmware that is a completely different code branch than the regular fleet code branch. My Sales Associate referred to it as the “break in firmware.” The firmware on your car is a break in firmware version, so I'm guessing that you've had your car less than a month.

Your car will switch over to the regular fleet firmware after some unknown trigger event happens. The trigger might be after so many miles, so much time, a combination of both, or some other event we don’t know about. It’ll happen somewhere between 10 and 20 days. You’ll know when you get a “Software Update” available message. At that time, you'll receive the latest regular fleet firmware.

If your car did a complete factory reset, it's likely (or at least possible) that whatever trigger Tesla uses to have new cars switch over to the regular fleet firmware also got reset. If that's the case, your car really will be stuck on that firmware version until your car reaches whatever trigger milestone it needs to reach in order to switch over to the regular fleet firmware. If it's mileage based, you'll likely be OK, as I'm betting your odometer didn't get reset to zero. The problem is that we don't know what the trigger event is for a car to be released from break in firmware.

I honestly doubt that anything is actually wrong with your car... it's likely to be a bug in that particular firmware version, which you will be saying goodbye to at some point.

When you are on break-in firmware, you can't be of the "my car's firmware is stuck" mindset. I know that that's easy to do, as you are seeing all of these other "new" firmware versions being released, and you're wondering why you're not getting any of them. Your car will remain "stuck" on the break in firmware until some trigger event happens, and at that point (and ONLY at that point) will you then get the regular fleet firmware latest and greatest.

 

[Mattopotamus]

You should always bring a key card, the phone as key will never be 100% safe.
New cars are delivered with some "rare" software and it takes a few weeks for them to become part of the normal software delivery system. Just give it some time.
Yes, rebooting the screen/computer requires holding the scroll wheels a few seconds, that's normal. Then the screen becomes black and it will take a while before the tesla logo appears and it boots.

Big guts for the people that don't bring their card key with them. I have had my phone die and then another time not connect to the car. Sometimes toggling bluetooth works, but I would feel pretty damn silly if I got stranded because I left the physical key behind.

 

[Ianjsnow]

Pretty much same thing happened to me, car had no connectivity, tried to reboot and it reset to factory defaults, still with no connectivity. Rebooted again and connectivity came back, but still have no maps loaded, even after being connected to wifi for several hours...car drives normally, but this is quite frustrating and not a smooth customer experience.

 

[GeneralPlatty]

I called support when it happened, and they pulled down the logs remotely to investigate. They told me it'll take a few weeks.

It seems like it isn't just me though. I just saw some people on Reddit talking about this very issue. It seems like Model Y is impacted by this bug as well, and it's present in the latest version of the software update.

I'd be very careful about using this feature until Tesla confirms there's a fix for it.

 

[Phlier]

I called support when it happened, and they pulled down the logs remotely to investigate. They told me it'll take a few weeks.

It seems like it isn't just me though. I just saw some people on Reddit talking about this very issue. It seems like Model Y is impacted by this bug as well, and it's present in the latest version of the software update.

I'd be very careful about using this feature until Tesla confirms there's a fix for it.

I know it’s a bit of a long read, but please take a minute to read my post above.
Your car is on the break-in firmware code branch. It will not update to the normal fleet software until your car passes some unknown milestone, at which point you will get the normal fleet updates.
It is normal for you to not get updates until that point.

 

[MikeyC]

I got mine on March 21 and it was on 2020.47.104 for 18 days: it finally had a software update ready yesterday and I installed it: 2021.4.13. Update went fine and I played with Boombox a bit. Haven't driven it on 2021.4.13 and probably won't until 4/16 because I'm in quarantine until then.

Mike

 

[GeneralPlatty]

I know it’s a bit of a long read, but please take a minute to read my post above.
Your car is on the break-in firmware code branch. It will not update to the normal fleet software until your car passes some unknown milestone, at which point you will get the normal fleet updates.
It is normal for you to not get updates until that point.

My car already updated. I'm talking about the factory reset issue when you attempt to restart your dash by holding the steering wheel buttons, and that is what Tesla said they'll take a few weeks to investigate. It's happening to people even on 2021.4.15.

I am saying that if you do this, expect the worst case scenario. There are reports that in some circumstances, it even deletes your key cards.

I do suggest that if anyone else experiences this bug, please report it as well.

 

[OCR1]

I’ve never heard of having to exit the car before you can get the computer to reboot. I don’t think that has anything to do with your firmware version. I would make a service appointment so they can look at the log files. This does not sound normal to me.

 

[MikeyC]

Tesla chat once had me power the car off (via the service menu), wait 2 minutes without touching anything, and then press the brake pedal to wake it up after the 2 minutes. I'm not sure what (if anything) that does but you might try it since chat support must have had a reason to have me do it.

Mike

 

[Hangerr]

It’s happened to me a while back, just after the holiday update. Normal reset because FM radio wasn’t working reset the whole car. Fan blew very fast, GPS thought it was at Tesla HQ, all settings and trip stats were gone. I was a week into ownership, so I didn’t make an appointment just figured I’d monitor closely and nothing strange has happened since.

Just experienced this exact situation last night after multiple failed attempts to update to the latest Holiday updates. After reset I was able to download/install the update but next morning found out the car had factory resetted and I lost all the settings.

 

[orntar]

Just experienced this exact situation last night after multiple failed attempts to update to the latest Holiday updates. After reset I was able to download/install the update but next morning found out the car had factory resetted and I lost all the settings.

Holiday update isn't out yet. They did a huge push to 44.6 yesterday, however.