Software Updates very infrequent

[WannabeOwner]

My software updates seem to be very infrequent. I'm still waiting for Santa Claus and the Reindeer ...

Nothing has changed here. The car is parked overnight in the same spot, and in range of WiFi (although maybe there are some settings I should double check / tests I could make?)

Only thing I can think of is that car went for Service in early December. It came back with Service Mode on (<sigh> that has happened repeatedly despite me being told they never leave the car in that state), so maybe something more significant got turned off / changed at that time?

Data from TeslaFi:

Looks like much of the AP1 fleet has nothing newer than 2017.48 ... and there are a handful of even older version cars, although maybe they are refusing update, or not communicating with TeslaFi anymore.

 

[boaterva]

I would call the support number. Virtually everyone got 2017.50.3 around Christmas so something may have happened on your last release to block future releases. It has happened and they can tell remotely. It may take a SC visit to fix or maybe not but 50.3 was a complete rollout.

 

[Mark Z]

My 2012 and 2017 MS needed service this week. Once the Remote Service tech was finished at the house, I asked him if the software could be updated. He called it in and within 2 hours after he left, both vehicles were showing the update screen.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Thanks. Checking the dates above the car was at service centre on 20-Dec, when it last got an update, so that would account for that one.

Nothing prior to that for two months ... and nothing since then for two months (to date). I know that updates are not an exact science! but something seems to be amiss.

If there is something not happening I'm surprised that Tesla is not running a report of "who hasn't got it yet" and then "Why haven't they got it" ... instead of punters having to detect that there is a problem. I'm techie, have TeslaFi installed, so able to see the data ... but I expect there are plenty of people who don't ...

 

[bob_p]

I end up checking my smartphone each morning to see if new updates have been pushed to our cars overnight.

When Hurricane Harvey hit and we evacuated, we parked one of our cars in a multi-story garage with no WiFi or power connection for a week. After bringing the car back home, we weren't receiving updates.

I called Tesla's phone support, they looked at the logs and found our car had encountered multiple downloading errors for an update, and the car was placed on the "do not update" list - no updates would be pushed to our car. This happened without any notification on the console display, from the smartphone app, or via a phone/e-mail message from Tesla. If I hadn't called, we wouldn't have known about this - and our car wouldn't have received any updates until it went into the Service Center for the next service visit.

If you haven't received any updates for more than 2 months, it may be worthwhile to call Tesla and have them check the logs and verify there aren't any failures in sending or installing updates in your car.

Longer term, Tesla really, really, needs to fix their software distribution process, provide more documentation & notifications, and give owners more control over how frequently and when software updates are sent to their cars.

 

[boaterva]

I end up checking my smartphone each morning to see if new updates have been pushed to our cars overnight.

When Hurricane Harvey hit and we evacuated, we parked one of our cars in a multi-story garage with no WiFi or power connection for a week. After bringing the car back home, we weren't receiving updates.

I called Tesla's phone support, they looked at the logs and found our car had encountered multiple downloading errors for an update, and the car was placed on the "do not update" list - no updates would be pushed to our car. This happened without any notification on the console display, from the smartphone app, or via a phone/e-mail message from Tesla. If I hadn't called, we wouldn't have known about this - and our car wouldn't have received any updates until it went into the Service Center for the next service visit.

If you haven't received any updates for more than 2 months, it may be worthwhile to call Tesla and have them check the logs and verify there aren't any failures in sending or installing updates in your car.

Longer term, Tesla really, really, needs to fix their software distribution process, provide more documentation & notifications, and give owners more control over how frequently and when software updates are sent to their cars.

This has been noted many times. There is no notification except the owner seeing that no new updates have happened in a long time. Perhaps the original idea was that the SC would note and fix but that could be a year or more for a car without other issues. There does need to be an indication of a failed download.

 

[luckyj]

Looking at ev-fw data, there were about 8 "wide" deployments in 2017 for most AP1 UK cars. So I'd say your 9 updates in 2017 for an AP1 vehicle was average (vs infrequent). Finally, it doesn't look like a wide deployment has happened yet in 2018 for AP1 UK vehicles. But most AP1 UK cars did get 17.50.2, so something might have happened there. So save that one anomaly, you're updates seem quite normal.

 

[arcus]

Thanks. Checking the dates above the car was at service centre on 20-Dec, when it last got an update, so that would account for that one.

From what I recall, 2017.50.3 hit the masses just before Christmas (I think I've got it on the Eve), so you might have just missed it. Contact SC, see if they can fix it for you. It definitely looks abnormal to be without the patch for that long.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I'd say your 9 updates in 2017 for an AP1 vehicle was average (vs infrequent)

I read the data differently. I had regular updates until April 2017. Then one at end June and beginning July, then nothing until mid October, then 20-December when car was in for service, then nothing since, including the widely distributed Christmas update.

There appear to be several widely distributed releases between the ones that I received after July 2017.

 

[luckyj]

Here is ev-fw data for AP1 UK cars

 

[luckyj]

Sorry I clipped off a little bit of 2017, there was 1 more wide update in 2017. So now your updates match the wide deployments.

 

[cbdream99]

I haven't received any update since Oct 17 and stuck on 2017.44 until I bought the car to SC last weekend and updated to the latest, now I am receiving the newest updates. It's funny, the claimed I have a weak wifi signal in the garage and I needed either boost the signal or just leave it in LTE. However, I have security cameras inside and outside the garage, they never have any signals problem and the signals are very strong plus I have been receiving updates up till 2017.44, I suspect there is a bug somewhere that causes the update logic goes into lala land and resulted in the no more update bucket.

 

[WannabeOwner]

So now your updates match the wide deployments.

I'm not sure with figures so low its possible to determine what is statistically significant, but post July when update-rate seemed to slow down if I'm reading your "wide release" figures correctly I didn't get

17.32.6
17.42
17.50.2

I got one update post July OTA on 18-Oct (car was either at work or home that day, certainly not at Service) and one when it was at Service on 20-Dec and its now two months since 17.50 (which I think was the Christmas release) so it ought to be here by now!.

Anyways, I've sent Support a query and will await to hear what they have to say.

 

[Pentium2004]

I spoke with Tesla on Monday and I asked them why they don't make it so we can just request our own update when we want it. Their reply was that they have been discussing/working on it and it could possibly happen soon. Their software engineers are getting so many requests for software updates that they can't keep up. Hope to see this happen and then you won't see a thread like this again.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Update:

Sorry not had time to update this until now.

Sent a report to Tesla (at the time of original post in this thread). Within 12 hours I had the latest update. But no reply to my email at all, so I have no idea if this was coincidence (seems unlikely given the extreme delay and the car being always parked in same place), a problem with the car which is now fixed (and it will download future versions) or nothing is changed/fixed/improved and I am going to have to monitor and chase ... and waste Tesla's support time ... and increase operating costs.

Yet another example of useless Back Office at Tesla. For all I know the whole fleet might be subjected to "Try three times and give up".

When the car was in Service in December, and it got latest release then, there was presumably no check that updates were overdue, and something done reactively about it (or tell me to do something to ensure I get them, or at least to tell me there was a problem I should look out for).

 

[luckyj]

2018.6.1 is the first release this year to "go wide" for UK/GB. So you're still in the norm, from what I can see. True the numbers are low. But when there is a good pattern where a total is at least 4x that of other releases that also corresponds to overall wide releases with larger total numbers...it's probably not too much of a stretch.

 

[WannabeOwner]

So you're still in the norm, from what I can see.

So you keep saying despite me saying that I have missed a number of major versions, only had updates since October when car was either in service or the day after raising a support request.

 

[bob_p]

If you haven't seen an update for 2-3 months, you should call Tesla's customer support and have them verify there isn't a problem installing the updates in your car (which happened to us last year).

Tesla really needs to provide better communication and more control to customers on software updates - and calling them to ask for assistance related to delayed or missing software updates will help build the case for making improvements - because the current model won't scale well when Tesla is delivering 500,000 cars per year...

 

[bktiger86]

If you haven't seen an update for 2-3 months, you should call Tesla's customer support and have them verify there isn't a problem installing the updates in your car (which happened to us last year).

Tesla really needs to provide better communication and more control to customers on software updates - and calling them to ask for assistance related to delayed or missing software updates will help build the case for making improvements - because the current model won't scale well when Tesla is delivering 500,000 cars per year...

I haven't received an update for a long long time. I'm still rocking the 2017.50.3. Which email did you guys send it to?

 

[ucmndd]

I haven't received an update for a long long time. I'm still rocking the 2017.50.3. Which email did you guys send it to?

That’s not a long long time. That’s normal. I along with countless others just upgraded from 50.3 today.