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Tesla infotainment system upgradeable from MCU1 to MCU2

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I have gotten multiple updates on my MCU1 HW3 car since the start of 2021 — IRC, 2021.48.37.2, 2021.48.37.3, 2021.48.37.4, and 2021.48.37.6. These cars aren't failing to get updates. They're getting updated. The updates are just branched from a really, really old baseline version. And this is affecting every single car with MCU1 and HW3, but doesn't appear to affect any cars with MCU1 and HW1 (non-upgradable to HW3), which are all much older than anything with MCU1 and HW3.

So this has nothing whatsoever to do with eMMC wear. There is a small possibility that it is caused by eMMC *size*, of course.

I don't know why they aren't pushing current firmware revisions to MCU1, but my guess is that they haven't figured out a way to optimize the code enough that the city driving code doesn't bring MCU1 to its knees. My strong suspicion is that they will end up replacing MCU1 with MCU2 for FSD users before this is all over. It's probably way cheaper to do that than to spend resources trying to support city driving on MCU1. Expect the price of FSD to jump way up when they make that decision, though, and expect them to drag their heels as long as they can get away with it, because everyone who pays for the MCU2 upgrade right now is one more upgrade that Tesla won't have to pay for later. :)
I don't know either. Want to guess? Want to speculate? That's all it is. We don't know what we don't know. We do know there's a shortage of LCD screens. We know there's been a shortage of chips, and its adversely impacting availability of new or refurbished daughterboards. So, if there's S/X with a marginal eMMC, maybe - just maybe they don't want to push a minor update to it, because a fresh update could cause a car to not boot again after an install.

The eMMC contains to complete versions of the firmware. The current which the car boots and runs with, and the last/more recent before the current. We (being owners) can not simply trigger and older one on our own. Each time another OTA update is received, it downloads for installation to the older partition on the eMMC which contains firmware. Its some what like "A" is current and "B" is older. When a new download occurs, it next goes to "B", and "B" becomes current. If one of these partitions is marginal or worse - bad, the update may not download, it may download partly and fail to complete. If it can't complete a download, it will not even attempt an install.

With the logistics issues of getting eMMC daughterboards and refurbished MCU1s, - you are right, maybe they are not pushing fresh firmware.

These download/install issues have been discussed in several threads. What I am describing is not news. Its just not been discussed in a while, since we've moved past "is it an eMMC problem or not" - finally.

BTW, I am not saying anything you said in not correct. I am just saying we don't know with certainty, what is going on, or why some cars are getting more attention than others.

I do know that for more than a year, when I was on MCU1, it was a year before I could get a fresh update. I know I had a failing MCU1 from more than one problem. And now that I am on MCU2, I get an update every 2-3 weeks.
 
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I have gotten multiple updates on my MCU1 HW3 car since the start of 2021 — IRC, 2021.48.37.2, 2021.48.37.3, 2021.48.37.4, and 2021.48.37.6. These cars aren't failing to get updates. They're getting updated. The updates are just branched from a really, really old baseline version. And this is affecting every single car with MCU1 and HW3, but doesn't appear to affect any cars with MCU1 and HW1 (non-upgradable to HW3), which are all much older than anything with MCU1 and HW3.
You meant 2020.48.37.2, 2020.48.37.3, 2020.48.37.4, and 2020.48.37.6 , right?
 
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My music on slacker finishes only about every third song. Most of the time it gets interrupted and goes to the next song.
I'm on HW1 and MCU1 - 2015 S.
Do people still have that issue, or is it just HW1 and MCU1 people?
It's gotten a lot worse in the last 3 months.
@tmoz, I wanted to revisit your comment here and tell you something I remembered today. In the early days that some of us had with the eMMC and no one thought it was a failing chip, the fix that SCs were promoting people or asking if they could do was "reset the A & B mileage counters". The SC techs were passing to us that the music buffering issue was caused by residue associated with the mileage counters. Well, that made no sense to me, but they explained, the cars were storing energy use data associated with Navigated locations and the mileage counters. There was two things we were told to do, or let them do. Reset the A & B counters and delete/clear all the previously navigated locations. There was some posts here - long ago, that these two things solved the music buffering issue - for a while. My point in telling you this is, it might help your situation. So, if you are willing to clear navigated locations and mileage counters, it might fix your music issue. Until those build up again.
 
I don't know either. Want to guess? Want to speculate? That's all it is. We don't know what we don't know. We do know there's a shortage of LCD screens. We know there's been a shortage of chips, and its adversely impacting availability of new or refurbished daughterboards. So, if there's S/X with a marginal eMMC, maybe - just maybe they don't want to push a minor update to it, because a fresh update could cause a car to not boot again after an install.
But they *are* pushing an update to these cars about every two months. They're just pushing 2020 updates instead of 2021 updates. I mean yes, those updates are probably smaller, so they're writing less data, but none of those updates were mission-critical, either. Were the reason behind that decision a wear issue, it would have made way more sense to push a 2021.x release to those cars less often than to push a crappy 2020 release more often.

So let's look at the breakdown of the 2021.x firmware deployment by version:

* MCU1/pre-AutoPilot: 41%
* MCU1/HW1: 43.5%
* MCU1/HW2: 2%

The most obvious difference between those three groups is that HW2 cars can be upgraded to HW3, whereas HW1 and pre-AP cars can't. And most people don't upgrade their MCU, so we can probably assume that approximately all of those cars have MCU1, within the margin of error.

It's much harder to get numbers for the MCU1/AP2.5 combination. MCU2.5 was installed with MCU1 for 9 months, with MCU2 for 12 months, and with ICE (Model 3) for 21 months. The vast majority of those would be ICE or MCU2, but I don't have an exact breakdown. However, there's still a double-digit holdback of HW2.5 cars running 2020.x, which suggests that the number of MCU1/HW2.5 cars that are running 2021.x firmware is approximately zero.

So from the numbers, it is pretty clear that 2021.x is being deliberately excluded from all but a tiny percentage of MCU1 cars that are capable of being upgraded to HW3, which tells us that for some reason, they don't want a lot of cars out on the road with the latest HW3 firmware talking to MCU1. We can't say why for certain, but it is glaringly obvious that it is not the MCU by itself that is the problem, but rather the combination with HW3 or the risk of future combination with HW3.

The most likely possibility, to be honest, is that the 8 GB eMMC isn't big enough to hold the new HW3 firmware image (which could theoretically be up to 4 GB) long enough to push it out to the HW3 computer, and that the 2% of MCU1/HW3 cars that are running 2021.x have all been rebuilt with a bigger eMMC. (The repair process bumps its capacity up to 64 GB.)
 
@tmoz, I wanted to revisit your comment here and tell you something I remembered today. In the early days that some of us had with the eMMC and no one thought it was a failing chip, the fix that SCs were promoting people or asking if they could do was "reset the A & B mileage counters". The SC techs were passing to us that the music buffering issue was caused by residue associated with the mileage counters. Well, that made no sense to me, but they explained, the cars were storing energy use data associated with Navigated locations and the mileage counters. There was two things we were told to do, or let them do. Reset the A & B counters and delete/clear all the previously navigated locations. There was some posts here - long ago, that these two things solved the music buffering issue - for a while. My point in telling you this is, it might help your situation. So, if you are willing to clear navigated locations and mileage counters, it might fix your music issue. Until those build up again.
That doesn't sound like a cell failure to me unless their static wear leveling is nonexistent. It sounds more like the chip is just plain full. Remember that when they replace your eMMC, the total flash capacity goes up from 8 GB to 64 GB.
 
There are a few bubbles. If it isn't broken, don't fix it? Time and effort put in for minor gain?
We ultimately decided to spend the money for MCU2 shortly after Tesla dropped the price to $1500. We had already gotten the 64 GB eMMC under warranty, but that didn’t solve the rebooting, slowness, etc of MCU1. we could’ve waited, but by waiting we’d only have prolonged the time we spent suffering with MCU1. The car is so much more enjoyable with MCU2. I really believe that Tesla will not be able to deliver FSD with MCU1 & that Tesla should provide MCU2 to owners who paid for FSD, but I know that won’t happen without a lawsuit. Knowing that by paying the $1500 we may be sacrificing the opportunity to get MCU2 on Tesla’s dime, we chose to spend the money to improve the enjoyment of our car. It was a good use of some of the gov stimulus funds.
 
We ultimately decided to spend the money for MCU2 shortly after Tesla dropped the price to $1500. We had already gotten the 64 GB eMMC under warranty, but that didn’t solve the rebooting, slowness, etc of MCU1. we could’ve waited, but by waiting we’d only have prolonged the time we spent suffering with MCU1. The car is so much more enjoyable with MCU2. I really believe that Tesla will not be able to deliver FSD with MCU1 & that Tesla should provide MCU2 to owners who paid for FSD, but I know that won’t happen without a lawsuit. Knowing that by paying the $1500 we may be sacrificing the opportunity to get MCU2 on Tesla’s dime, we chose to spend the money to improve the enjoyment of our car. It was a good use of some of the gov stimulus funds.
I'm on HW1 with no chance to move up to HW2. I think a model Y is in my future with HW4.
 
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I'm on HW1 with no chance to move up to HW2. I think a model Y is in my future with HW4.
I encourage you to look for a private sale, while putting yours up for sale too. Your S is a great first EV for a lot of people not ready to buy a 3/Y. Also, get a trade-in value from Tesla for yours and watch (the go fast) a used Tesla from Tesla. Could get you in a a newer car, maybe even with warranty. These days, its sometimes fun just to look.
 
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My music on slacker finishes only about every third song. Most of the time it gets interrupted and goes to the next song.
I'm on HW1 and MCU1 - 2015 S.
Do people still have that issue, or is it just HW1 and MCU1 people?
It's gotten a lot worse in the last 3 months.
MCU1 with eMMC recall done.
I do have to same issues with Slacker music. Not happy about it!

Christian
 
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MCU1 with eMMC recall done.
I do have to same issues with Slacker music. Not happy about it!

Christian

I'm not sure these issues are Tesla specific at least not all of them I've been having goofy issues on my desktop computer at home trying to play videos. And my smartphone similar situations there as well stupid buffering interruptions and so forth not sure how much of that can be attributed to Tesla specific software issues in their vehicles or just general internet and over the air connectivity issues as a whole.
 
+1 for the music issues and skipping on specific songs at times. I think it's because it caches songs and it thinks it has the whole song even though it doesn't. Spotify doesn't have this issue, but has a separate one. Eventually it will just stop loading and playing music - just hangs. The whole music player seems to be affected in this case. It seems like if I turn off maps by turning on the sketchpad, it prolongs how long it takes for this to happen. Probably a memory leak in recent firmwares; might explain why getting rid of maps makes it last longer between issues. Reboot fixes everything for a while. I had my EMMC replaced about a year ago. I might go to MCU2 one day, but don't want to right now because I don't like the extra vamp drain that will happen, and I have a Tinklabuddy installed to get AP UI on my second screen above the steering wheel, which doesn't work in MCU2.
 
+1 for the music issues and skipping on specific songs at times. I think it's because it caches songs and it thinks it has the whole song even though it doesn't. Spotify doesn't have this issue, but has a separate one. Eventually it will just stop loading and playing music - just hangs. The whole music player seems to be affected in this case. It seems like if I turn off maps by turning on the sketchpad, it prolongs how long it takes for this to happen. Probably a memory leak in recent firmwares; might explain why getting rid of maps makes it last longer between issues. Reboot fixes everything for a while. I had my EMMC replaced about a year ago. I might go to MCU2 one day, but don't want to right now because I don't like the extra vamp drain that will happen, and I have a Tinklabuddy installed to get AP UI on my second screen above the steering wheel, which doesn't work in MCU2.
Extra vampire drain? I am not aware of this and I can report having less than 1 kWh drained over two days in the garage. On occasion it has been negligible - 2015 P85/90D, AP1, MCU2.