Unplugging Devices Before Updates

[LauraE]

I had a really nice home visit from Tesla today. I've had a series of software crashes since buying my 21 M3LR in December, and while things have settled down since the 4.6 update, i was glad he came. He actually did a Hard Reset, which is to unplug the 12V battery from the main battery and then he took the connectors off the 12V battery. He then reconnected each so the car could reboot from scratch.

During the visit, we talked about a number of Tesla related topics, including software updates. According to him, the engineers recommend that we disconnect all USB devices, including the Sentra memory stick, before performing any updates. Why? Apparently, after the software update downloads, it tries to install itself on any devices that are connected to the car and there have been instances where this has bricked the car.

Just one more example why i HATE the manual.

Laura

 

[Tarpan]

It tries to install itself on any device and that can lead to bricking the car?
That can't be a real thing. I bet 99% of people leave their sentry drives/keys plugged in, this would be a massive and rampant problem.
I would imagine this would be a bizarre bug to leave in there and I can't think of a reason they would intentionally do this.

 

[GtiMart]

I believe there have been cases where updates were not installing more than a year ago when I got the car. I was removing my USB stick for the first few updates. As far as I know this has been fixed a while back and is not necessary anymore. It's just an urban myth at this point...

 

[SSonnentag]

I've done over 3 years of updates without removing USB devices. No issues.

 

[mswlogo]

I’ve sometimes unplugged my dashcam drive during updates. Just in case. Because the whole dashcam drive has always been a little flakey. It has caused things like autopilot issues and other unrelated errors in the past (not for me) but seen posts. Tesla had them unplug USB and do a shutdown to resolve issues. There seems to be some critical paths that depend on the usb that shouldn’t exist but apparently do.

Not sure about the installing itself. But it’s common to have hooks that might peek at external drives for alternate boot images or configurations. Especially during a boot. And if that glitches what happens if you are in the middle of a reboot that’s part of an install.

 

[mark95476]

Same here. I've had ~8 months of semi regular updates with my Dashcam USB SSD and other things plugged in. No issues so far.

I've done over 3 years of updates without removing USB devices. No issues.