Warning, rebooting v10 on MCU1 while driving

[RichieM]

There can't be with Tesla, because:

1. They sell vaporware, meaning they have to give you updates to deliver what they sold you (e.g. my wife's 2017 Model S didn't have auto headlights or auto-wipers for many months after delivery)
2. Their cars require internet connectivity to function, which means they have to be regularly patched for security vulnerabilities. Without patching, the cars become a joke to hack as security vulnerabilities for old software are freely available on the internet. With a 10-15 year lifecycle, there is no way Tesla can afford "security patch" only model (one big reason - after 2-4 years they lost the free support from the open source community, as the community simply moves to newer versions of the software).

1. Vaporware implies that a product/software doesn't exist. You claim "they have to give you updates". If it was vaporware their would be no need for an product/software update as it doesn't exist.
2. You know for certain "there is no way Tesla can afford "security patch" only model"?
3. I suspect Tesla also does security patches to keep "hackers" in the open source community from
altering their software (for liability reasons)

 

[RichieM]

This focuses your mind on a huge issue. It's one thing to be offered the choice of a fully tested system update with a clearly defined set of features.

But.... something very different to find yourself an unwilling participant in the middle of an ongoing beta (or alpha?) test program that is using you and your car as the testbed.

There must be an 'Opt Out' to give you the chance to stick with the car you originally purchased.

Easy, don't accept an update, it is after all the owners choice to do so

 

[RichieM]

Just cover your car’s radar/sensors + camera on the windscreen with muck or any soil and give it a drive, you will have non-functional safety systems and a joy of your muscles power...[/QUOTE
Better yet just pull the fuses to all assist functions

 

[RichieM]

Just cover your car’s radar/sensors + camera on the windscreen with muck or any soil and give it a drive, you will have non-functional safety systems and a joy of your muscles power...

 

[RichieM]

I reckon the MCU v1 eMMC memory turned out to be hopelessly under sized and technically inadequate for the demands of the application. Hence the need for MCU v2. The core functions (ignore farting and other pointless 'features') like GPS, sentry, update handing, car systems control) are no different between early cars and cars to be released 5 years from now.

There are so many examples of what can go wrong when an over loaded MCU, quite possibly with unreliable eMMC memory gets rebooted, that it is pointless saying that this is somehow OK or even correct functioning. When MCUs self reboot, I bet that quite often it's because they have got into a state that they just can't carry on working and the reboot is not a controlled system response so much as an unavoidable and unpredictable one.

Since the eMMC chip in MCU 2 is very similar to MCU 1, it's reasonable that it can easily suffer similar issues.

Don't Lemon Laws come into play here (in the US)? I mean rapid fogging of windshield, no access to most ancillary equipment, unpredictable behavior, potential loss of speed display...... Even possibility of car's driving characteristics changing significantly / suddenly.

Not sure the chips are the same and in any case there are two of them for redundancy

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

I had a Q6600 PC (self built, Asus workstation motherboard) - it ran Win7 fine and even Win8.1 okish (my son ran it for a year in Wind 8.1 IIRC), but Win10 would be a a bit of a stretch.

I went straight from Vista to Windows 10 without any issues. I thought it was going to be a disaster, but I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[RichieM]

I'm running Windows 10 on two 2007 PCs and they run just fine. Tesla just didn't put enough computing power in their MCUs to match the expected life of the car. I wonder how much they saved by shortchanging us? They owe us the ability to upgrade to more powerful MCUs. It was their lack of foresight that's causing the problems.

Tesla does retrofit to "more powerful MCU's" on certain models, just check with a service center

 

[Paul 666]

This is just warn folks used to rebooting their MCU1 while driving (I used to do that every few drives, when the browser would stop working or some other artifact - Tesla software is not famous for its stability). After applying v10 I was driving with the family to dinner tonight. Browser (now taking up most of the screen ) was dead as usual so I went for the thumbwheel reset. What a disaster!

First, it took 5+ minutes to reboot, WTF? The front windshield started fogging up, so I had to open windows to continue to drive, which of course was uncomfortable for everyone since it's fall and we don't live in California. Second, Thumbwheel reboot used to only reboot the big screen (MCU1), however this time, after few minutes of dark main screen, my instrument cluster went dark too! So now I'm driving a car without HVAC or any screens at all, not even a speed indicator. Now, the cluster was only off for a short time (30-60 seconds maybe) but it seems like forever when you don't expect it. When it came back on it has messed up controls but at least you could see most indicators. Even once the main screen came back on, it still took a bit before it was responsive enough to turn on windshield defrost.

I so wish Tesla would keep MCU1 on v8 with security patches only. My car gets worse every update.

What type and what year of Tesla do you have?

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

There is a bright side for the OP, and all of us beta testers. You did not have to take your car in to a service center for them to reboot it, then test drive it, then try to sell you something.

I've always looked at rebooting my car the way I do my computer:
1. What if it doesn't restart?
2. Can it wait?
3. What am I doing now that makes me ponder #1 and #2 above.

Same thing with firmware updates, I let the young'ns go first.

 

[BurnabyBeej]

Tesla does retrofit to "more powerful MCU's" on certain models, just check with a service center

Hi Richie,

Where did you hear that? I ended up buying an early August 2017 S75D that missed so many of the upgrades in the next couple of months through a crappy salesman at the Tesla dealership in Vancouver. Their Internet was down and he was using his phone's connection to process my order. If I had been there when everything was up and running I would have seen that the car I was purchasing didn't match what was on the website: no air suspension, updated headlights, etc. etc. and most importantly the new AP2.5 and updated MCR. Bitch bitch bitch.

 

[Battpower]

Not sure the chips are the same and in any case there are two of them for redundancy

I'm sure the processors or different and that MCU2 is newer / more powerful, my original thought was not massively different, but I guess that depends on your perspective / base line.

Not sure about redundency. Haven't seen evidence of duplicated processors / memory in info I have seen, only in hw3.

 

[Battpower]

Easy, don't accept an update, it is after all the owners choice to do so

That's fine if they don't force the update on you. Seems you have to work pretty hard to keep dodging the bullet.

 

[SO16]

Unless you are dependent on HVAC to keep the car windshield from fogging up, or warm.

I believe you know the MCU reboot affects HVAC...right?

I assume you knew the weather conditions at time of reboot...right?

Were you not able to pull off the road and wait for the reboot? That would have been the SAFE thing to do.

 

[Ajdesai11]

This is just warn folks used to rebooting their MCU1 while driving (I used to do that every few drives, when the browser would stop working or some other artifact - Tesla software is not famous for its stability). After applying v10 I was driving with the family to dinner tonight. Browser (now taking up most of the screen ) was dead as usual so I went for the thumbwheel reset. What a disaster!

First, it took 5+ minutes to reboot, WTF? The front windshield started fogging up, so I had to open windows to continue to drive, which of course was uncomfortable for everyone since it's fall and we don't live in California. Second, Thumbwheel reboot used to only reboot the big screen (MCU1), however this time, after few minutes of dark main screen, my instrument cluster went dark too! So now I'm driving a car without HVAC or any screens at all, not even a speed indicator. Now, the cluster was only off for a short time (30-60 seconds maybe) but it seems like forever when you don't expect it. When it came back on it has messed up controls but at least you could see most indicators. Even once the main screen came back on, it still took a bit before it was responsive enough to turn on windshield defrost.

I so wish Tesla would keep MCU1 on v8 with security patches only. My car gets worse every update.

Thanks for alerting. However, I have not yet had an urgent situation to reboot while driving.

 

[P100D_Me]

Your expectations here are unreasonable, tesla manual clearly states to be stationary and in park when resetting

In fairness owner expectations should be they NEVER need to reset the thing during normal operation, the reset is needed because of Tesla's code. I've never known any other car to need a reset on the infotainment system to continue working smoothly.

Wow. Scary thread. I've been driving my Model 3 for five months, 12,000 km and never had a freeze or had to reboot

You're good, as far as I know the Model 3 suffers none of this.

Reminds me of the '63 Jaguar Mark VII? Saloon I had. Every couple days I had to check and add oil to the six dash pots, but EVERY morning I had to adjust/reset the gap in the points or it simply would not start.

I know a few people that have owned Jags over the years, not much has changed
I remember one guy I knew had an 80's Series 3 that you couldn't turn on the A/C when it got hot outside or the car overheated...mmmm. Well the English summer isn't the same as an Aussie summer so I guess Jag thought they'd tested well enough in the UK.
The only thing that was reliable in that car was the GM auto transmission it had.

 

[rtheron]

In fairness owner expectations should be they NEVER need to reset the thing during normal operation, the reset is needed because of Tesla's code. I've never known any other car to need a reset on the infotainment system to continue working smoothly.

Audi S5 cab did this all the time, in addition Bluetooth stopped being compatible with iPhone a year and a half after the car was purchased (brand new) because they don't bother updating software for old models (told me to buy the new model, wouldn't be appropriate to tell you how I responded)

Several BMW's (X6, 3, X4) needed occasional resets but very few, same issue with software getting stale but at least BMW would eventually offer updates

My point remains you know the MCU does more on a tesla than the infotainment does on any other car, you knew when you got it

I kind of agree your normal expectation is no issues, but that also significantly hinders software development progress, can't have it both ways, and I'd rather have it the way we (tesla owners) have it than the alternative

 

[whitex]

Could have.

A car with electric arm traffic indicators cost a fortune in the fifties. The standard accessory that came with every car was called ‘arm signaling’.

The option set for a vehicle having automatic traffic direction signaling (indicator) would have included hot air climate heaters, wooden dashboard, oil pressure indicator, vacuum pressure indicator, smith clock, wooden steering wheel, leather upholstery, chrome plated trims inside (knobs and switches) and outside (on fenders, wheel caps, around the headlight units). It will have electric cranking with a starting handle in the trunk just in case you need to warm up on a cold morning. You may even have a SW MW radio with a couple preselected stations.

Since the amber light traffic arm was controlled by a heated element for timing, banging on the B Pillar from time to time would work just great.

So what you're saying is that compared to cars from the 50's, Teslas features and driving experience look good, right?

 

[whitex]

What type and what year of Tesla do you have?

I have two, this was a 2015 P85D.

PS> See my signature, many people list their cars in the sig for convenience.

 

[whitex]

Thanks for alerting. However, I have not yet had an urgent situation to reboot while driving.

You probably don't use the browser, which is the most common cause to reboot the MCU (the browser freezes completely, completely unusable, will not switch pages even to google or tesla.com). When not using the browser, sometimes MCU requires a restart for Nav (things like the blue path not showing, or just unable to find a destination), but that seems to happen less often (could be because I don't use the nav as often as the browser, at least when it worked). Browser is a feature I bought so I expect it to work. Elon promised an SDK to write application for the MCU instead, but his promises have turned into hot air, so browser is it, but since v9 it breaks almost daily.

 

[whitex]

1. Vaporware implies that a product/software doesn't exist. You claim "they have to give you updates". If it was vaporware their would be no need for an product/software update as it doesn't exist.
2. You know for certain "there is no way Tesla can afford "security patch" only model"?
3. I suspect Tesla also does security patches to keep "hackers" in the open source community from
altering their software (for liability reasons)

1. They software feature completely missing from software for years, no code running anywhere. They sell it with a promise to deliver it by some undetermined date - "nobody knows when". That is the definition of vaporware.
2. Yes, I work in the industry and I know the prices of supporting software for long periods of time. It goes up exponentially for complex open source based software because so few customers are willing to pay for it but they require an entire organization to support it. Once open source moves on and you can't move your software along with it, now you have to hire even more people to replace the community support. The other proof is that Tesla is not offering this, why bother updating MCU1 to v10 especially that v10 features don't work there? It's not cheap to write software which will run on different hardware, including different CPU instruction sets (ARM vs. Intel), but evidently cheaper than long term support for MCU1 separately.
3. Of course Tesla does security patches, but they keep moving to the latest open source, and do not allow older software to stay unchanged with only security patches. For example, moving to a new Linux Kernel gets you a whole lot of improvements and fixed already there - patching the old one is much more work intense.