wifi connection issues

[DX-MS21]

I found some previous threads on this issue but not sure if it's the same issue. I have two ubiquiti APs at my place, one of them being right in the garage, top of the car in the ceiling.

I had issues where WiFi wouldn't stay connected, kept flip flopping between WiFi and LTE. After reading here, I connected to isolated guest WiFi and that solved the flip flopping issue.

Now, looking at logs, I see that car only connects to WiFi only few times a day with minimal data transfers, I am still on 10.4 f/w, I am hoping to get new maps and latest f/w for weeks.. still no luck. see attached screenshots.

I thought car may be connected to WiFi continuously, I have energy saver mode OFF, mobile access is ON.

 

[KArnold]

Is "always connected" on? I don't know if that applies to WiFi or not.

 

[DX-MS21]

Is "always connected" on? I don't know if that applies to WiFi or not.

Yes, I made sure always connected checkbox is checked.

 

[SSonnentag]

I installed a whole wi-fi network just for the car. The car doesn't support anything but 802.11b, so turn off all other protocols and you'll have better luck staying connected. The wi-fi card is one area Tesla really screwed up when trying to safe a few $$$.

 

[SSonnentag]

TeslaTap seems to think 802.11g is active as well, although I didn't have any luck in connecting reliably with anything other than b.


"WiFi – b/g/i/j/n 2.4 GHz hardware support, but we believe only b/g are currently enabled in software; Uses the Parrot FC6050 W chip. Use WPA or WPA2 for the best security. Low security WEP was supported in early software versions, but now smartly, is no longer supported. With the Model 3 and S/X MCU2 in March-2018, 5 GHz is supported."

 

[DX-MS21]

Thanks for the info. So the network activity I attached, is that normal or too little?

 

[SSonnentag]

Thanks for the info. So the network activity I attached, is that normal or too little?

I haven't bothered to check the activity on my Tesla network. It looks reasonable to me though, but what do I know?

 

[animorph]

With "Always Connected" on I haven't caught my X on LTE in the garage. But it does switch to LTE if your settings allow the car to sleep. But I think as long as Wi-Fi is available and the car wakes up once a day or so it will check for updates and download them on Wi-Fi.

I'm still on 2018.10.4, so I turned on Always Connected just to see if it helped. No luck so far after about a week. But I'm in good company with 25% of AP2 owners still on 10.4, according to TeslaFi. I received earlier updates just fine, and usually before many others, with the car allowed to sleep, without 24/7 Wi-Fi connectivity. Hopefully 2018.18 goes wide quickly.

 

[whitex]

I found some previous threads on this issue but not sure if it's the same issue. I have two ubiquiti APs at my place, one of them being right in the garage, top of the car in the ceiling.

I had issues where WiFi wouldn't stay connected, kept flip flopping between WiFi and LTE. After reading here, I connected to isolated guest WiFi and that solved the flip flopping issue.

Now, looking at logs, I see that car only connects to WiFi only few times a day with minimal data transfers, I am still on 10.4 f/w, I am hoping to get new maps and latest f/w for weeks.. still no luck. see attached screenshots.

I thought car may be connected to WiFi continuously, I have energy saver mode OFF, mobile access is ON.

Are you having any actual connectivity issues (i.e. unable to connect to the car) or just basing this on the WiFi History logs?

We had some actual connectivity issues when cars were parked outside in the driveway (I think the AP could reach the car but the car couldn't reach the AP), so also added an extra Unify AP in the garage and it solved all the connectivity problems (same network as before, technically the cars get a choice of AP's but garage is the closest so they connect there). That said, depending on firmware version I've noticed different behavior as far as the history log - most recently the cars appear to only be connected minutes at a time, but never have any problems connecting to them or getting updates so I don't worry. This may also be something with Unify history logging, for example I've seen the car connected but in the history I don't see the entry).

EDIT: removed my comment about fast roaming. Will experiment with it on my setup first see if it causes any issues with either new or old MCU.

 

[Patrick W]

The local service center told me the car only connects to wifi when it needs to (either to send or receive data). So not unusual to have it not connected even when in my garage with a strong wifi signal available.

 

[whitex]

The local service center told me the car only connects to wifi when it needs to (either to send or receive data). So not unusual to have it not connected even when in my garage with a strong wifi signal available.

However the app can connect to such "disconnected car", so there is some kind of a connection or wake mechanism.

 

[DX-MS21]

Are you having any actual connectivity issues (i.e. unable to connect to the car) or just basing this on the WiFi History logs?

We had some actual connectivity issues when cars were parked outside in the driveway (I think the AP could reach the car but the car couldn't reach the AP), so also added an extra Unify AP in the garage and it solved all the connectivity problems (same network as before, technically the cars get a choice of AP's but garage is the closest so they connect there). That said, depending on firmware version I've noticed different behavior as far as the history log - most recently the cars appear to only be connected minutes at a time, but never have any problems connecting to them or getting updates so I don't worry. This may also be something with Unify history logging, for example I've seen the car connected but in the history I don't see the entry).

EDIT: removed my comment about fast roaming. Will experiment with it on my setup first see if it causes any issues with either new or old MCU.

I have two APs and car used to connect to closest one in garage but kept switching between WiFi and LTE, never stayed connected to WiFi steadily.

Found some threads here that suggested if there are any DLNA device (ie xbox, media players, etc) on same network, that can cause this behavior. So I made car connect to guest WiFi which is isolated from main WiFi. This solved the switching between WiFi and LTE issue.

 

[Mediocrates]

TeslaTap seems to think 802.11g is active as well, although I didn't have any luck in connecting reliably with anything other than b.

It is an 802.11g adapter in the "older" vehicles. Mine consistently works with 802.11g, but definitely not 802.11n.

 

[StefanSarzio]

Hopefully 2018.18 goes wide quickly.

Unfortunately it primary goes to those cars that have fairly recent updates already.

 

[brkaus]

Unfortunately it primary goes to those cars that have fairly recent updates already.

Because those have the most problems.

 

[StefanSarzio]

Because those have the most problems.

Most certainly not. 2018.10.4 had it's share of issues, some of which were fixed in later releases. The only new issue is the heated steering wheel, which most customers don't need at this time of the year.

 

[brkaus]

Most certainly not. 2018.10.4 had it's share of issues, some of which were fixed in later releases. The only new issue is the heated steering wheel, which most customers don't need at this time of the year.

I’ve read many more MCU crash reports. I’ve had the centeapp screen not come back several times on 2018.12.

Of course always pros and cons.

 

[whitex]

Ok, did some experimenting with my WiFi setup based on this thread. We have 1 old MCU and 1 new MCU car. Since they were not staying connected for more than 1-2hrs at a time recently, and based on more than a few comments I've in the past about DNLA causing problems (which I'm sure between all of my and my kids devices there are some DNLA enabled ones), and because with Unify hardware it is fairly easy to add a new separate network without any hardware or wiring changes, I decided to create a whole new WiFi network just for the cars. The network has its own VLAN and IP subnet, so completely separated.

What I found is that Tesla WiFi is extremely finicky. To my surprise the old MCU went into a "Initialize WiFi" loop when connected to new network - it would connect, then few seconds later switch to LTE while WiFi was initializing again. Reboots of MCU or even cluster did not help. It could connect and stay connected to the old network ok (which was running on the same AP, same frequency), so it was confusing. Note that the new network worked just fine with my phone, so I knew it was setup correctly. What seems to have fixed it was for me to change the WiFi password AND adding the network in the car via the ADD button rather than clicking on the network name (so typing the network name and specifying encryption rather than letting the car discover it). Not sure if it was the password with special characters that was throwing it off, it was "8#L_^[Fp_u1" - don't really have the time or inclination to experiment any more since it's working now. The new MCU had a slightly different issue, it would join the new network but disconnect within seconds throwing an error saying it cannot connect (but it did according to AP logs) - that also got fixed when I manually entered the network name, encryption and password in the car on the big screen. Both cars stayed connected all night so far.

Summary, what worked was:
1. Setting up a dedicated, L2/L3 isolated wireless network just for the cars.
2. Making that dedicated network run only on one AP with no roaming (I briefly ran into some issues when it was available on multiple APs, the car just wouldn't connect at all, or try to connect to some far/weak signal AP only, ignoring the AP in the garage completely).

For those who don't have a configurable setup, this can be accomplished with an additional, dedicated cheap WiFi router setup to run connected to your regular router instead of WAN (just make sure the local subnet is not the same as your regular router local subnet).

 

[Impala1ss]

I'm not a network guy so the last post doesn't help me. I'm behind on my software updates and still have 2018.10.4. Wondering if this is a network problem, and having my MS only show 1 bar on LTE and not connecting to the internet via wifi, I bought a TP-Link Range Extender. I sometime can now connect to WiFi while in the garage now but sometimes after connecting and leaving my car in the garage overnight the WiFi icon changes to the LTE icon. Most times I can not reconnect to WiFi after leaving the car in my garage overnight - it just times out.

Is there a way to have the car stay on WiFi overnight/ all the time in the garage? (to make sure any updates come through)? Should I not worry that WiFi will not stay connected?

 

[whitex]

I'm not a network guy so the last post doesn't help me. I'm behind on my software updates and still have 2018.10.4. Wondering if this is a network problem, and having my MS only show 1 bar on LTE and not connecting to the internet via wifi, I bought a TP-Link Range Extender. I sometime can now connect to WiFi while in the garage now but sometimes after connecting and leaving my car in the garage overnight the WiFi icon changes to the LTE icon. Most times I can not reconnect to WiFi after leaving the car in my garage overnight - it just times out.

Is there a way to have the car stay on WiFi overnight/ all the time in the garage? (to make sure any updates come through)? Should I not worry that WiFi will not stay connected?

It seems the consensus is that having a dedicated wifi network just for the car(s) in the garage is the safest bet. Is there a way for you to have an Ethernet (cat5 or cat6) wire run from your internet provider router to the garage? If so, I would just get an inexpensive wifi router for the garage. Note that this still doesn't guarantee a constant connection, but it gives you the best possible chance as the car would have full strength wifi all to itself. If setting up such a second router is not something you're comfortable with, the I would suggest paying someone to install it.

PS)this may not be cheapest or most technically efficient solution, but it's the simplest for someone who is not a network expert.