I decided to contact the Service Center. They suggested that I should leave Power Saving (under Controls) on OFF. He also advised that the car is only technically behind on an Update when it is more than 90 days since Update was first released. Is there a list somewhere where we can find date each software update was released?
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
wifi connection issues
- Thread starter DX-MS21
- Start date
I've never heard the "more than 90 days" thing, although that's probably a reasonable metric.
TeslaFi has release data with respect to the fleet of cars it tracks (about 1600 cars). But I'm not sure how easy it is to find the date of the first car updating to a given version. Maybe you can find the corresponding thread here on TMC and look at the first post date. That first post is usually hours (or sometimes minutes) after a new release shows up on TeslaFi or ev-fw.
Bruce.
CAF
Member
I always struggled to get decent wifi in our garage. Our house is on three levels and spread out on an "L" with the garage on the far end of the "L" from the cable modem, which was in the basement.
I've been contemplating doing one of the new mesh systems, pioneered by Eero and others. After reading a few reviews, I went with the Google Wifi system. I bought a three pack to start, which was $259 on Amazon. I added a fourth unit to get even better coverage.
This system is simply fantastic. Maybe if I was network savvy and had the time, I could optimize a more traditional system better, but this system self optimizes quite well. You can also hardwire all or none of the satellite units as you wish.
Besides ease of installation, the next best thing is the app. The app walks you through setup and then lets you monitor the system whether you're at home or in China. You can test internet speed, signal strength at all the satellites, and you can see all the devices hooked up to the system. I was amazed at how many devices are hooked up now to our system. You can even see who's home while you're away by seeing which cellphones are hooked up and you can tell which part of their house they're in by seeing which satellite they're connected to.
I probably sound ridiculously euphoric to get this excited about a wifi system, but I've always been unhappy with our previous attempts at getting good solid coverage throughout the house, and I know my Tesla updates were sometimes delayed by weak wifi. To get the big map/nav update recently, I had to park the car outside of the garage on the far side of the house.
I've been contemplating doing one of the new mesh systems, pioneered by Eero and others. After reading a few reviews, I went with the Google Wifi system. I bought a three pack to start, which was $259 on Amazon. I added a fourth unit to get even better coverage.
This system is simply fantastic. Maybe if I was network savvy and had the time, I could optimize a more traditional system better, but this system self optimizes quite well. You can also hardwire all or none of the satellite units as you wish.
Besides ease of installation, the next best thing is the app. The app walks you through setup and then lets you monitor the system whether you're at home or in China. You can test internet speed, signal strength at all the satellites, and you can see all the devices hooked up to the system. I was amazed at how many devices are hooked up now to our system. You can even see who's home while you're away by seeing which cellphones are hooked up and you can tell which part of their house they're in by seeing which satellite they're connected to.
I probably sound ridiculously euphoric to get this excited about a wifi system, but I've always been unhappy with our previous attempts at getting good solid coverage throughout the house, and I know my Tesla updates were sometimes delayed by weak wifi. To get the big map/nav update recently, I had to park the car outside of the garage on the far side of the house.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Quick update. After setting up a completely separate network for the 2 Teslas in the garage and running it for a few weeks, I noticed after a while that the old MCU started to having problems staying connected again - it would connect, and few seconds later the car's wifi would be "initializing" again, rinse, lather, repeat...
Rebooting the access point helped. From what I managed to glean from the access point logs, it's possible that the car somehow told the access point that it's capable of 5GHz, and the AP has "band steering" enabled to steer dual band clients to the 5HGz channels. I cannot confirm this as rebooting the AP fixed the issue, but it's quiet possible that band steering can cause this constant reconnect issue. I would disable the 5G completely but the new MCU does like to connect to it and 2.4G is just so crowded (73 neighboring access points logged by my system in last 24 hrs alone) so I prefer to keep any 5G capable device off of 2.4G if I can help it (took 3 AP's to blanket my house with complete 5G coverage).
Rebooting the access point helped. From what I managed to glean from the access point logs, it's possible that the car somehow told the access point that it's capable of 5GHz, and the AP has "band steering" enabled to steer dual band clients to the 5HGz channels. I cannot confirm this as rebooting the AP fixed the issue, but it's quiet possible that band steering can cause this constant reconnect issue. I would disable the 5G completely but the new MCU does like to connect to it and 2.4G is just so crowded (73 neighboring access points logged by my system in last 24 hrs alone) so I prefer to keep any 5G capable device off of 2.4G if I can help it (took 3 AP's to blanket my house with complete 5G coverage).
whitex
Well-Known Member
Lol, just wait until you see some device on one side of the house for some reason connecting to the farthest satellite and spending time trying to figure out WTF? Then you'll find less than optimal spot and then try to reposition the existing satellites or add new ones to cover it. All the information that these systems provide is great, but can also create work for OCD people like me. Took me a couple of weeks and additional access points to make sure the entire house had 5G coverage so no 5G capable device would be dropping to 2G.
PS> iPhone X WiFi sucks. Apple has long blocked apps like Wifi Analyzer that would allow you to compare how good their wifi is compared to other devices, but with AP logs you can still tell. My kids just got iPhone X's and they have the worst reception of all devices in the house except for Playstation 4 (they are about the same). My Android phone will get 94% in the same spot as iPhone X will get barely 72%. iPad mini will get 84% in a the same spot where iPhone X gets 37% and is starting to switch to 2.4G because it's stronger. My wife's iPhone 6s also has way better reception than iPhone X, not as good as Galaxy S9+ but way better than iPhone X. Bottom line, Apple screwed up the WiFi reception on iPhone X - my guess is they are counting on people using wifi mesh systems providing a batter signal, instead of designing a better phone.
You probably already checked this but the classic reason for the wifi not staying connected was the ‘video server on the network’ so the VPN wouldn’t stay connected. Of course, if you have the car on a separate network/SSID, that should have taken care of that by itself. Very strange that there’s something new messing up the basic connection issue even when it’s on its own network.
And you’d also think this would be part of the basic QA testing of any new wifi setup for these MCUs... <sigh>.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Yes, its network is completely separate except it does share it with a second Tesla. The public IP is shared with my home WiFi but only on public side, on private side it's separate VLAN, separate subnet/gateway.
The old MCU just won't stay connected for more than 2 seconds. It connects and bam! Wifi initializing again. It seems when it connects it hits some bug causing WiFi to reboot.
New MCU stays connected just fine on both 2G and 5G. Oh, and I tried disabling 5GHz band just to make sure the old MCU is not being steered to it while it doesn't have a 5GHz radio, but no difference in behavior, connect, reboot wifi, connect reboot wifi... Given that the new MCU works, I suspect the old one will be getting significantly less attention, if any, in terms of bug fixed and updates.
whitex
Well-Known Member
That might just be to make it not disconnect when driving. You typically don't want that if it's your home wifi because the car will not disconnect when you put it in drive, but only until it times out out of range resulting in brief internet interruption (maps not loading, streaming stopping) each time you drive away.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Just for completeness, I tried it in "Drive" and got the same result. It connects successfully only to go back to initializing wifi 2 seconds later.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Ok, so I started thinking "what would be the most likely configuration Tesla would use WiFi in their shops?". Since they probably want to download updates fast, and old MCU's don't have 5G, I figured I'd be using 40MHz wide channels. I also figured default setting, so probably lowest channel, so channel 3. After switching to that, both MCU's connected and stayed on, at least for a few minutes while I was watching. Maybe it was just a fluke and changing frequencies cleared some cache for the WiFi controller, so we'll see, but for now crossing my fingers, both are connected. Before I was on 20MHz wide channel 1, and new MCU stayed connected but old MCU kept re-initializing wifi every time after connecting. Let's see if this time the configuration stays stable.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Update to my above comment. 24hrs later and both cars still say connected. I have 2.4G set to Channel 1 (it effectively uses channel 3 but still advertises 1) and channel width to 40MHz. It was my best guess at default high speed settings for most routers, therefore highest chance of Tesla having tested it. Or maybe it works because there are less AP's using 40MHz channels than 20MHz channels, therefore less networks to confuse Tesla wifi moodule? How knows. Anyways, sharing here because it seems to work (so far, fingers crossed).
PS> While looking into this, I have to say it's scary how many people have open WiFi, not necessarily their main internet access, but TV displays, dashcams, and other IoT (found one internet connected washer with its own WiFi AP), car hotspots or even just guest versions of their home networks. I live a neighborhood of single family, detached homes - imagine what it must be like in an apartment complex. IoT is going to be the next security plague (not only because people leave it open or with default passwords, but also because unless those devices are regularly patched, they can be hacked with publicly available exploits). But I digress....
PS> While looking into this, I have to say it's scary how many people have open WiFi, not necessarily their main internet access, but TV displays, dashcams, and other IoT (found one internet connected washer with its own WiFi AP), car hotspots or even just guest versions of their home networks. I live a neighborhood of single family, detached homes - imagine what it must be like in an apartment complex. IoT is going to be the next security plague (not only because people leave it open or with default passwords, but also because unless those devices are regularly patched, they can be hacked with publicly available exploits). But I digress....
Thanks for the update. This may be the first time we’ve seen analysis showing the channel width matters which is pretty crazy. Some of the other things that ‘bother’ the wifi or the VPN like the video servers you would hope they could/would have fixed by now but this issue may take the cake.
You wonder how expert in networking you have to be to get a Tesla connected sometimes.
As for the whole guest/IoT disaster, that’s interesting. I would have assumed anyone knowing to set up a separate network would know enough to give it a good password, etc. Good grief.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Old MCU used to work for me just fine until recently. I suspect the code is shared between new and old MCU's to some degree (such as maybe WiFi supplicant, or at least the client side configuring it) so it's possible that new code meant for new MCU could is messing up the behavior of the old MCU as it probably also gets much less testing.
As for people setting up IoT. A lot of people are not even aware their devices are IoT (they bought a washer, they never read the manual, so it's sitting there awaiting a WiFi connection with default password). Then there is a second pool of people, who make it work with default password and don't want to mess with it because they are afraid it will stop working. Then there is a third group who setup open/no-password because they don't want to bother remembering passwords, or having to enter them on a phone. As for most IoT having no updates and being hackable, that's an industry problem which we are starting to experience, see example below:
F.B.I.’s Urgent Request: Reboot Your Router to Stop Russia-Linked Malware
StefanSarzio
Member
Have a look at Wireless-N Configuration - DD-WRT Wiki
I think it's quite a good explanation as to why most of time (!) 40 MHz channels are not a good idea with 2.4 GHz.
whitex
Well-Known Member
I am fully aware, however it seems to be the only thing keeping both our cars connected. There are already other people running 40MHz channels within my range, and between 20 and 40 MHz wide channels there are over 70 AP's that my AP's can hear every day, so the spectrum is already very crowded and should only be used by devices unable to connect to 5GHz. Unfortunately any Tesla older than 2 months old doesn't have 5G capability. Until few weeks ago my old MCU worked fine on 20MHz channel 1, but now it won't and will only stay connected on a 40MHz channel, so it becomes the only choice to keep it connected. The network is used solely by the 2 cars, so other than some broadcasts it doesn't take up a lot of bandwidth. As for collisions, well, I actually see slightly less re-transmissions - possibly transmitting faster has a lower chance of colliding with one of the 70+ AP's in the area (ok, only 45+ are on overlapping channels)?
I understand what you are saying but what about this. I had to get the SC to push out an update. They called the next day and asked when the car would be available for receiving the update, I said right now. They told me to disconnect my wifi (they could see the car wasn't receiving many attempts at updating) and use the LTE because the "cell phone" in the car was better. Update received promptly and installed as soon as possible. Another thing I don't understand is that my wifi connected to the car on 5 G, not 2.4. yet my production date was many, many months before Tesla announced new cars would have 5G wifi. I'm still confused.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Yea, you're confirming my fears that new code from new 5G capable MCU is shared with the old MCU and testing is lacking. Maybe your 2G wifi got configured as 5G, and when the software saw the connection it assumed it was what was configured rather than what it actually connected on.
My WiFi stopped working only few weeks ago, after new MCU came out. More interestingly, the solution for me was to move from 20MHz wide channel 1 to 40MHz channel 1(actually 3) which is an 802.11n channel width, but the old MCU connects using 802.1g. Now, N is backwards compatible, so no surprise it connected ok, but why does the car refuse to stay connected more than 2 seconds on 20MHz channel but has no problem connecting to 802.11n wide channel as 802.11g client? New MCU connects to 2G as 802.11n (faster speed)? Maybe testing moved to 802.11n AP's only? Maybe 802.11g specific code has a bug causing it to crash, but the bug does not happen when connected to 802.11n channel?
Last edited:
Oldschool496
Member
I totally agree with the above.
I initially tried to hook onto WIFI when the car was new great wifi signal also. It never did/would. I'm not sure why you need it to be hooked on the wifi with the exception of remote areas of any country where signal is an issue. The only time from what I understand you may need wifi is an update and my car updates fine with LTE and Tesla pays for it anyway. Another unless, you do lots of internet work while sitting in your car in your garage. That wears off pretty fast.
The car "stay connected" through LTE just the same. Its connected
