uConnect software update 17.11.17 - FAIL

[bakerhillpins]

FYI,

Short story:
For all you uConnect users out there. The most recent update, version 17.11.17 has problems dealing with old users settings. Resetting to factory settings solved the problem for me. Select "Controls->Settings->Restore Settings" and select OK to reset to factory. It's working fine for me now. Well as well as it always did anyhow.  


I've got a 14' RAM 1500 with the uConnect 8.4 system. Apparently they have started pushing updates over the air as the dam thing started asking me to update every time I turned off the engine. On the road this weekend I opted to keep putting it off but I updated today on the way to work. Yes, while driving. It only updates the console, not the engine control. After work the thing was a total software mess. Practically nothing worked. My favorite was how it upgraded my truck to the SRT package! After the upgrade in my RAM it booted with the SRT logo rather than the RAM one (first bad sign) and after that would operate (that's very generous) for roughly 1-2 minutes before it would just crash and reboot. Anyway, as I am an embedded software engineer by trade I figured the yahoos at uConnect didn't spend a lot of time considering settings migration. Lets just say my opinion of software these days is ultra low.    Anyway, before I did a u-turn to chew on some dealer can I figured I'd try the standard reset (kinda like control-alt-delete) ops first. This corrected the display and its operation was back to "normal".

[Kern Dog]

Update notifications are annoying. I get them all the time with my phone and it pisses me off.

[DAY CLONA]

The only "updates" of worth IMHO were the flyers in the mail from the dealers announcing the new performance models coming to the showrooms, last thing I want is my vehicle "texting" me

[lukedukem]

My 2015 ram has the same uconnect 8.4 also. It to kept asking me over and over to update while driving. I finally did it and it took 20 min. and I couldn't shut off the truck. I also lost control of the radio and other stuff.

Luke

[bakerhillpins]

My 2015 ram has the same uconnect 8.4 also. It to kept asking me over and over to update while driving. I finally did it and it took 20 min. and I couldn't shut off the truck. I also lost control of the radio and other stuff.

Luke

Yea, that's why I did it on the way to work.. 30min commute.   Did it work for you after the upgrade or did you have to reset the user settings?

[lukedukem]

My 2015 ram has the same uconnect 8.4 also. It to kept asking me over and over to update while driving. I finally did it and it took 20 min. and I couldn't shut off the truck. I also lost control of the radio and other stuff.

Luke

Yea, that's why I did it on the way to work.. 30min commute.   Did it work for you after the upgrade or did you have to reset the user settings?

It did work, however, it reset everything for me. Lol.
I had to go in and set it back up.

Luke

[bakerhillpins]

Well, it's official this update sucks. My auto dimming headlights and rain sensing wipers used to work reasonably well, even pretty good actually (kinda made me feel like they were useful) but they are total crap now.  The wipers go off randomly quite frequently (was a rare occurrence in the past) and typically when it IS raining I have to adjust the speed setting before they start to work. Almost like it always defaults to the low speed setting regardless of where it is until you tell it something different. The headlights also randomly turn off with no traffic and typically stay off for roughly 3 minutes or until you hit a set of oncoming or follow some tail lights. It's not like it's confusing side light sources either as I'm rural, in the woods on a dirt road rural so it's all trees and critters.

Oh and to top it all off, the remote start turns on the defroster less that 50% of the time. Which is f**king awesome now that winter is here.    I've found some RAM forums posts that talk about engineering resets and stuff so I'll have to poke around in there over the holiday.

What this shows is how comical it is that ANYONE thinks that self driving vehicles are closer than 40yrs out.

[alfaitalia]

What this shows is how comical it is that ANYONE thinks that self driving vehicles are closer than 40yrs out.

Not quite!!....in the UK they start testing them on our roads in January and you should be able to buy one buy the end of 2021....possibly sooner. They recon that they will be far safer than letting human make the decision as  about 99% of all accidents are human error!....Hmmm....we will see !

It can be done just takes far superior software to anything Dodge uses......just make it military or aviation standard and away you go!!

[bakerhillpins]

What this shows is how comical it is that ANYONE thinks that self driving vehicles are closer than 40yrs out.

Not quite!!....in the UK they start testing them on our roads in January and you should be able to buy one buy the end of 2021....possibly sooner. They recon that they will be far safer than letting human make the decision as  about 99% of all accidents are human error!....Hmmm....we will see !

It can be done just takes far superior software to anything Dodge uses......just make it military or aviation standard and away you go!!

So, I hear you and they are running these things around the US now but they are FAR from ready for the situations they are in now, and even less so for full on real world. At my previous gig (10yrs) I worked on robotics and autonomous solutions for the military. I developed systems that made autonomous vehicles out of skid steers and heavy vehicles and even stuff as simple as Polaris Rangers... After 10yrs I have a LOT of practical knowledge about the issues facing these systems. All these current systems are operating in idealistic situations. There are a myriad of articles out there that discuss why these systems are not ready and how the current data being presented is flawed. But we are a reactionary species, sadly, so we push it out and hope it effects someone else while it's worked out.

[edit] Also, we should be careful of terms here. There are various levels of autonomy and the car makers like to market a higher level than they are, which is dangerous because people have drastically different expectations. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/autonomous-driving-levels-0-to-5-understanding-the-differences/

[69 OUR/TEA]

WOW !!! After reading this , I feel lucky . About a 4-5 weeks ago my 17 Ram was asking me to do the same , I did , and as said it took about 20 min for mine to complete , but it has been fine, nothing has changed . Even all my settings stayed .

[birdsandbees]

Sounds like I'm glad that the wife doesn't have a smart phone hooked to her Challenger yet!

[Troy]

Sounds like I'm glad that the wife doesn't have a smart phone hooked to her Challenger yet!

It doesn't matter. The car has it's own cell service and will update itself. They stopped sending the flash drives to update the software so it always does it "over the air" now. (I think it gives you a warning and you can request the flash drive though.)

My last 2 updates have been fine. I do get some random weirdness (well did) like if I close the sunroof and all 4 windows at the same time but it has done that since the day I got it. The only "new" thing that caught my attention is that I have to hit the "start" button when playing songs off a flash drive now. Used to it would autostart the music whenever I switched to it.

Troy

[HANDM]

My 17 Ram 2500 is still using 16.23.21 and I haven't had any update prompts??

I can go to the uconnect site and get it if I wanted to, but I think I'll wait till I take it to the stealership for an oil change and let them deal with it...

If anyone is interested here is the uconnect site to check for updates  https://www.driveuconnect.com/support/software-update.html

[bakerhillpins]

Let the S*#t show commence. 

Well, now things get interesting. After poking around a few RAM forums I happened to take note that all of their conversations about the latest over the wire update where IDing a 17.11.07 revision number. So I went out to the truck and checked it again since I was pretty damn sure of the 17.11.17 when I started this thread. And low and behold I do indeed have 17.11.17.

So I went to the uConnect update portal and entered my VIN, and what do you know, it told me that I should have 17.11.07. Just to be sure I downloaded it and the files show 07 as well. The only test I have left to do is put it into the USB port and see what the truck says is on the USB drive but I expect 07. Mostly it's just confirm via all avenues.

In the meantime, I decide to perform an engineering reset of the unit based upon the info on the RAM forms and just like after the initial over the wire update, my radio displays SRT and has stability issues.. So I am sure that strange things are afoot at the Circle K. I'm pretty sure the system will allow me to do a"downgrade" as that's the way I recall it going down the last time I did a USB update (the time before this over the wire update). However, I'm not going to go down that path just yet. I figure it's time to call uConnect and see how they are going to handle this.  They (uConnect) confirmed not only the 07 version but that my vehicle should be getting over the wire updates. So I explain the situation to the nice lady and she says that she can start a case and they need it to go to the dealer.

At this point I don't just see the light at the end of the tunnel, I know it's the train.    I'm gearing up for the battle over who's going to pay for the trip to the dealer.  I wanted to deal with the case manager right away but she couldn't get me to that person and her manager was "in a meeting" as they always are. She told me I'd get a call back from her in 24hrs. I could have kept pressing for the next layer (I've done this before) but I decided to save my strength. If she calls back that will tell me something, if not it confirms what I believe to be their SOP.

I'll try to keep you all up to date.

[RECHRGD]

When I hear this kind of stuff, it just makes me want to hang on to my 2004, 2500 Cummins and forget about a new truck.  It's only got 103K miles on it and runs better than new.  I'm almost 70, so all this advanced tech stuff is just leaving me in the dust.  Hell, come to think of it, the truck will probably outlast me.........

[69 OUR/TEA]

I just checked mine , it has the 17.11.07 installed . You are saying this is the latest , and/or what should be in there ?

[bakerhillpins]

I just checked mine , it has the 17.11.07 installed . You are saying this is the latest , and/or what should be in there ?

Yes, according to the call center rep, the website download (you could stuff your VIN in and it will tell you), and my search results, a MY2014 RAM 1500 with uConnect 8.4 should, as of the time of this post, be updated to 17.11.07.

[edit]
There are obviously other MY trucks that will have the same software revision (not relevant to me ATM), use the uConnect website quoted above and your VIN to verify. 

[bakerhillpins]

When I hear this kind of stuff, it just makes me want to hang on to my 2004, 2500 Cummins and forget about a new truck.  It's only got 103K miles on it and runs better than new.  I'm almost 70, so all this advanced tech stuff is just leaving me in the dust.  Hell, come to think of it, the truck will probably outlast me.........

I hear you, and believe me it's made me wish for the old days of un-reliable/comfortable/you name it cars that you can fix with 6 simple tools. But damn, the heated steering wheel/seats and connection to my tunes on the phone is sweet. 

My concerns stem from the collection of a few relatively benign but important situations that when linked together are prime for problems. And as software is more and more prevalent in vehicles it's going to become a bigger problem:
1) They are forcing updates over the air.
2) These software updates have the potential to break or permanently screw up features for which I paid big $$ for. Yes, check my window sticker.
3) In my case (and lots of others too) this occurs AFTER the warranty period on your vehicle. So now I have a situation where they are responsible for screwing up something and I am on the hook to pay for the service time to correct it.
4) They have the option to simply "obsolete" hardware platforms with these known problems and not bother to update them again. (There are levels here where the NTSB would force updates in safety issues, but we all know how that process works)

Oddly enough one of my big concerns is that the data used for the VSC system is for the wrong vehicle and at the first snowstorm it puts me into a ditch.

Fundamentally I believe the solution to keeping them accountable is simple - We need a Law that provides implicit warranty periods on new software updates. Or something that puts the onus on the software source to fix issues that they have just introduced without being able to extort a service visit surcharge. It's just like the Equifax Data Breach, where they screwed up and lost everyone's personal data and then started charging folks for ID Theft protection devices (freezing your credit report) to help you guard against their missteps.

[Petebell68]

Software issues are a continuing problem for many industries I have a 2015 Grand Cherokee with 94 Km on it and it has been an electrical nightmare .
The radio turns on and off with no control , windows sometimes don't work it's shifts into second like it has a shift kit the list goes on .
They keep reflashing but it never really changes anything .
I would go back to an easier system in a heartbeat .

[HANDM]

That's it, I'm not updating my truck cause if it ain't broke I aint fixing it!