# Black Screen / MCU Crash



## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

Twice in the last 7 days I've got in my model Y to find that the screen was black and unresponsive. I tried the two-button reboot, then again with the brake pedal without success. The first time this happened I was able to open the charging port and plug in my charging cable and I saw the screen turn on with the big "T" reboot logo. The second time, I also tried unsuccessfully to perform the two-button reboot before I went to the phone app to see if I could connect to the car that way. Then a reboot took place. I have scheduled a service appointment and maybe a diagnostic will help identify an issue. It's colder in Cleveland and the car is kept in an unheated indoor garage.

Has anyone experienced this? If so, was the issue corrected and how?


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

This was a chronic issue on my Model 3 the first few months I had it. Fixed with some software update.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

FrancoisP said:


> Twice in the last 7 days I've got in my model Y to find that the screen was black and unresponsive.


That usually means that it had just started to reboot. Have you tried simply doing nothing but waiting 5-10 minutes, to see if it recovers without taking any action?


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

iChris93 said:


> This was a chronic issue on my Model 3 the first few months I had it. Fixed with some software update.


The first time it happened the software version was 48.12.1. The second time was yesterday with software version 48.26. If it was software related, wouldn't there be more cars with this issue?


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

garsh said:


> That usually means that it had just started to reboot. Have you tried simply doing nothing but waiting 5-10 minutes, to see if it recovers without taking any action?


No, I have not but I will do that. But why would it need to reboot like that? It happened yesterday around 5:30pm and I had driven the car 4 hours before that. The current version 48.26 had been installed the prior day.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> The first time it happened the software version was 46.12. The second time was yesterday with software version 48.26. If it was software related, wouldn't there be more cars with this issue?


I don't know. There was some reason not everyone had the issue when I was. I think there were small differences in the MCU or something.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> But why would it need to reboot like that?


I think it's crashing when you open the door thus initiating a reboot.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

iChris93 said:


> I think it's crashing when you open the door thus initiating a reboot.


As @garsh suggested, next time I'll wait 10 minutes to see if the reboot happens on its own. I'm curious to see if these unexpected reboots are recorded in the car logs, hopefully with a root cause.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

In my previous life I used to write firmware and the processor board we designed had a dead-man switch that would get triggered if the firmware crashed and the system would automatically reboot. Maybe something like this is taking place and I just happen to witness it.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

iChris93 said:


> I think it's crashing when you open the door thus initiating a reboot.


I didn't have a regular problem like you did, but I did have a couple of "one-off" instances where the computer seemed to crash due to be opening the door.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

I just walked to the car, opened the driver's door and the screen was dark. I waited 5 seconds and the screen remained dark. I closed the door, waited 20 seconds before reopening the door again and this time the screen turned on. Weird.

Edit: there was no visible reboot during the 20 seconds.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

FrancoisP said:


> Has anyone experienced this? If so, was the issue corrected and how?


Replace the USB stick you're using for TeslaCam/Sentry Mode.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

JasonF said:


> Replace the USB stick you're using for TeslaCam/Sentry Mode.


I'm using a 500 GB Samsung SSD. Why do you think this may be an issue?


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

FrancoisP said:


> I'm using a 500 GB Samsung SSD. Why do you think this may be an issue?


At least try reformatting it, and maybe replacing the USB cable for it. I've seen USB devices crash the MCU many, many, many times.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

FrancoisP said:


> I'm using a 500 GB Samsung SSD. Why do you think this may be an issue?


USB drives have caused other people to have issues.
I would think it's unlikely with an SSD, but still worth unplugging it for a while to see if the issue magically disappears.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

Here's an additional bit of information. The issue has been happening only at home so far. At home when I open the driver's door it takes 5 seconds or more for the screen to turn on if the car has been sitting there for a few hours. Away from home my errands are usually done within one hour and the screen turns on pretty much immediately as I get in the car. Maybe I was too impatient at home. We'll see.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> Here's an additional bit of information. The issue has been happening only at home so far. At home when I open the driver's door it takes 5 seconds or more for the screen to turn on if the car has been sitting there for a few hours. Away from home my errands are usually done within one hour and the screen turns on pretty much immediately as I get in the car. Maybe I was too impatient at home. We'll see.


Sounds like it is just going into deep sleep at home then. If it boots up without seeing the Tesla logo then I don't think it's crashing.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

FrancoisP said:


> Here's an additional bit of information. The issue has been happening only at home so far. At home when I open the driver's door it takes 5 seconds or more for the screen to turn on if the car has been sitting there for a few hours. Away from home my errands are usually done within one hour and the screen turns on pretty much immediately as I get in the car. Maybe I was too impatient at home. We'll see.


That's most likely the car recovering from "deep sleep" - but part of it might be something else I noticed. I noticed that gradually, Tesla has been adding a delay restarting the MCU and HVAC after the car has been sitting at your home location for a long while. It has the effect of not starting everything up when you just pop the door open for a second to retrieve something left inside. I'm not even sure if that's intentional, but it certainly looks like it.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

JasonF said:


> That's most likely the car recovering from "deep sleep" - but part of it might be something else I noticed. I noticed that gradually, Tesla has been adding a delay restarting the MCU and HVAC after the car has been sitting at your home location for a long while. It has the effect of not starting everything up when you just pop the door open for a second to retrieve something left inside. I'm not even sure if that's intentional, but it certainly looks like it.


I agree. I've done some time measurements in the morning after the car slept a whole night and it takes the car 6 or 7 seconds between the moment I open the door and the screen turns on.

But this is different than the issue I reported with this thread where I'd be sitting in the car for over 30 seconds and everything seemed turned off, non responsive. That scenario has not repeated since I wrote about it.


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## iChris93 (Feb 3, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> But this is different than the issue I reported with this thread where I'd be sitting in the car for over 30 seconds and everything seemed turned off, non responsive. That scenario has not repeated since I wrote about it.


Did you get an update in that time? Hopefully it was just a software issue and is fixed now.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

iChris93 said:


> Did you get an update in that time? Hopefully it was just a software issue and is fixed now.


I experienced this twice: once with 48.12.1 and once with 48.26 which is the most recent update for me.


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