# Connectivity issues



## MarkB

I have a DM model 3 (September 2018).

I have no issues until Feb 2020 -- I was on vacation (on version 2019.40.50.7) with my car in my garage, plugged in and charging level set to 50%. I was aware I should be getting an update, and checked my app -- it would not connect. I tried regularly while away, but the app would not connect to the vehicle.

I had never had any prior connectivity issues.

When I got home, I rebooted the car and all was well. Next day I got the 2020.4.1 update.

I've been having connectivity issues since. 

My ISP provided router has a basic app that gives SOME indication of what devices are connected to it, and how much bandwidth each is using (none, low, medium, etc).

Regularly now, I see my car not connected to my home Wifi (Wi-Fi).

When I open the app, and wake my car -- about 50% of the time this will cause the Wifi to reconnect.

Often though, the app cannot wake the car (no LTE connection either). On these occasions, sometimes(10% of the time???) getting into the car will cause the Wifi to connect, and allow the app to connect to the car. Opening the WiFi controls NEVER helps. 

A couple times, my app showed a software update, and that I needed to connect to Wi-Fi to download.

A 2 button reset ALWAYS works.

I have also noticed that LTE sometimes fails to work for a while (10 minutes??) after leaving my house. Not too often, but often enough that I notice.

Mobile service came and found all was fine. I provided one a months worth of notes of when there was no connection and what i did at the time to resolve each instance.

Technician told me that having to go to my car to re-establish a connection was not unreasonable.

Reasonable or unreasonable, I'm not going to say --- but it's definitely new behaviour.


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## Ed Woodrick

MarkB said:


> I have a DM model 3 (September 2018).
> 
> I have no issues until Feb 2020 -- I was on vacation (on version 2019.40.50.7) with my car in my garage, plugged in and charging level set to 50%. I was aware I should be getting an update, and checked my app -- it would not connect. I tried regularly while away, but the app would not connect to the vehicle.
> 
> I had never had any prior connectivity issues.
> 
> When I got home, I rebooted the car and all was well. Next day I got the 2020.4.1 update.
> 
> I've been having connectivity issues since.
> 
> My ISP provided router has a basic app that gives SOME indication of what devices are connected to it, and how much bandwidth each is using (none, low, medium, etc).
> 
> Regularly now, I see my car not connected to my home Wifi (Wi-Fi).
> 
> When I open the app, and wake my car -- about 50% of the time this will cause the Wifi to reconnect.
> 
> Often though, the app cannot wake the car (no LTE connection either). On these occasions, sometimes(10% of the time???) getting into the car will cause the Wifi to connect, and allow the app to connect to the car. Opening the WiFi controls NEVER helps.
> 
> A couple times, my app showed a software update, and that I needed to connect to Wi-Fi to download.
> 
> A 2 button reset ALWAYS works.
> 
> I have also noticed that LTE sometimes fails to work for a while (10 minutes??) after leaving my house. Not too often, but often enough that I notice.
> 
> Mobile service came and found all was fine. I provided one a months worth of notes of when there was no connection and what i did at the time to resolve each instance.
> 
> Technician told me that having to go to my car to re-establish a connection was not unreasonable.
> 
> Reasonable or unreasonable, I'm not going to say --- but it's definitely new behaviour.


In this case, your phone is communicating with the car over cellular. Could be a change to the cell tower coverage. Could mean moving the car a inch


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## Bigriver

I have connectivity issues too. I’m 100% sure that mine are not the car, but are tied to the phone app and my mobile service provider. I can always connect to my car if my phone is connected to WiFi. Doesn’t matter where my cars are and whether or not they are on WiFi, it’s all about my phone’s connection. When my phone is on cell service, it can connect to my Tesla devices only about 10-20% of the time. I have recently started using a VPN when using my cell coverage and so far that has worked 100% of the time.

You may have something totally different.... you sometimes not getting LTE in the car is something of concern.... A couple of years ago I did have to have the LTE connectivity board replaced on my model X because it was having trouble getting the signal. But as a technician checked things out and didn’t see anything wrong with your car, it does make me wonder whether the issue might be on the phone side. Have you noticed a difference if your phone was on cell or WiFi? Do you have any way to try connecting to the car from another phone and/or different service provider?


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## MarkB

There were times when the car literally did not move for days (weeks?). 

LTE and no LTE, WiFi and no Wifi,

I'd lose Wi-Fi and sometimes the App would cause it to re-connect. Sometimes the app would not even connect to the car. Even when it DID connect to the car, it caused (?) the WiFi to re-connect -- but often it did not.

Reboot of the car fixed both connections, every time. No moving the vehicle required.

My main issue is that I shouldn't have to reboot the car to reconnect to Wifi. Just had to do it again a few minutes ago.


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## garsh

People have had issues with the wireless modules in the car. It handles both LTE and wifi. You could try setting up service appointments. Be prepared to be persistent though, when it's a problem that's not easily reproducible.


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## MarkB

garsh said:


> People have had issues with the wireless modules in the car. It handles both LTE and wifi. You could try setting up service appointments. Be prepared to be persistent though, when it's a problem that's not easily reproducible.


I had a mobile service tech out a few months ago and mentioned the issue. He said that I should keep a note of times and issues because Tesla could pull up the logs. I did that for about 6 weeks and when the next mobile service fellow arrived, he barely glanced at them (I was hoping Tesla would look at them in advance of the technician coming out -- even texted them with this request/suggestion beforehand.)

He said everything was fine and thought it was reasonable that I should have to reset my car to re-establish WiFi connections daily.

I'm not sure how to escalate this or be more persistent.


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## Long Ranger

MarkB said:


> I have no issues until Feb 2020


Any chance this coincided with a HW3 upgrade? I had ongoing intermittent loss of LTE upon the car sleeping, but it was resolved with my HW3 upgrade. My understanding is that the computer assembly includes the LTE/WiFi module, so you could have a problem with your new module.

I think I'd focus on your loss of LTE. With WiFi it's easier for them to blame it on your router. When parked in your garage with the vehicle in gear, does the car show an LTE signal of at least a bar or two? When the car won't wake, put it in gear to switch from WiFi to LTE. Does the LTE signal now show a slash through it? Does it recover after a few minutes? That's what mine would sometimes do after a long sleep. If so, do a bug report, and tell them the exact time that the LTE slash occurred. I had to go through this a few times, but they did review logs when I did this.

Note that some of your WiFi disconnects are normal, but the failure to reconnect isn't. Whenever the car sleeps, it stops listening on WiFi, so it's perfectly normal to see it disconnect from the router whenever the car goes to sleep. After that, you can't wake the car via its WiFi connection. If it fails to wake, that's a problem over the LTE link.

If the car won't wake, one trick to wake it is to get close enough to the car that your app Phone Key shows Connected, then unlock/lock via the app. That will wake it via Bluetooth and get around the LTE problem. But if WiFi still won't connect, then you're out of luck.

Another test you could do is leave Sentry Mode on so the car doesn't sleep and see if you still lose WiFi.


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## MarkB

Long Ranger said:


> Any chance this coincided with a HW3 upgrade? I had ongoing intermittent loss of LTE upon the car sleeping, but it was resolved with my HW3 upgrade. My understanding is that the computer assembly includes the LTE/WiFi module, so you could have a problem with your new module.


My HW3 upgrade was mid March.



Long Ranger said:


> I think I'd focus on your loss of LTE. With WiFi it's easier for them to blame it on your router. When parked in your garage with the vehicle in gear, does the car show an LTE signal of at least a bar or two? When the car won't wake, put it in gear to switch from WiFi to LTE. Does the LTE signal now show a slash through it? Does it recover after a few minutes? That's what mine would sometimes do after a long sleep. If so, do a bug report, and tell them the exact time that the LTE slash occurred. I had to go through this a few times, but they did review logs when I did this.


Thanks.  Makes sense. To be honest, I don't pay as much attention to the LTE connection and don't often notice the slash until driving. The worst I've experienced was on a drive to work. I stopped after about 12 minutes (parked) and picked up a coffee. When I continued my commute, the LTE was back.



Long Ranger said:


> If the car won't wake, one trick to wake it is to get close enough to the car that your app Phone Key shows Connected, then unlock/lock via the app. That will wake it via Bluetooth and get around the LTE problem. But if WiFi still won't connect, then you're out of luck.


Sometimes when I get into the car, WiFi will connect -- this is rare, though.

Had to do the 2 finger reset to connect to Wifi a few times today.... at least once while a software update was coming down.

Happened again just now, but this time opening the Wi-Fi settings caused a reconnection. My plan was to try to change networks (to my phone's hotspot), but didn't get a chance.

Thanks for the suggestions -- will keep playing.


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## M3OC Rules

I have occasional connectivity issues which makes me think its software related. It also seems worse after updates. In my case I have wifi in my garage but no LTE. When you put the car in drive it turns off the wifi. I'm in a parking garage so it takes a little bit before i have LTE available. Sometimes it seems like it just quits trying to connect the LTE. Today it went 25 minutes without connecting. I stopped to get some coffee and when I got back in my car it was connected right away. I did an update yesterday. After the update I did a foot on brake reset and took 2 trips. First I reviewed a Sentry video and it was all wonky and wouldn't play. It connected ok when I left the garage last night but gave an error that visualizations weren't working. I did a reset while driving and it was fine after that. Then this happened this morning. I'm not going to say wireless connectivity,etc is easy but this has been going on for years and really makes for a bad user experience. If you're going to update the cars every 2-3 weeks you should make sure you don't have a high probability of issues following each update.


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## MarkB

M3OC Rules said:


> After the update I did a foot on brake reset and took 2 trips.


When the technician was out, he told me that the foot on break reset was just an internet thing, and that its not any different that just pressing the 2 scroll wheels.


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## MarkB

Today, no wifi connection as usual.

Went out to the car, and opened the wifi settings — Circled check mark and full “fan” would appear in the network selection area, and the “fan” would also appear in the top bar of my screen — and then almost immediately disappear (back to LTE). Tried switching to my iPhone hotspot Wi-Fi, and same thing.

I was preparing to take a video of this (kept repeating) but before I could, I saw a new behaviour. Eventually, the home network seemed to “stick”, but things were still not working right.

The Wi-Fi fan and LTE bars would cycle back and forth. Approximately 10 seconds Wi-Fi, and then the Wi-Fi fan would disappear and the LTE bars would show for about 15 seconds. Cycle repeated over and over. I managed to take a video of this. When showing Wi-Fi, the strength was 3 of 4, and LTE showed 2 of 5 bars.

I did a 2 button reset, and the Wi-Fi fan returned, solid — no switching to LTE.

I put the car in reverse (car didn’t move — garage door still closed) and the LTE immediately took over — showing 4 of 5 bars.


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## MarkB

No WiFi again today, but app was able to wake up the car (LTE).

When I go into the car, LTE was at 2/5.

I DID manage to get the car to connect to my iPhone Hotspot fine. It would NOT, however, connect to my home WiFi. Network was visible, but barely (bottom dot of fan, which is what I see regularly in these occurrences). Put the car in gear, and LTE signal remained at 2/5. 

Did the 2 button reset, and all was fine again. Strong Wi-Fi on home network. Put the car into gear and got strong LTE (4/5) connection.

One thing consistent with this -- when the connectivity issues are present, LTE is week (2/5). After the resets the Wi-Fi connects properly AND the LTE is much stronger (4/5). Every time!! 

I live across the street from a park that installed cellular antennas as part of the field lighting. 

When connected, car has been transferring data (my app doesn't give much detail including whether the data is going up or down!) all day (when connected to Wifi). I'm assuming it's 2020.36.11 ?

Did the reset twice today.


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## MarkB

So far, 2020.40.8 seems to have fixed the issue for me. 

Over 3 days now, without having to do any reset. 

We shall see.


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## MarkB

MarkB said:


> So far, 2020.40.8 seems to have fixed the issue for me.
> 
> Over 3 days now, without having to do any reset.
> 
> We shall see.


Still good after updates 2020.44 and 2020.44.10.1

Not a single reset required.


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## MarkB

Spoke too soon re: 2020.44.10

Not nearly as bad as pre: 2020.44, but I have had to reset a couple times. This includes the time there was an update available, and I needed to connect to Wifi. (Message on iOS app).

That was to get 2020.44.25 (current install). 

Again, much better. Ability to do the reset via the App would help considerably — at least the times the app could connect.


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