Software Update

[kotecki]

I have been pulling my hair out and getting extremely frustrated with what I believe is called MBUX.

My wife took her new car out for a very quick 'familiarization' run last night, with me propping up our garage wall watching her depart.

Where we live is a 30mph speed limit interspersed with a 20mph limits. Off she went and boy was I impressed with the acceleration of the hybrid. All very quiet

But I digress.

When my wife came back to the 'pits' to make her report, she explained how she was being told off by 'a voice from the car.' This voice had the effrontery to accuse the boss of speeding.... Sacre bleu!! Now, I am not one to gossip, but... It has been known for our local funeral directors to overtake my wife and that is with a man walking in front of the procession!!!

I digress and back to my tale of woe

She who must be obeyed pointed out that a mystery voice was giving the speeds in ‘foreign’ measurements. Mon dieu!!! Strange I thought, but nothing I could do about it with the boss present.

This morning she who must be obeyed had to go babysitting at our son’s house (he had the builders in and both parents had to go to work)

I digress yet again.

Before the wife left I had that peck on the cheek and told not to leave my bed!! As if that was going to happen. "Au revoir," my dear and as soon as she left (in our daughter’s car) off I sneaked into the garage.

Unfortunately for me I have a severe spinal injury and getting into a car is not something I enjoy but when the boss is away…. Guess who will play? Iin I plunged. Much pain and much pressing of menu buttons and nope, no way could I find anything to do with altering the screen from foreign measurements. 'Weird' I thought, folks were all saying that it was a sub-menu with-in 'Settings' I had read numerous posts on the Internet which all talked about going into settings but for me, nothing.

After about 20 minutes of playing about, I gave up!! Pain stopped play.

Back to bed and enjoy the lunch my wife had left me.

After lunch and after watching some Youtube footage, I decided I should try the driver’s side MBUX controls on the steering wheel. When I first tried this, there was no option but as I was playing about, on the main MBUX screen came a software update notification and asked did I want to install this update? Yup, I did and surprise, surprise, once installed, in the ‘Settings’ menu there was what I was looking for.

After reading through this War and Peace saga, my question to our avid readers is…

Did our MBUX system somehow go back to a default type setting that never offered this option, or have other folks had this software update and no, I have no idea what version this update is. It simply asked if I wanted it installed. If our system had somehow gone to a different setting, then when I played with the thing in the morning, why did it not then come up with the 'Update' message?

Outcome is that the next time my wife takes off like a bat out of hell… She will get those reprimands in English J

All I have to do now is act all innocent when she next gets into the car and hopefully discovers the reading are all imperial :}

 

[Botus]

Its totally unreasonable to expect software to be fit for purpose. For more than ten years it just been compiled bloatware. Not forgetting governments now mandate manufactures build more and more invasive spyware and deliberate security flaws, it keeps the economy ticking over as they share your bank details.

Indeed where they didn't go far enough they can patch those omissions with OTA updates so we can get lots more of above... a side effect, on occasions when introducing more bugs they sometimes confuse themselves and end up resolving some basic functionality that never worked on first release

 

[Ron240]

MBUX was first introduced on the A Class in 2018.
My CLA is running the latest version of MBUX. It has had 3 OTA updates to the system and 3 to the sat nav since new in June 2020.
I have never had any voice warnings at all, which I am quite happy about.

 

[kotecki]

The update was not a voice warning, the MBUX went to a black screen and in white lettering it asked if I wanted to install the latest update.

Another grouch
Dash Camera
I'm sure it must be me but be blowed if I could find any reference to it in the manual. I accept I have only looked for a reference to either 'Dash Camera' or Camera'

Thankfully Youtube is now my reference of choice, BUT........ So far it does not look like there is any way of having the camera active whenever the car is moving It could be however there is a setting I have yet to discover

 

[Ron240]

The update was not a voice warning, the MBUX went to a black screen and in white lettering it asked if I wanted to install the latest update.

It was this part of your post that I was responding to.
"When my wife came back to the 'pits' to make her report, she explained how she was being told off by 'a voice from the car.' This voice had the effrontery to accuse the boss of speeding"

 

[Ron240]

Regarding the inbuilt dash cam, I believe it can be used if your sat nav has augmented reality built into it.
I watched a UK based youtube video in the subject a while ago.
Found it.

 

[kotecki]

Regarding the inbuilt dash cam, I believe it can be used if your sat nav has augmented reality built into it.
I watched a UK based youtube video in the subject a while ago.
Found it.

Thank you very much for the link and by a pure coincidence, that is also the one I watched. I believe it is absolutely ridiculous that Mercedes are saying we have to start the camera prior to every journey. They claim this is because of UK legislation. I am in no position to disagree with that claim but are they saying that all suppliers in the UK that sell dash cameras that operate in a far more sensible manner are breaking the law??

I am wondering if a workshop could access the settings and remove this stupid option?

 

[kotecki]

How interesting

I have just got a message on the Mercedes Me App.....

'Over-the-Air Vehicle Updates successfully installed. I most definitely have not touched, or updated anything so is this yet another update? MBUX the other day and now Mercedes Me.

I note folks are saying they have the latest software so could this simply be a delayed updating procedure as this vehicle is brand new and has literally only done five miles (we had it delivered on a car transporter)

 

[Botus]

most cars sit in a field rusting for 18 months before some vandal starts a stone cold engine and leaves 2mm of tyres on the disused airfield before scratching it down the side of a car transporter, ready for the vandals at a local dealership to have a good pop at ruining it...

here a min wage slave sticks the wrong number plates on it lopsided and hands it for a jet wash to another min wage slave who makes it looks shiny…. not sure under that scenario how the car would end up running the most recent iteration of yesterdays bloatware mistakes

the world moved let the purchaser do the work.... its cheaper

if things don't work, one wheel is trashed and its got scratched bumpers and visible signs on the wheel arch of half a tyre, 9 out of 10 owners won't ever notice. so they only need to rectify 1 in 10 cars.... And even then, rather than the dealer having to pay one tech real money, the one that knows how to open the bonnet, connect a power supply and push 5 gig of new trash at the car, we can just let it fail to install at the owners home... then throw a fake message at a spyware phone app pretending they love you - its called marketing, with a side benefit that's really about nagging you to get a service and selling your movements to google so they can work on entrapment

 

[kotecki]

most cars sit in a field rusting for 18 months before some vandal starts a stone cold engine and leaves 2mm of tyres on the disused airfield before scratching it down the side of a car transporter, ready for the vandals at a local dealership to have a good pop at ruining it...

here a min wage slave sticks the wrong number plates on it lopsided and hands it for a jet wash to another min wage slave who makes it looks shiny…. not sure under that scenario how the car would end up running the most recent iteration of yesterdays bloatware mistakes

the world moved let the purchaser do the work.... its cheaper

if things don't work, one wheel is trashed and its got scratched bumpers and visible signs on the wheel arch of half a tyre, 9 out of 10 owners won't ever notice. so they only need to rectify 1 in 10 cars.... And even then, rather than the dealer having to pay one tech real money, the one that knows how to open the bonnet, connect a power supply and push 5 gig of new trash at the car, we can just let it fail to install at the owners home... then throw a fake message at a spyware phone app pretending they love you - its called marketing, with a side benefit that's really about nagging you to get a service and selling your movements to google so they can work on entrapment

Hi Botus,
Your post has left me completely confused. Is it somehow a reply to my post?

 

[Botus]

both my post's here were mostly for entertainment purposes, but with elements of truth about them.

for years, many in car entertainment systems were simple enough that although they had bugs, most didn't surface often enough to warrant fixing them...
then as more and more components came in and some other external devices / comms became available, glitches became more problematic and the odd security and or safety gremlin was uncovered....

however most owners didn't seem to pick up that cars had integrated systems and or software, thus never knew that fixes / improvements where available, and even when they did, many don't think it worthwhile ???

occasionally some manu have good ideas and segregate the entertainment stuff from the rest of the car, so even if via 3, 4 or 5g / wifi or Bluetooth someone attacks a car - the driveability and safety stuff is segregated... Mercedes systems are like this - unlike GM where a team found a security flaw in 2009 that remained unpatched till 2015 where you can remotely apply the brakes and stop someone else's car in the middle of a motorway !!!

then you have the fun where the manu MIGHT know what they are doing but the other toys the car interacts with (phones), are written with random non standard compliant jokeware (apple) and so, as they don't actually know what that are doing BWM and Mercedes have to keep changing their software to cope with the joke stuff others use....

after that, as so many seem to want wifi hot spots, apple carplay and android auto etc. the opportunity to hack another users phone when stuck in traffic jams became an easy opportunity.... when you add in that car manufactures (clue in the name) don't always use perfect software themselves, the bad publicity of - Mercedes allowed my phone to be hacked - is not something they'd want, nor are the necessary fixes clogging up workshops with little software patches. So some like BMW from 2010 added the ability to go online at home and load a USB stick with a bunch of fixes and owners could update their own car. But Mercedes never went this way. In the end most manufacturers decided these vulnerabilities going unpatched was too dangerous and so they started to go down the path of pushing OTA patches at their cars

MBUX I believe was the first entertainment system Mercedes brought out allowing owners to update with OTA updates which ONLY aim to update / bug fix the entertainment system

there is on the new S class a later iteration of MBUX that's even more sophisticated

As far as I'm aware ONLY Tesla are brave enough to throw beta software out OTA that can fundamentally alter drivability and safety systems.... which will be tested in the courts soon, as the idiot that killed himself the other day driving his brand new tesla into a tree using cruise control caused a lot of attention when the lithium batteries took 9hrs to put out as the fire brigade liked the schoolboy humour of putting water on volatile metals

 

[kotecki]

Thank you Botus for explaining that Thank goodness you are not POTUS

 

[Botus]

July 2021 USA fix, but I guess the general direction of whats needed will be much the same....

2021060021 Mercedes-Benz Accessory Control System TSB

2021060021 Mercedes-Benz Accessory Control System TSB

www.tsbsearch.com