n828cl

This sounds an awful lot like a bad electrical connection somewhere, perhaps in the wiring harness or maybe a cold solder joint inside the MMI unit. I've got 7,500 miles on the TTS now, with no problems.

The MMI address parsing seems to fail on entries made years ago on my iPhone, but works fine on newer ones. I suspect that the internal format in iOS changed sometime along the way, and MMI only works with the new one. Re-entering the addresses in the iPhone has fixed all the ones I care about. Also, the MMI parser doesn't seem to understand the equivalence of certain words and abbreviations, such as "Dr" (which it handles) and "Drive" (which it doesn't).

- Chuck

i3adSaab

Sorry, but what exactly happens when you say the nav crashed? Is the entire MMI rebooting, or do you just mean that the data connection failed?

SimianSpeedster

There have been some occasional variations, but here's a description of what happens the vast majority of the time:

When the nav module within MMI crashes, the map portion of the screen briefly goes blank/black, but the rest of MMI stays up (i.e. gauges and other functional modules are still usable). The center of the screen usually displays the "initializing navigation" message that one sees when starting the car, though that doesn't always precede recovery. When the progress bar completes it's journey, the background map starts to return with no detail (i.e. 3D broad shapes), then the roads and other details come back, followed by the Google maps overlay. The whole process usually takes about 30-60 seconds. From there, it's traditionally been a crapshoot if/when traffic data returns. Since getting the car back from the dealer on Wednesday evening, the nav module has crashed 5 times that I know of. I'm not counting my chickens, but at least since the service appointment, the traffic data has returned every time within 2-3 minutes after the Google maps overlay returns from a crash.

A few more notes:

-- If I'm actively navigating to a destination when the nav module crashes, it sometime recovers the route when recovering from the crash, but sometimes it doesn't. Feels 50/50-ish.
-- The music module crashed a couple times early on, but I haven't seen that since. I don't recall seeing the phone or trip computer modules ever crash and I recall seeing the entire MMI system crash and reinitialize once many months back. 98% of the time, the issues are limited to nav.
-- Even when the nav module doesn't crash, the traffic data sometime disappears for minutes at a time, sometimes longer. Several times, I've started the car, hit the freeway, and the traffic data never showed during the journey, even after an hour of driving. Again, I haven't experienced any traffic issues since the service, but I've only driven the car a total of about 2.5 hours since then.

SimianSpeedster

Possibly, but it's tough to think that would result in the nav module alone crashing, and the missing traffic data episodes that often follow a nav module crash, but that also happens independently as described above. It feels like software, but hard to say.

I have entered a couple new contacts in the iPhone for testing, and MMI couldn't parse those either. Again, it's so frustrating that the address shows in full when searching for and initially selecting the contact and when using the "view contact details function," but clicking on the contact to add it as a destination results in 2-3 seconds of delay followed by a display of the address fields for manual destination entry. Occasionally, MMI will randomly fill in 1 or 2 fields with semi-related data. For example, when testing at the dealer, I created a new contact with their address, and when I followed the usual steps to find and select that contact, it resulted in the usual delay, but (if I recall correctly) MMI filled in "Downtown" for the city, and California for the state. The rest of the fields were blank.

Frustrating...

i3adSaab

Your experience is close to mine, but when my nav crashes, every tab on the top screen does the same reboot. The entire screen goes black except for speedometer etc, says it is restarting or reinitializing (can't remember). But, while the reboot is occurring, my music stops so I know it's all rebooting.

One good thing I noticed is that the data link also restarts when MMi reboots, as you describe. Earlier this week the data link dropped, so I tried to force a data initiation by verbally asking for an "online search" within nav. When I did this it said data wasn't available, and I had an option to retry or something like this. I clicked yes, and it caused a nav and mmi crash which then also rebooted the data link.

It sounds like we have similar issues. I need some time to stop by my local dealer to see what they know, but I'm still only around 3k miles and haven't time to force the issue with them.

Balthazar-B

These recurring issues may indicate a physical issue with the SS storage on the Virtual Cockpit's computer, or faulty RAM. It would be good to know whether the Audi tech can reformat the storage, and run a comprehensive, low-level memory test on the RAM. It's also possible there's something in the car that is causing electrical interference that is periodically affecting the operation of the computer and/or wireless connectivity that triggers a crash/reboot (could be a poorly-constructed wiring harness, or a faulty component).

You guys really need to play the squeaky wheels until it's escalated high enough to Audi's true subject matter experts or it may never be diagnosed correctly.

SD_Dave

FYI - My car had all the computers/wiring/antenna replaced to no avail. I am guessing software is a more likely culprit than hardware. Unfortunately there is no way for the dealer to do anything about that.

sonny47

I have been reading messages on this forum before recently purchasing a 2016 TTS with all options, build 1/2016. I thank you all for educating prospective buyers.

Hopefully, my AudiConnect experience may help others.

Brand new car - AudiConnect would NOT connect at all during the new car turnover process. Salesperson called Audi - was told that problem was most likely a bad SIM card. I purchased the car and the next day returned for the new SIM card. Every other function in this "computer on 4 wheels" worked except for AudiConnect.

New SIM card - still NO connection to AudiConnect.

Dealer and I agree that car would be replaced if the resolution to the AudiConnect problem required major hardware replacement (MMI computer, SIM card reader, etc.) that would tear apart the dash on a brand new car.
The repair experiences documented in this forum helped in this decision. Thank you.

Dealer spent a whole day working with Audi Tech diagnosing and resolving the problem - Audi Tech was informed beforehand that wholesale replacement of "parts" would not be acceptable and that car would be bought back and replaced if problem could not be resolved.

Problem turned out to be portions of "corrupt software code" existing in my car's computer. Entirely new code was downloaded, required two tries, and then the AudiConnect problem was solved.

So it appears that in the process of building a car, there must be a step where "official" software is transferred to the car's computer. If that software transfer process was "corrupted" somehow, then the code we should have reliably executing in our cars is not the actual software code we have.

My guess is that they are not using some form of checksum verification to make sure what "should be" transferred/downloaded was "actually" transferred to the car's computer. But who knows...

My advice to others who are experiencing similar electronic non-functional behavior is to suspect bad software first before beginning wholesale replacement of hardware parts.

i3adSaab

this sounds logical....

SimianSpeedster

Thanks for all the details, Sonny. I've been suspecting software all along, but the dealer assured me last week that they reset the MMI system and reloaded all the software from the ground up, though that didn't address the issue. He left me a voice mail today saying he needs instruction on next steps from Audi USA, and the same goes for the iPhone contacts issue.

More annoyance: Sensing that the dealer would not be able to address my car's issues without assistance/escalation, I called Audi USA Customer Support last week and talked to -- sorry, have to say it -- a fairly useless rep who barely understood the issues I described. She only seemed eager to log a complaint, give me a case number and get me off the phone. She also said Audi USA couldn't really get involved until I had a proper diagnosis that was validated and unresolved by 2 different dealers. I asked her what I should do if the dealers simply don't know what the problem is and/or can't solve it (i.e. what's the diagnosis for "we don't know?") and she had no answers. She gave me a case number and asked me to call back once I have a diagnosis. Thanks, doc...

So I called back 2 days later hoping to get someone more competent on the line, and I largely did. The 2nd rep looked up my case and informed me that the 1st rep already closed it and deemed it resolved -- horse****, but maybe it makes her metrics look good. At least the 2nd rep seemingly took the issue seriously and logged a lot more information. Then again, he also promised (twice, no less) a return call by the end of the week and didn't follow through. I dropped him an email on Sunday hoping for a reply today, but no dice.

I feel like there must be someone at Audi who will take ownership of this issue, but I'm having to push harder than expected to get anyone to take meaningful action. God help Audi if they have these issues at scale with the A3, A4, and Q7. If they get overrun with unhappy customers, it'll be their own fault for releasing so much technology in a car without proper testing and other controls, all the while bragging about its intelligence and superiority in their marketing materials.