Car keeps telling me to “Add a Wi-Fi Connection”

Stuart · May 7, 2014

Every time I get in my Model S in the morning, it displays a message telling me to “Add a Wi-Fi Connection”, despite the fact that it already has a perfectly good Wi-Fi Connection showing four bars of signal strength. No matter how many times I press the “Connect to Wi-Fi” button, delete and re-add the Wi-Fi Connection, etc., every day it still tells me to “Add a Wi-Fi Connection”.

Have other people seen this?

ChadS · May 8, 2014

We didn't for a long time; but last week we saw it a couple of times.

Gizmotoy · May 8, 2014

Mine did this. It started when I deleted the original WiFi connection I added when the car was new, even though there were other connections.

As you've found, simply removing and re-adding them didn't work. Seems ridiculous, but that's also what I found.

What DID work was completely removing all the connections, and adding a new one that's different from the all previous ones. Something the car has never connected to before. I temporarily changed my phone's hotspot name to "DO NOT REMOVE" and added it as a new connection. Then I changed the hotspot name (on my phone) back to what I actually wanted and added that connection as well. Now I have a reminder that if I remove that "DO NOT REMOVE" connection I'm in for a cranky vehicle.

nikwest · May 8, 2014

I reported this behaviour to Tesla. The feedback I got was that once you connect it to a stationary wifi the message should go away. It does not go away if you connect it to a shared connection from a mobile phone or mobile hot spot.
As I don't have a stationary wifi available I can't get rid of the message panel. Pretty annoying.

jayman · May 8, 2014

I'm getting it too just about every am and it's while it is connected to my home network. Definitely a bug...

swegman · May 8, 2014

I was told today that Tesla is aware of this issue, and that a future s/w update will include the option of indicating not to ask the question again. I did not get this message until my car was updated to ver 5.9. Now I get the message everyday in my garage, and when I pull into certain shopping centers that I frequent and which apparently have wifi service in the parking lots.

Thumper · May 8, 2014

swegman +1

Gizmotoy · May 8, 2014

nikwest said:
I reported this behaviour to Tesla. The feedback I got was that once you connect it to a stationary wifi the message should go away. It does not go away if you connect it to a shared connection from a mobile phone or mobile hot spot.
As I don't have a stationary wifi available I can't get rid of the message panel. Pretty annoying.

There's no way for the car to differentiate between an access point that's moving and one that's stationary unless they check the GPS. Either way, this can't be true, given the process I followed to eliminate the nag screen (noted above). Sometimes I wish Tesla would just say "I don't know" rather than telling customers the wrong stuff.

nikwest · May 8, 2014

Gizmotoy said:
There's no way for the car to differentiate between an access point that's moving and one that's stationary unless they check the GPS. Either way, this can't be true, given the process I followed to eliminate the nag screen (noted above). Sometimes I wish Tesla would just say "I don't know" rather than telling customers the wrong stuff.

Well, I guess this could always determined by checking IP addresses originating from mobile networks.

PhilBa · May 9, 2014

I get this just about every time I park the car. There is wifi everywhere I go, it seems. Yesterday I got it at home, then at the mall, then Target, at home again and then the Food Store. I have actually set it up for home but the connection is too weak in the garage so it never actually connects. It also sees my neighbors unprotected wifi since my garage is close to where they have their router. (Yes, I've offered to help them put a password on it.)

AmpedRealtor · May 9, 2014

A reboot of the center screen cleared this up for me.

SeattleSid · May 9, 2014

I look forward to if/when an update offers the "don't ask again" option. I get the message every morning. Compared to other things in life, it's a very minor annoyance, but still...

My problem is that my home wifi isn't very powerful in the garage. The car detects it, but when I try to "join" the network it spins and spins and finally says "unable to connect." Fine. Not an issue. But then, every morning, it wants to go through it all again. The only reason to have wifi in the car at home is for the updates, but they work fine on 3G. I found I could have a strong signal in the garage by putting a "booster" there, but didn't see a reason to keep it plugged in for the occasional firmware update. So, far as I can tell, there's no solution until/unless there's a firmware update that addresses it. Here's hoping.

Dukecat · May 9, 2014

This issue just came up for me within the last week or so. Rebooting didn't help, but deleting my home network and then adding it again did the trick.

Gizmotoy · May 9, 2014

SeattleSid said:
I look forward to if/when an update offers the "don't ask again" option. I get the message every morning. Compared to other things in life, it's a very minor annoyance, but still...

My problem is that my home wifi isn't very powerful in the garage. The car detects it, but when I try to "join" the network it spins and spins and finally says "unable to connect." Fine. Not an issue. But then, every morning, it wants to go through it all again. The only reason to have wifi in the car at home is for the updates, but they work fine on 3G. I found I could have a strong signal in the garage by putting a "booster" there, but didn't see a reason to keep it plugged in for the occasional firmware update. So, far as I can tell, there's no solution until/unless there's a firmware update that addresses it. Here's hoping.

There are options. If your phone has a hotspot mode you can do what I posted earlier in the thread. Otherwise drive to a Starbucks or McDonald's parking lot (or any other place with free WiFi) and connect to their WiFi.

Annoying, yes, but will eliminate the probably for you until Tesla has a real fix.

Schmo · May 9, 2014

I had the same problem. My service center explained that this happens when you connect to a mobile hotspot in "tether mode." You can see that you're in tether mode on your iPhone or iPad when you get two chain links instead of a wifi icon after connecting.

I had both my home wifi and mobile hotspot configured, but kept getting the nag screen until I told my car to "forget" the iPad hotspot.

Gizmotoy · May 12, 2014

Doug Gallarda said:
I had the same problem. My service center explained that this happens when you connect to a mobile hotspot in "tether mode." You can see that you're in tether mode on your iPhone or iPad when you get two chain links instead of a wifi icon after connecting.

I had both my home wifi and mobile hotspot configured, but kept getting the nag screen until I told my car to "forget" the iPad hotspot.

Some clarification from Tesla on this would be nice. I have two WiFi hotspots added to my Model S. Both are in "Tether Mode." No nag screen. Indeed, the car nagged me repeatedly UNTIL I connected to the tethered phone, and once I did it stopped.

eelton · May 13, 2014

I get this every morning. I've never tethered, and the car is set up to connect to my home wifi. Perhaps the problem is that I live in a condo, and the car picks up maybe 10 different wifi networks from other units (or nearby buildings).

Search

Car keeps telling me to “Add a Wi-Fi Connection”

Stuart

Roadster#326, ModelS#1409

ChadS

Last tank of gas: March 2009

Gizmotoy

Active Member

nikwest

Member

jayman

Member

swegman

Active Member

Thumper

Active Member

Gizmotoy

Active Member

nikwest

Member

PhilBa

Active Member

AmpedRealtor

Well-Known Member

SeattleSid

Member

Dukecat

Member

Gizmotoy

Active Member

Schmo

P03915

Gizmotoy

Active Member

eelton

Member

Similar threads