Big Red Warning - autopilot (basic FSD)

[Joe2765]

I have had non-beta FSD for about a week. Still waiting to be offered the beta. I am on 2023.12.5.4.

This morning I was driving on a semi-rural two lane road with lines painted and using the auto pilot feature.

Just as I came up to an intersection where my lane had nothing and the cross lanes had stop signs, with no other cars in sight at all, a big red warning alarm came up. I did not get a good look at it and was not able to read what it said since I was paying attention to the road, but it looked like a 1.5 or 2 inch stop sign or octagon and made a loud alarm noise. The car slowed down quite rapidly as this happened.

Is this the so-called phantom braking? Is there some sort of event log that I can look at to see what the car thought was happening?

Thanks.

 

[KArnold]

Is this the so-called phantom braking? I

No. PB is braking for no official reason by slowing dramatically when a human would not. Lots of speculation as to the cause (and likely multiple causes) from mirages, to overpasses, to shadows, and to Internet connectivity. FSD (or FSDb, TACC, or AP) do not disengage.

There are slowdowns of about 5 MPH occasionally but I personally don't count those as PB either while some do. Those are more a "smoothness" thing rather than a "safety" thing in my book.

Your error is some unhandled exception, again for reasons unknown. FSD (et.al) screams and the only way to stop the alarm is to disable it manually. Essentially it's like the Windows Blue Screen of Death - the software crashed and could not recover.

Like Forrest said, it happens. But rarely in my experience. Another bug for the list.

 

[Dewg]

I'll add to @KArnold point that the "Red Wheel of Death" can also be caused by the software not knowing how to handle a scenario. The alarm is to ensure you are paying attention since the car thinks it cannot proceed safely and needs to hand control back to you immediately.

 

[UCIBtheG]

This morning I was driving on a semi-rural two lane road with lines painted and using the auto pilot feature.

Just as I came up to an intersection...

Autopilot's intended domain is limited access freeways. If there is a break in the lane lines (as there likely would be at an intersection), you can expect the computer to respond like this, at least until you get onto FSD beta. This is not phantom braking, which typically does not coincide with any kind of message on the screen. And no, there are no kinds of logs available anywhere for drivers to delve into the car's responses historically.

 

[bpnine]

It would be helpful when the system decides to go bonkers and scream at you about anything if the reason stayed up for more than 2-5 seconds (one way or another). Frequently I'm driving with FSD off and change lanes (with blinker) and it loses it *sugar* scaring the crap out of everyone - but I can't see why because I'm busy driving (whatever annoys it is a situation that's complex for me and I need to pay attention to the road). These never show up in the 'log' you can view even in diagnostic mode.

Related I should be able to easily silence a screaming alarm (tap one of the scroll wheels or brake?), others driving my car get so worked up they panic brake thinking we're about to mow down a flock of nuns or something and usually there's no obvious reason (see above). I've been trained to ignore the loud alarms, which isn't good. Once the alarm has done its job it should be easy to acknowlege and look into when there's more headspace available.

 

[SidetrackedSue]

It would be helpful when the system decides to go bonkers and scream at you about anything if the reason stayed up for more than 2-5 seconds (one way or another).

Agreed. If I'm driving, I'll ask my husband "what freaked out Casper?" But if I'm alone, I'll never know.

I discovered one screaming event's cause through an off-hand comment in forums. My lane keeping was set to alarm if I was too close to lane edge and so the time I was merging onto a highway at the extreme right edge of the lane while I was attempting to get my defroster working and the wipers on (it was raining, dense fog outside and then sudden condensation inside) it was screaming at me and I thought it could see a vehicle I couldn't see and it scared the crap out of me. Turned out it didn't like me being so close to the edge of the lane and I solved that issue for the return road trip by setting the alert to just vibrate the steering wheel. I happened to read about someone else complaining about the setting and realized that was the source of the panic a few nights before.