Wiki Consolidated eMMC Thread (MCU repair) (Black Center Screen)

[morrisdl]

As a longtime owner, I have been to a few different service centers...some service centers are definitely better than others. Dallas, TX and Sterling VA being my favorites! My couple disappointing experiences could just be one-offs, but lets say I feel bad for the Raleigh, NC tesl owners. Mobile service has always been great!

Back on topic: I am still gushing about Tesla fixing my eMMC for free at 113k miles. I was also fortunate enough to have 2020.40 with a workable limp mode that allowed use to still daily drive the car for two weeks with a completely dead MCU.

 

[Motog35]

Ugh... Took my car in as I was experiencing symptoms of a failed screen. Looks like all they did was clear cache /memory and not update the part. Not cool. See below:




Performed MCU autodiag. No issues found. Upon review, found MCU storage to be near max capacity. Successfully
cleared map, media, navigation, audio, and cache storage which was near max capacity. Performed additional MCU
autodiag to verify no issues present. No additional alerts or issues found. No further repairs needed or recommended at
this time. MCU operates without issue at this time.
Correction: Determine Eligibility, Replace VCM Through Warranty
Adjustment Program (Model S)

 

[mspohr]

Ugh... Took my car in as I was experiencing symptoms of a failed screen. Looks like all they did was clear cache /memory and not update the part. Not cool. See below:




Performed MCU autodiag. No issues found. Upon review, found MCU storage to be near max capacity. Successfully
cleared map, media, navigation, audio, and cache storage which was near max capacity. Performed additional MCU
autodiag to verify no issues present. No additional alerts or issues found. No further repairs needed or recommended at
this time. MCU operates without issue at this time.
Correction: Determine Eligibility, Replace VCM Through Warranty
Adjustment Program (Model S)

Sounds like they cleared memory as has been recommended and found the memory chip to be good.

What's "replace VCM"

 

[dark cloud]

Performed MCU autodiag. No issues found. Upon review, found MCU storage to be near max capacity. Successfully
cleared map, media, navigation, audio, and cache storage which was S)

Clearing audio cache: meaning what? did they remove all your streaming favourites?

And did they make you another appointment in 3 months to repeat the procedure for ongoing optimum MCU performance?

 

[mspohr]

Clearing audio cache: meaning what? did they remove all your streaming favourites?

And did they make you another appointment in 3 months to repeat the procedure for ongoing optimum MCU performance?

The memory stores detailed trip and power consumption history, charging history, superchargers, etc. Eventually this fills up memory. There are posts on TMC about deleting trip history, charging history, location history to free up space. I did this a few months ago even though I wasn't having any problems. Still not having any problems (6 years and 90,000 miles).
Probably a good idea to clear out this cruft regularly.

 

[bigsmooth125]

Can you provide a link to the relevant posts? I couldn't find any using the search function. TIA!

The memory stores detailed trip and power consumption history, charging history, superchargers, etc. Eventually this fills up memory. There are posts on TMC about deleting trip history, charging history, location history to free up space. I did this a few months ago even though I wasn't having any problems. Still not having any problems (6 years and 90,000 miles).
Probably a good idea to clear out this cruft regularly.

 

[jeremy0916]

I will add one more bit here that may save Tesla owners some grief. If you get your emmc swapped out and need to re-download all your nav maps and its been a few days and that download bar keeps jumping all over the place when connected to your wifi reach back out to your service center text message number they ring you on. Mention to them that your nav maps are not downloading and that you saw online that others ran into this and a tech going in to reformat where the nav data maps and to kick off a download then will resolve the situation. They did that and within like 2 hours my maps were back working(after 3 days of the download never completing and the status bar jumping from close to finished to restarting from scratch even when my car had not left the garage for like 2-3 days straight). Pretty cool how they can go in remote and fix up software bugs/glitches. Slightly big-brother feeling too, hopefully you never get on their bad side and they remote run ./speed_up_vehicle_until_user_demise.sh .

Relevant:

maps updated now navigation wont work and it tells me it needs service

Quote that saved me the guess work:
"I had a problem with maps not updating. The download would get to about 90% and stall. Eventually the car reported that no maps were installed and navigation was not available. I contacted Tesla and they remotely formatted and partitioned the area where the maps are stored. The maps then downloaded and installed. There have not been any problems with the maps since then."

 

[ChrisJ]

The memory stores detailed trip and power consumption history, charging history, superchargers, etc. Eventually this fills up memory. There are posts on TMC about deleting trip history, charging history, location history to free up space. I did this a few months ago even though I wasn't having any problems. Still not having any problems (6 years and 90,000 miles).
Probably a good idea to clear out this cruft regularly.

Do you have link to the procedure. I couldn't find it. Thanks.

 

[Akikiki]

Look on your screen. You can find where to clear the A and B mileage count. You swipe the location to delete NAV and Supercharger locations. (Not that we need to spend much time clearing Supercharger locations, here.). But (ya ain't gonna like it, the best way, the simplest way to clear all and maximize the purge is to perform a Factory Reset. I said, simplest method to clear, not simplest to get back to full operation. A purge will require re-entering everything a driver has set, such as profiles, stations, WiFi, Homelink, everything. And its not a permanent purge. It starts collecting the residue that has accumulated before.

Funny too, because many owners with older cars and even with high mileage report no problems with MCU1/eMMCs and other owners with old and newer cars and with low mileage have many MCU1/eMMC issues. We simply don't know what the delta is that causes some and not all of them to behave this way.

Someone is going to take issue with what I said. This is my experience and what I have learned/collected by reading and talking to others. But okay go for it.

 

[tga]

A purge will require re-entering everything a driver has set, such as profiles, stations, WiFi, Homelink, everything.

I had to do this after my Tegra daughter board was replaced; they couldn't recover my settings. It took maybe a half an hour or so. Not a huge deal. Probably worth a try.

 

[mspohr]

Do you have link to the procedure. I couldn't find it. Thanks.

Sorry, I haven't been able to find it either. It's burried in one of these threads.
IIRC, I went through and deleted navigation history (have to do this one entry at a time, rather tedious. Also reset all trip counters (apparently it keeps detailed trip history unless deleted). Also charging history.
I think that's it.

 

[Akikiki]

Sorry, I haven't been able to find it either. It's burried in one of these threads.
IIRC, I went through and deleted navigation history (have to do this one entry at a time, rather tedious. Also reset all trip counters (apparently it keeps detailed trip history unless deleted). Also charging history.
I think that's it.

Yes, we heard that trip counters retains links to trip history; but we also have heard from Tesla people and the 3rd party fixers that trip counters are linked to the energy use/consumption graphs. The trip counters are just the "tip of the iceberg".

When I first started having MCU1 problems on my '17 in Feb '18. The SC techs (three guys and the SA) told me the Tesla engineers were insisting that it would help my MCU issues to delete all my Trip counters and do it often. I said, to all of them 'yo outa yo mind, bubba". That makes zero sense to me. They just shook their heads when I said, "never". Well, I believe now. I should have believed them then. Mine just go worse.

 

[ChrisJ]

Sorry, I haven't been able to find it either. It's burried in one of these threads.
IIRC, I went through and deleted navigation history (have to do this one entry at a time, rather tedious. Also reset all trip counters (apparently it keeps detailed trip history unless deleted). Also charging history.
I think that's it.

Thanks for checking anyway.

 

[X Fan]

I had blank screen with error message over the weekend for my 4 1/2 yr old X. Fortunately I could drive the 175 miles to Raleigh and supercharge near the center.

Today, Raleigh service tells me the same thing that the eMMC “tests” fine and they suggest that it’s a recent software version problem causing the issue ( saying it’s been seen with several older vehicles with latest Sw release ). Also, next software release will supposedly reduce this issue
Didn’t a previous release stop the heavy cycle count?

Any suggestions on how to interact with service?

 

[Akikiki]

Yep, whine, complain, don't just go away. Look for every thing and anything that gives you reason to keep complaining. Document, take pictures, and if it was me, when you have an "ample" event, submit a work request and upload associated pictures. Squeaky wheel.

 

[Saabstory88]

Does anyone know the procedure for checking eMMC health in Toolbox? Is toolbox the correct diagnostic tool for the job? I am looking to subscribe soon, as our Model 3 is out of warranty, and I want to learn the application. Is there a specific replacement threshold in terms of eMMC state of health? I would like to only return to the SC when I have the diagnostics on hand which will give me a greater than 90% probability of daughterboard replacement. I'm not willing or able to let my car sit at the SC for a week or two while they try to figure it out, I want to schedule well in advance and have things done in a timely manner.

 

[bigsmooth125]

What's Toolbox?

Does anyone know the procedure for checking eMMC health in Toolbox? Is toolbox the correct diagnostic tool for the job? I am looking to subscribe soon, as our Model 3 is out of warranty, and I want to learn the application. Is there a specific replacement threshold in terms of eMMC state of health? I would like to only return to the SC when I have the diagnostics on hand which will give me a greater than 90% probability of daughterboard replacement. I'm not willing or able to let my car sit at the SC for a week or two while they try to figure it out, I want to schedule well in advance and have things done in a timely manner.

 

[tga]

Does anyone know the procedure for checking eMMC health in Toolbox? Is toolbox the correct diagnostic tool for the job? I am looking to subscribe soon, as our Model 3 is out of warranty, and I want to learn the application. Is there a specific replacement threshold in terms of eMMC state of health? I would like to only return to the SC when I have the diagnostics on hand which will give me a greater than 90% probability of daughterboard replacement. I'm not willing or able to let my car sit at the SC for a week or two while they try to figure it out, I want to schedule well in advance and have things done in a timely manner.

Is eMMC wear-out even an issue for the 3? I've only seen it discussed for MCU1 S and X.

 

[brkaus]

Is eMMC wear-out even an issue for the 3? I've only seen it discussed for MCU1 S and X.

Eventually, yes. But they picked a much higher capacity eMMC and they have significantly reduced all the early days debug logging. Someone calculated it here - it's far outside the normal car lifetime.

 

[Saabstory88]

Is eMMC wear-out even an issue for the 3? I've only seen it discussed for MCU1 S and X.

While I am planning to rent Toolbox to work on my Model 3, which is now out of warranty, I also would like to use it to check the eMMC health on my Model S during that period.