PAAK just stopped working

[Surfnturf]

Recently PAAK just stopped working. I get this message on my phone's notification panel - "Phone as a key trying to connect to your vehicle". This has been going on for a couple days now.

This has never happened in the year+ of ownership so I'm guessing there's a bug. Checked all settings and all BT settings are fine and my Ford app works normally.

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[dww]

Did you restart your phone? Did you reboot your truck?

 

[Smokewagun]

Just what does PAAK do? Just prevent you from carrying the truck key fob? I could see if you’re out streaking for the day or living in a nudist colony, with nowhere to put your key without a tether or neck lanyard, but what is the big PAAK hype?

 

[Warp Asylum]

I just got back from a 2 week vacation and my PAAK refuses to connect also. Funnily enough it works fine with our Mach-E but the Lightning will not connect after multiple phone/Sync reboots.

I'll try redoing the PAAK setup later today.

 

[Warp Asylum]

I tried removing it and setting it up again, and I get to the "pairing with your vehicle" step in Fordpass which results in a "pairing failed" error. Not sure what to do next, maybe there is a fuse I can pull?

PAAK had been nearly flawless for the 6 months I've owned the truck and again, still works fine with our Mach-E.

 

[Surfnturf]

Did you restart your phone? Did you reboot your truck?

Yes I did both when originally troubleshooting. I thought maybe I was missing a mystery setting that reset BT all on its own. My dash brightness setting and autofold mirrors keeps changing or turning itself off. My Lightning has a mind of its own. But after 3 days of no BT connection it started working again today out of the blue. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Warp Asylum]

Finally figured out my issue. I have a Pixel Watch 2 and even though PAAK worked fine with both the truck and the watch connected to my phone before my vacation, somehow the watch connection was causing some kind of interference/corruption/something when I got back. I finally had the bright idea to put the watch in airplane mode while setting up PAAK with the truck and lo and behold, PAAK paired immediately. I then took the watch out of airplane mode and PAAK still works fine.

Pretty weird that was the cause of the problem, and even weirder that it only affected the Lightning and not the Mach-E. Mystery solved, in any case.

 

[invertedspear]

Pretty weird that was the cause of the problem, and even weirder that it only affected the Lightning and not the Mach-E.

Both systems work on Bluetooth, which uses RF channels. Likely something happened where you ended up with the watch and truck trying to use the same channel and the watch was jamming the truck. Also likely putting the watch in airplane mode and then bringing it out got it to change the channel being used.

 

[Warp Asylum]

Both systems work on Bluetooth, which uses RF channels. Likely something happened where you ended up with the watch and truck trying to use the same channel and the watch was jamming the truck. Also likely putting the watch in airplane mode and then bringing it out got it to change the channel being used.

Not a bad theory but I believe Bluetooth does not assign fixed channels like wifi does, but rather dynamically hops between channels as RF conditions change over time. Similar to wifi, it's also a packet based protocol, so multiple devices sharing the same channel is not necessarily a problem as long as there is enough bandwidth to move the packets.

Obviously something about the watch/phone/truck interaction was broken, but I don't think we can accurately root cause it without detailed logs of what each device was doing at the time of failure. I just posted the resolution in case anyone gets hit with it in the future and is searching for a solution.

 

[Biggie]

So strange. The same EXACT thing has happened to me. Came back from vacation and for the past few days, I can't get PaaK to work. Have never had a problem with it before. Tried resetting the phone and truck with no luck over the past few days.

I have a Galaxy Watch 6, but yesterday I wasn't even wearing my watch and still couldn't get things to work. So tough to blame the watch in this scenerio.

 

[Warp Asylum]

So strange. The same EXACT thing has happened to me. Came back from vacation and for the past few days, I can't get PaaK to work. Have never had a problem with it before. Tried resetting the phone and truck with no luck over the past few days.

I have a Galaxy Watch 6, but yesterday I wasn't even wearing my watch and still couldn't get things to work. So tough to blame the watch in this scenerio.

Was the watch turned off or in airplane mode? If it was still turned on and close enough to be connected to your phone, you could still have the same problem I did. Also check for other bluetooth devices being on/connected to your phone like headphones, etc and disable them as well. Basically just make sure that nothing is connected to bluetooth when setting up PAAK. Once it is set up and working, there should be no issue with other devices also being active.

 

[Biggie]

Was the watch turned off or in airplane mode? If it was still turned on and close enough to be connected to your phone, you could still have the same problem I did. Also check for other bluetooth devices being on/connected to your phone like headphones, etc and disable them as well. Basically just make sure that nothing is connected to bluetooth when setting up PAAK. Once it is set up and working, there should be no issue with other devices also being active.

Can you please walk me through the process of how you reset your phone as a key? I tried to delete my phone from the PaaK list in the FordPass app, but it won’t let me do it. I went to the Sync menu in the Truck and found the option that says “phone as a key reset” and it gets hung up and then gives a message that the reset failed. I was going to uninstall the FordPass app and then reinstall it, but I wanted to check with you first before I messed things up even more.

 

[Warp Asylum]

Can you please walk me through the process of how you reset your phone as a key? I tried to delete my phone from the PaaK list in the FordPass app, but it won’t let me do it. I went to the Sync menu in the Truck and found the option that says “phone as a key reset” and it gets hung up and then gives a message that the reset failed. I was going to uninstall the FordPass app and then reinstall it, but I wanted to check with you first before I messed things up even more.

The Sync menu PAAK reset is the right way to do it. I think if the Sync menu's PAAK reset fails, it's because there aren't any existing keys. If you try the PAAK setup again and it fails, you should be able to do the Sync menu PAAK reset. Also make sure you remove any truck related Bluetooth devices that may still be stored in your phone, and turn off or place into airplane mode any other Bluetooth devices that are paired with your phone even if they are inside the house, etc.

One thing I noticed when PAAK setup would fail is that I would have a JBL headphone device listed in my phone's Bluetooth devices. This was actually the failed/corrupted Lightning PAAK device, so remove that if you see it.

Step by step, this is the process that should work:
1) Sync menu PAAK reset
2) Remove phone from phone list in truck (general phone list, not PAAK)... this may not be strictly necessary but it is what I did
3) Remove any truck related Bluetooth devices from phone, including the JBL device if you see it
4) Pair phone with truck
5) Start PAAK setup in Fordpass app

You should not need to clear the Fordpass app cache or reboot the phone, but those steps would not hurt.

 

[Biggie]

The Sync menu PAAK reset is the right way to do it. I think if the Sync menu's PAAK reset fails, it's because there aren't any existing keys. If you try the PAAK setup again and it fails, you should be able to do the Sync menu PAAK reset. Also make sure you remove any truck related Bluetooth devices that may still be stored in your phone, and turn off or place into airplane mode any other Bluetooth devices that are paired with your phone even if they are inside the house, etc.

One thing I noticed when PAAK setup would fail is that I would have a JBL headphone device listed in my phone's Bluetooth devices. This was actually the failed/corrupted Lightning PAAK device, so remove that if you see it.

Step by step, this is the process that should work:
1) Sync menu PAAK reset
2) Remove phone from phone list in truck (general phone list, not PAAK)... this may not be strictly necessary but it is what I did
3) Remove any truck related Bluetooth devices from phone, including the JBL device if you see it
4) Pair phone with truck
5) Start PAAK setup in Fordpass app

You should not need to clear the Fordpass app cache or reboot the phone, but those steps would not hurt.

Really appreciate it. I finally got it to work thanks to your help. But this glitchy Fordpass app definitely did not make it easy. I followed your exact steps several times, but kept hitting a dead end because the phone app would not remove the old PAAK and would not give me the option of setting up a new PAAK on the phone. I was about to give up, but decided to go for a hail Mary and uninstalled the Fordpass app completely. After reinstalling the app and logging back in, it finally gave me the prompt to start the PAAK setup. (Maybe had to clear the cache or something.) I thought it was going to be smooth sailing after that, but instead it kept on giving me an error message when trying to create a new PAAK (even though I removed all the prior Bluetooth connections like you recommended). Finally, after trying 5 or 6 times, it connected and seems to be working fine again. Also, I had to repeat the process of resetting the backup start passcode.

Thanks again for your help. This was definitely a pain to fix, so I hope it doesn't become a recurring problem.

 

[Warp Asylum]

What a mess. Glad you got it working!

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