Failed (OTA) Update bricked my 2023 F150L

[TaxmanHog]

Just guessing here, but a 4-9 year old truck will probably never get an OTA from Ford, this is not an iPhone.
I'll be very interesting to see if the changes that was shown on the Flash (charge rate for example) will even make it to the 22 and 23s.

I think Maxx was considering the future .... 2029, 2030...........

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[Maxx]

Just guessing here, but a 4-9 year old truck will probably never get an OTA from Ford, this is not an iPhone.
I'll be very interesting to see if the changes that was shown on the Flash (charge rate for example) will even make it to the 22 and 23s.

I am totally cool with leaving my truck alone after year 3, if it is working OK and major problems are resolved. Unless there is some sort of update to charging standards that it needs to talk to chargers better/safer or something cool like pass code to start.

I am thinking these days it is becoming a common practice for manufacturers to go to production with an unfinished product and try to refine it after. Three years should be enough for them to iron out the kinks.

Just imagine if Microsoft was updating your truck, it would get fatter and fatter until it blew up or stopped moving completely. You can tell, me and updates don't have a great history.

 

[Heliian]

decades more modern than CANBUS tech

They might not be as modern as you think, it would depend on what you work on.

 

[mr.Magoo]

I think Maxx was considering the future .... 2029, 2030...........

Oh I know/understand, my point was simply that there comes a time where we won't get any more updates unless it's a critical/safety related issue, simply because "if it works, don't fix it" and there's got to be an incentive (new features) to upgrade to a new vehicle.
So even something as simple as the charge-rate isn't guaranteed to make it's way to older vehicles.

 

[beast]

When I tried to start my F150L yesterday afternoon I received the message below on the display. I will say that the Ford Customer Relationship Center was very responsive and the vehicle was under tow within a few hours. The dealership called the next morning (they were closed when the tow dropped the vehicle off) and has promised a quick resolution. I'm glad this happened at home and I wasn't stranded somewhere.

I’m on vacation in Florida right now from N.C. I turned off the automatic updates for this very reason as soon as I got down here. I didn’t want it to possibly update and brick. And guess what it notified me today an update is ready for me to accept and install. I’m like yeah no that’s gonna wait till I’m back home Friday.

 

[BeeKind]

AFAIK, all the trucks run on CANBUS which is the lowest form of communication on the aircraft I work on. The systems I touch are decades more modern than CANBUS tech.

How many more decades until door plug tech is perfected?

 

[THX1138]

It would have been nice if the error message included that information, but it did not. A general principle in software engineering is that if an update fails, the software simply reverts to the previously working version. I think this is poor software design.

Check sums aren't performed on the binary image before attempting the install? Incredible.

 

[jetfixr1]

How many more decades until door plug tech is perfected?

It is perfect already

 

[rugedraw]

Check sums aren't performed on the binary image before attempting the install? Incredible.

Once an OTA trigger is given consent to install, the interrogator posts the log followed by a manifest. Once the files get verified as the correct ones, the vehicle downloads the files. If the files are not the correct ones, it will fail with an error citing checksum error, software mismatch, manifest mismatch, etc. It will not go past the "manifest posted" step you see in the process below. My guess is that it failed during the install process. SoC got too low, maybe? An OTA bricking a vehicle is rarely reported and I've never gotten the chance to run VIN through PTS to see what it records on the status log below.

 

[Maxx]

I’m on vacation in Florida right now from N.C. I turned off the automatic updates for this very reason as soon as I got down here. I didn’t want it to possibly update and brick. And guess what it notified me today an update is ready for me to accept and install. I’m like yeah no that’s gonna wait till I’m back home Friday.

Yup. I let it download anytime it wants but I only manually install when both 12V battery and me are emotionally ready to deal with the potential consequences of the crapshoot.

 

[THX1138]

Once an OTA trigger is given consent to install, the interrogator posts the log followed by a manifest. Once the files get verified as the correct ones, the vehicle downloads the files. If the files are not the correct ones, it will fail with an error citing checksum error, software mismatch, manifest mismatch, etc. It will not go past the "manifest posted" step you see in the process below. My guess is that it failed during the install process. SoC got too low, maybe? An OTA bricking a vehicle is rarely reported and I've never gotten the chance to run VIN through PTS to see what it records on the status log below.

Interesting. In the log, I don't see anything like an explicit sha256sum verification .. the payload downloads and gets verified before being deployed? Maybe it's hidden in the Interrogator log?

 

[rugedraw]

Interesting. In the log, I don't see anything like an explicit sha256sum verification .. the payload downloads and gets verified before being deployed? Maybe it's hidden in the Interrogator log?

Possibly. I can't see anything other that what is shown there. The files get verified first, and then downloaded. In the case I posted, it was only one file that was downloaded. The file(s) get verified before the are downloaded. Here is an example of what a rejected update looks like for reference.

 

[carys98]

Once an OTA trigger is given consent to install, the interrogator posts the log followed by a manifest. Once the files get verified as the correct ones, the vehicle downloads the files. If the files are not the correct ones, it will fail with an error citing checksum error, software mismatch, manifest mismatch, etc. It will not go past the "manifest posted" step you see in the process below. My guess is that it failed during the install process. SoC got too low, maybe? An OTA bricking a vehicle is rarely reported and I've never gotten the chance to run VIN through PTS to see what it records on the status log below.

How far back does this history go? Mine bricked on July 20 last year. My VIN is 1FTVW1EL9PWG02240 if that info is still out there.

 

[rugedraw]

How far back does this history go? Mine bricked on July 20 last year. My VIN is 1FTVW1EL9PWG02240 if that info is still out there.

You had two OTAs in July and they both show they were canceled by the server. However, I assume it was 23-PU0105-DC-CHG2 on 7/20 for the OBCC. I say that for two reasons: The OTA you got on 7/18 never met the battery requirements, so the truck never tried to install it. The one here did try to install because the vehicle entered inhibit mode. I read through tech notes posted when you took it to the dealer and it reads:

So it seems the vehicle was not able to get out of inhibit mode. The OTA dashboard does not reveal much as to why it bricked. The only thing I see with this OTA that is not "normal" is that the truck never reported the battery conditions to the cloud before attempting to install the updates. Maybe somehow that step in the OTA process got skipped and the battery got too low? On July 18th when the other OTA trigger was active, the reason it did not attempt to install was low battery stats.

Thanks for sharing, but at least in this case, it was kinda anticlimactic. I was hoping the OTA dashboard gave more insight. It took the dealer 2 minutes to fix it. Literally two minutes. This is why everyone should own a Mongoose, IMO.

 

[ryun]

An inoperable vehicle due to a software update is unacceptable. Sorry that happened to you.

I saw some comments about being worried that this could happen during an outing. What I do to mitigate this (somewhat) is I schedule updates only to occur at 1AM. There's just a high probability that my truck is in the driveway at that time.

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