NTG4.5 DAB tuner resets - anyone else seeing this ?

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richard

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MY04 SL55
Hi All

I have two NTG4.5 cars which are both experiencing the following

Display shows
Device Unavailable
then
Please Wait
then
Station list with no signal
then
Station list and (95% of the time sound back again)

Loop takes about 5 seconds and happens every few minutes *BUT* only in certain areas.

I am in Ascot/Lightwater/Egham area on Surrey/Berkshire border.

I suspect a software bug. In our area there are *a lot* of DAB stations and ensembles (especially with the 2 trial London and Woking ensembles), and I think a buffer is overflowing and causing a reset. (The NTG4.5 DAB tuner continuously scans in the background for new stations).

Before I go raise a bug with Mercedes i'd like to know if anyone else is experiencing this. I would be lazy and just give one of the cars to Mercedes to sort out under warranty but it's a retrofit :) so have to figure it out ourselves !!

Cheers

Richard
 
Hi Richard, I'm just down the road from you in Maidenhead and I'm getting the same issues on my 2012 E Class estate. I'm getting lots of "device unavailable" messages on the screen, plus periods of silence.
 
Hi Richard, I'm just down the road from you in Maidenhead and I'm getting the same issues on my 2012 E Class estate. I'm getting lots of "device unavailable" messages on the screen, plus periods of silence.

I guess you are out of warranty too. I'll post when I know the fix. I'm going to raise a ticket with Mercedes once I've firmware updated my car (probably Tuesday)

Its the 'device unavailable' that shows you this is not a reception/signal strength issue - the head-unit has lost track of the COMAND.

Richard

(ps, its happening on my MY2013 W166 NTG4.5 COMAND and MY2015 W176 NTG4.7 COMAND)
 
It's out of warranty as you said. I've got an MY2012 W212 E series estate with 4.5 Comand

When thing to add is that I've noticed that traffic updates on the satnav are disappearing and reappearing when it goes silent.
 
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Hi All

I have two NTG4.5 cars which are both experiencing the following

Display shows
Device Unavailable
then
Please Wait
then
Station list with no signal
then
Station list and (95% of the time sound back again)

Loop takes about 5 seconds and happens every few minutes *BUT* only in certain areas.

I am in Ascot/Lightwater/Egham area on Surrey/Berkshire border.

I suspect a software bug. In our area there are *a lot* of DAB stations and ensembles (especially with the 2 trial London and Woking ensembles), and I think a buffer is overflowing and causing a reset. (The NTG4.5 DAB tuner continuously scans in the background for new stations).

Before I go raise a bug with Mercedes i'd like to know if anyone else is experiencing this. I would be lazy and just give one of the cars to Mercedes to sort out under warranty but it's a retrofit :) so have to figure it out ourselves !!

Cheers

Richard

Have the same problem on a 2012 c63, factory fit dab unit.

Would like to know how to fix, it's really unusable.
 
I did call command about it a few weeks ago, and I was advised to do a battery reset but that didn't resolve the problem.

I'm in London/Essex border.
 
I have been getting the same problem with the same symptoms in the last three weeks only. It has got a bit better over the last week.

DAB was faultless until then. I live in the Purley area.

I was in North Yorkshire last weekend no problems once away from the greater London area.

I hope this helps.
 
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It will need a firmware update (but MB haven't released a fix yet).

All components on the audio network (MOST bus) get updated together.

The issue is that there is risk when doing firmware updates. Occasionally a component will break because of failing flash (or not using a nice stable high-current power supply), which if its the head unit (has happened to us twice, once on a SL head unit and once recently on a W212 unit which had a inconsistent flash image with the part number on the unit !).

It also happened to my own Mini at the Mini dealership, luckily car was under warranty to there was no issue putting a new head-unit in.

Richard
 
This is happening in both our cars and has become more prevalent over the last couple of weeks.

We're in Godstone Surrey.
 
Same for me. Mercedes are blaming the DAB signal not their hardware. Nothing they can do, so they told me 30 minutes ago.
 
No problems on DAB to report, but did have the SOS failure and subsequent software reflash recently - (in my previous posts) - might this reflash though not directly connected be the cause/cure?
 
I have been having this issue now in 2013 W166 for about a month now.
 
Same for me. Mercedes are blaming the DAB signal not their hardware. Nothing they can do, so they told me 30 minutes ago.

Call MB customer services.

But replacing hardware clearly won't work, its a software issue triggered by something being receive (or there wouldn't be loads of us seeing it all start at the same time)

Richard
 
I have been getting the same problem with the same symptoms in the last three weeks only. It has got a bit better over the last week.

DAB was faultless until then. I live in the Purley area.

I was in North Yorkshire last weekend no problems once away from the greater London area.

I hope this helps.

I would like to add to my earlier post quoted here in that over the last 48 hours the DAB signal in my part of south London has become terrible and seemingly much worse in my car E63 than in my wife's Seat Leon also with DAB.

A journey to and from London City airport on Wednesday this week was impossible with DAB but to and from from Torquay on Monday / Tuesday was fine.
 
Are you sure its the DAB signal? Or are you experiencing the resets (which is not a signal strength issue but the DAB tuner resetting)

Richard
 
Apologies for the confusion. I am getting the resets. My wife's Seat Leon 2015 car no DAB issues at all anywhere.
 
Apologies for the confusion. I am getting the resets. My wife's Seat Leon 2015 car no DAB issues at all anywhere.

My 2014 S212 went in on Wednesday for the same issue. They took "some information so that they could pass it to those that know about these things". Read into that what you like :rolleyes:

They mentioned it was not just MB cars that were having this issue although my wife's Seat has been perfect as well and I have not heard of issues with anything other than MB.

Anyway, I have given up on DAB and use FM all the time. We will just have to wait for the MB fix to come out although I have no idea when.
 
Gents,

The fix is now available from MB. It was released last week. So far so good, tho it did corrupt my former radio settings.
 

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