BMW remote software upgrade failed

MonsterMontoya · 07-07-2020, 02:11 AM

Wanted to share my experience from yesterday. Second time I've gone through the remote software upgrade on my 2020 s30i. First was a few months ago (can't remember the software version), no issues that time, worked perfectly.

Had a notice in the BMW connected app over the weekend that a new update was ready (11/2019.70). Took the car for a drive yesterday and when I returned home I decided to start the upgrade process. iDrive advised the update can take up to 20 mins so I started the process and let it do its thing.

Later yesterday evening I checked the BMW connected app and saw a scary error 'A critical error has occurred. Engine start is not possible. We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please call Roadside Assistence for support'.

The car starts fine, and iDrive is working as good (and as bad) as it did last week. It's not possible to retry the upgrade, the menus just say the upgrade failed and there is no option to retry.

This morning I had a voicemail from BMW wanting to send a flatbed truck to take the car to a dealer (sigh).

I'll call BMW tomorrow and see what the deal is, will report back here with the results.

Unless you have problems with the current software I'd suggest you don't perform the update. There is no information in the release notes either (apart from some vague sentence about 'function updates and quality enhancements...)

MonsterMontoya · 07-07-2020, 01:59 PM

BMW roadside assistance advised me to take it to the dealer as the car is driveable (but is at risk of preventing engine start at any time). The tech said he'd never heard of the car being driveable after generating that error (said the software should have disabled the engine starter!).

Car is at the dealers now, should hear more by end of day.

CeEl · 07-07-2020, 02:24 PM

Sorry you are going through this.

Did you contact BMW or did they contact you first? If they contacted you first, I am actually pretty impressed that they monitor for such critical errors and proactively reach out to the customer. (Despite the situation being quite inconvenient for you - car bricked by failed software upgrade.)

MonsterMontoya · 07-08-2020, 08:47 PM

Agreed, pretty good service actually. My car wasn't bricked (in the usual interpretation of the word) - the update failed and didn't allow me to retry install, but the car was completely drive-able.

Car was updated at the dealer to 03/2020.58, not had the time to notice any changes yet. I will think twice about performing the software upgrade next time.

Now to whip out Bimmercode again and disable auto stop start

07-07-2020, 02:11 AM	#1
MonsterMontoya New Member 7 Rep 20 Posts Drives: BMW Z4 s30i Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: California iTrader: (0)	BMW remote software upgrade failed - 11/2019.70 Wanted to share my experience from yesterday. Second time I've gone through the remote software upgrade on my 2020 s30i. First was a few months ago (can't remember the software version), no issues that time, worked perfectly. Had a notice in the BMW connected app over the weekend that a new update was ready (11/2019.70). Took the car for a drive yesterday and when I returned home I decided to start the upgrade process. iDrive advised the update can take up to 20 mins so I started the process and let it do its thing. Later yesterday evening I checked the BMW connected app and saw a scary error 'A critical error has occurred. Engine start is not possible. We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please call Roadside Assistence for support'. The car starts fine, and iDrive is working as good (and as bad) as it did last week. It's not possible to retry the upgrade, the menus just say the upgrade failed and there is no option to retry. This morning I had a voicemail from BMW wanting to send a flatbed truck to take the car to a dealer (sigh). I'll call BMW tomorrow and see what the deal is, will report back here with the results. Unless you have problems with the current software I'd suggest you don't perform the update. There is no information in the release notes either (apart from some vague sentence about 'function updates and quality enhancements...)
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07-07-2020, 01:59 PM	#2
MonsterMontoya New Member 7 Rep 20 Posts Drives: BMW Z4 s30i Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: California iTrader: (0)	BMW roadside assistance advised me to take it to the dealer as the car is driveable (but is at risk of preventing engine start at any time). The tech said he'd never heard of the car being driveable after generating that error (said the software should have disabled the engine starter!). Car is at the dealers now, should hear more by end of day.
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07-07-2020, 02:24 PM	#3
CeEl Major 478 Rep 1,250 Posts Drives: 2020 Z4 M40i Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Ohio iTrader: (0) Garage List 2024 BMW X5 M60 [0.00]	Sorry you are going through this. Did you contact BMW or did they contact you first? If they contacted you first, I am actually pretty impressed that they monitor for such critical errors and proactively reach out to the customer. (Despite the situation being quite inconvenient for you - car bricked by failed software upgrade.)
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07-08-2020, 08:47 PM	#4
MonsterMontoya New Member 7 Rep 20 Posts Drives: BMW Z4 s30i Join Date: Oct 2019 Location: California iTrader: (0)	Agreed, pretty good service actually. My car wasn't bricked (in the usual interpretation of the word) - the update failed and didn't allow me to retry install, but the car was completely drive-able. Car was updated at the dealer to 03/2020.58, not had the time to notice any changes yet. I will think twice about performing the software upgrade next time. Now to whip out Bimmercode again and disable auto stop start
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