Initial experiences from a new Mach-E owner

[CP-Mach-E]

@CP-Mach-E Have they updated you on the status of the car and what the issue(s) were?

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

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[Shayne]

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

Sounds like it needed to go in for the Nav and glad to hear you got that working. That is where I thought the wi-fi was going; good luck and if required there is no lack of opinions here .

 

[mattsaradan]

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

Glad it mostly worked out and Ford came through with some love. A bummer about Android auto - I don't use it now as I prefer the native navigation but I really like the design of Synch 4 to be able to run both simultaneously. I'd certainly use Amazon music off of Android Auto if I could.

 

[JellyBelly]

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

Glad to see it resolved - the Nav part. i am wondering if i will have same issues with wifi - i have a "not so simple" wifi setup as well. I usually run into dhcp issues of not connecting new devices until i add the macID into the reservation pool. I wonder if the macID of the car is easy to see.

 

[TheVirtualTim]

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

Thanks for this update! I'd been watching this thread eagerly awaiting the outcome.

I suspected as much on navigation.

The WiFi seems suspect but I'm glad it at least worked "somewhere" and hopefully you can get it sorted out over the weekend (please update us if you learn the root-cause).

Regarding Android ... there is more variability on the Android platform it makes it a bit more difficult to code for it (iOS is much more consistent). A handful of years ago I did a project for a customer and learned that the hard way. The same code would run perfectly on some Android phones ... but not work on others. It turned out to be differences in OS levels and (to my surprise) hardware level differences. Surprising because the code didn't do anything that required any specialized hardware ... all it wanted was a network connection. I wonder if this is still the case and if Ford are running into this.

 

[KAustin]

I just got back from picking up the car. The result is pretty much what I expected:

Navigation
It was a 'configuration error'. No idea about the specifics, but the navigation is working properly now.

Wi-Fi
They connected it to the Wi-Fi at the dealer and concluded that it was working fine. It still refused to connect to my Wi-Fi when I got home.

I'll be spending the weekend to see if I can get the Wi-Fi working. I'm pretty sure it is an DHCP issue. I'll update the thread as I find out more.

Android Auto
Apparently there is an issue with Android Auto that hopefully will be fixed in the next OTA update.

The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.

I'm glad they are working hard to make you happy.

 

[srogers]

Problem #3 - Android Auto

When I connected my Google Pixel 3 to the car, the phone immediately recognized that the car had Android Auto, and told me to finish setting it up on the car. When I open Android Auto on the car, the car says to go to the phone list, select a phone, then select Connect Android Auto. I did that, but there was no "Connect Android Auto" to be found. Lots of options for setting up my phone, but nothing related to Android Auto at all.

The Android Auto app in the car also suggested connecting the phone to the car with a USB cable. My wife has a Nissan Murano with Android Auto that only works through a USB cable. I've used it on my wife's car many times. In her car it works perfectly. I tried plugging my phone into the Mach-E with a USB cable. As soon as I plugged in the cable, my phone immediately crashed and restarted the operating system. I tried it numerous times with different cables (to test both ports in the car). Same thing every time. As soon as I plug in the phone, the phone crashes.

I realize that in this case it is the phone that is crashing, but like I said, I've used it in my wife's car with no issues. Clearly the Mach-E is doing something that the phone REALLY doesn't like.

Here is an article for the 2021 F-150 version of SYNC 4 that indicates that Ford is working on a fix. https://fordauthority.com/2021/01/s...ners-are-having-wireless-android-auto-issues/

 

[CP-Mach-E]

I wonder if the macID of the car is easy to see.

I tried to find it. I could not. I'm able to see the MAC address of all the Wi-Fi networks that are broadcasting, but the MAC of the car itself does not seem to be available.

I tried getting it from my Android phone when the Mach-E is connected to its hotspot, but Android does not list the client details. It only gives you a count of the connected clients.

 

[JellyBelly]

I tried to find it. I could not. I'm able to see the MAC address of all the Wi-Fi networks that are broadcasting, but the MAC of the car itself does not seem to be available.

I tried getting it from my Android phone when the Mach-E is connected to its hotspot, but Android does not list the client details. It only gives you a count of the connected clients.

Thanks very much

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

I tried to find it. I could not. I'm able to see the MAC address of all the Wi-Fi networks that are broadcasting, but the MAC of the car itself does not seem to be available.

I tried getting it from my Android phone when the Mach-E is connected to its hotspot, but Android does not list the client details. It only gives you a count of the connected clients.

it's not in the Sync about screen? it seems to be https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/my-mach-e-day-1-impressions.2993/post-94656

 

[Accord07]

I tried to find it. I could not. I'm able to see the MAC address of all the Wi-Fi networks that are broadcasting, but the MAC of the car itself does not seem to be available.

I tried getting it from my Android phone when the Mach-E is connected to its hotspot, but Android does not list the client details. It only gives you a count of the connected clients.

I haven't had a phone with stock Android for a while, on Samsung phones the mobile hotspot shows the MAC address for each connected client device. If what @GoGoGadgetMachE has suggested doesn't work for you, looking at ARP cache is always an option. It's a pain to access it in Android, maybe not even possible without a rooted phone, but you can get it easily by doing the following:

1. Connect both the vehicle and a laptop to your phone's mobile hotspot;
2. Ping the vehicle from the laptop;
3. Run "arp -a" on the laptop.

 

[MJMachForum]

Adding 2 cents here:

In my experience Ford has a limitation on Wifi password length. On my old 2013 Ford Flex with MyTouch (Sync 2) and my current 2019 Ford Flex (Sync 3), they both would fail connecting with a generic error if my password was too long. I ended up adding them to my guest network because the password was shorter. Sounds like this may have carried over to Sync 4.

The guest network solution still let the cars connect to the internet but could not access my internal network. Because they never needed to connect to anything in my house I never shortened my internal network password. Unless Ford adds Siri integration there is no need for me to add it to my internal network. I don't know if you have a long password on your Wifi but you can validate by making a long password on your droid and see if you get the same behavior. Also, may want to eliminate special or repeating characters.

 

[ZSR]

Awesome, good to hear they are involved!


“The good news is that I got lots of love from Ford. I got a call from the Executive Liaison for the CEO of Ford Canada. That was pretty cool.”

 

[CP-Mach-E]

it's not in the Sync about screen? it seems to be https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/my-mach-e-day-1-impressions.2993/post-94656

Good call. Yes it is. There are multiple MAC addresses listed. The first one is the one for the Wi-Fi.

 

[CP-Mach-E]

Good news. I finally got my Mach-E connected to my Wi-Fi.

My suspicion was correct. It was the DHCP server that the Mach-E didn't like. It appears as though there is an incompatibility between the Sync 4 software and the DHCP software that is running on the Synology NAS (Synology uses Dnsmasq for its DHCP server).

I disabled the DHCP server on my NAS and configured the DHCP server on my Ubiquity EdgeRouter X. Once I did that the Mach-E connected right away.

While I was troubleshooting the issue last night, I discovered in the Synology DHCP server's log files that it was assigning an address to the car (i.e. an ACK was being sent), but for some reason the Mach-E just wasn't accepting it.

Now I just need to figure out how to let Ford know about the incompatibility. Not that it matters to me anymore. I'll just keep using the DHCP server on my router, but it would be great if Ford could fix it so that nobody else runs into the same issue.

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