Failure of Back-Up Start Code Screen to Appear

[ChasingCoral]

Could be, though I would think back-up start code wouldn’t need to communicate with Ford’s servers to work. Still, the couple other people who posted here saying they’ve had a similiar experience all said this was a new occurrence so something recent may have introduced a bug, and the FordPass outage did cause other problems.

Good point. In fact, the start up codes worked fine for me when I had no signal in the Everglades and PaaK was worthless.

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[Murse-In-Airy]

Curious if doing the Sync Screen Reboot might force the passcode entry screen to come up?

 

[ARK]

Curious if doing the Sync Screen Reboot might force the passcode entry screen to come up?

Good suggestion, but struck out again, sync would not reset, though I’ve never actually reset it before myself so dunno if I was doing something wrong (held volume down and forward seek for 10+ seconds).

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

It’s not volume down, it’s “ok”. Push the volume / ok button inward toward the dash.

I have no idea if it will help. It was just a thought as I read about your problem.

 

[ARK]

It’s not volume down, it’s “ok”. Push the volume / ok button inward toward the dash.

I have no idea if it will help. It was just a thought as I read about your problem.

I did it the correct way this time, and Sync seemed to be resetting itself, however, Sync never came back on and wouldn’t come on. I got out, locked it with the door pad, waited a min, unlocked it with the door pad, and got back in.

No back-up code again, but Sync did briefly come on before apparently getting stuck in the reset again and losing the minimal functionality previously present.

 

[ARK]

So I wanted to see what would happen if I remote started the vehicle, if I could drive off without having the back-up code or, if it is required in this situation, if remote starting might at least help prompt the back-up code screen to appear. Unfortunately, no luck either way.

I was able to remote start the Mach-E (turned off wifi and bluetooth on my phone to not trigger PaaK), and I did hear the a/c compressor come on.

And when I got in, the driver display did say, “To drive: press start button”.

But when I pressed the start button…

 

[ARK]

I wanted to follow up on this issue for the benefit of anyone who might be concerned about a back-up start code misfire.

In the week since I posted this thread, I had the back-up start code fail to appear once when I had a PaaK issue while out and about (luckily PaaK started to work after I force closed and restarted the FordPass App). Since I was home this afternoon, I also decided to see if I could get the back-up start code to work in my driveway. Unfortunately, the screen to input the code once again failed to appear when I used the door code to gain entry to the Mach-E and tried to start the car with no key fob or PaaK device by me.

At this point, it looked like I was experiencing a total back-up start code failure, not just an occasional issue. I started to think about why that might be happening. I thought perhaps the issue wasn’t with the back-up code prompt failing to appear but maybe something wrong with the back-up start code registration itself.

This turned out to be the case. I ended up going to my Mach-E with my key fob and PaaK enabled phone. When I navigated to the back-up code screen in settings, the vehicle was asking me to create a back-up start code, as if it had never been set up.

But I definitely did set up a back-up code when I last reset PaaK about a month ago. Understanding all of this, I recall that in the days after I reset PaaK and reset my back-up code in early June, I would get a weird notification about a minute after I started driving asking me to set a back-up code. It wouldn’t let me do it while moving, and would disappear in a matter of seconds before I could pull over. Anyway, it stopped appearing after a couple of days and I thought nothing of it because not only had I set up a back-up code, but had successfully tested it too. I’m sure on this because I have the FordPass App notifications showing I set it up and successfully used it in early June (see below screenshot).

So the issue appears to be something that went wrong in the back-up code set up process, where I am reasonably confident it was working initially, but then appears to have somehow deleted/reset itself.

If I get that message to set up a back-up code while moving again, I will try and take a picture of it to post.

 

[steelyjon]

So yesterday morning I too couldn’t start my brand new MME. Just took delivery 4 days ago. I got the no key detected message. I only had my PaaK. After 3 horrible hours with “customer service” from the FordPass phone number, I finally had my wife bring the fob. Even with the fob, couldn’t get it started. I was in an area with dicey reception but still. It’s currently at the Ford service department. I also couldn’t even get a screen to work off of. Talk about a buzz kill after my new car high.

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