HELP! Touch Screen went BLACK! [SOLVED!]

[SPatil]

Screen blacked out on me today before an important drive. I did not have time to diagnose and correct, so I returned home and took another family car. Came home later and fixed it as per y'alls advice (with the volume drive/forward song function buttons) - THANKS!!!, but sure we all agree this should not be necessary.

My screen went black for the first time yesterday. It had been sitting in the garage for a day. In reverse the back up image showed. I am very grateful Google found this thread and I was able to quickly reset the tablet.

I'm a relatively new owner. After starting the car I was fooling around to get Android Auto up.(In other words, initially the touchscreen displayed.) I accidentally chose (System/phone) my husband's Iphone instead of my Pixel 3. I think they may be when the screen went flakey.

The Sync4 operating system needs attention. Also, a Ford Mustang EV troubleshooting resource needs to be available to make resolving these glitches doable.

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[dtbaker61]

My center console went black for the second time yesterday. Both times it happened after I had parked outside facing south for an hour or so.... and both times the cabin temp was 'not bad', but the back of the console (facing the sun) was uncomfortably hot to the touch. I'd guess 115+ deg F.

MME started and ran fine.... console, including radio power button were black. Console FUNCTIONED to touch, but display was black.

This is a big problem, not just a pain.... There are plenty of times when PAAK doesn't work for me, and I have to enter BackupStartCode; won't be possible on a completely black screen!

My bet is that the console has a temp sensor like any computer and is shutting down the display above some set temp.

solutions might be:
- ALWAYS put a sunshade up if parked facing South-ish
- a white fabric/foam cover on backside instead of black
- console internal fans auto-on at 100 degF/venting at top to circulate cabin air
- auto-on cabin cooling when/if cabin hits 100 deg F

so.... anybody know where we can submit 'bugs' directly to Ford yet?

so..... My Dealership called this issue into Ford, got repair parts (connector, module, and display) and replaced the whole display yesterday in a couple hours.... They had a field engineer come to oversee the replacement, and wisk away the bad display presumably to do an autopsy.

I asked the Field Engr if there were internal cooling fans, or coolant loops, he didn't think so. But, he did say they were tested to operate up to 160 deg f expecting that's what the cabin temps will hit in AZ in the summer. I suggested that:
- vents at top and bottom would allow some circulation of cabin temp air
- changing the back of the display to a lighter color, perhaps with an insulative layer internally would help
- adding a 'Setting' to maintain cabin temp at no more than 100 degF even when parked and car was 'off' would be a great safety/comfort feature, even though it would consume some range. Basically, an 'always on' pre-conditioning cabin temp would be well worth the range loss for the typical day commute or shopping trip.

I will run my 'park facing south' test next warm sunny day I can.... and see if the new display works better than the original.

 

[JohnSernyk]

I had this same problem and tried this

Updated: SOLVED!

Solution: The Sync4 reset is to hold the volume rocker in the volumne down position and the right arrow key together for 10 seconds (both on the right side of the steering wheel). This resets the 15.5' touchscreen and in my case solved the issue! The screen came right back on and has worked since!


Original post

I have tried searching the forum and I can't find anything, but have any new owners had any issues with the touch screen going completely black and becoming unresponsive?

I have a loaner car for the day and when playing around with various settings the screen froze and went completely black! Nothing I do will get it to turn back on.

The strangest thing though is that when I put the car in reverse the backup cam comes on the screen just like normal. When I go to then switch gears to drive or some other gear it goes back to black.

Has anybody else had this issue? Any Ford engineers on here that can tell me how to reset the screen??

[SOLVED!}
The Sync4 reset is to hold the volume rocker in the volumne down position and the right arrow key together for 10 seconds (both on the right side of the steering wheel). This resets the 15.5' touchscreen and in my case solved the issue! The screen came right back on and has worked since!

I had this same issue yesterday on my ME FE. The backup and 360 displays were working fine but Sync 4 would not boot. I tried this solution and Sync 4 booted immediately. THANKS!!

 

[dtbaker61]

I had this same problem and tried this


I had this same issue yesterday on my ME FE. The backup and 360 displays were working fine but Sync 4 would not boot. I tried this solution and Sync 4 booted immediately. THANKS!!

 

[SMDJim]

Happened to my wife's today. Not happy. The reset works. For the first warm day of the year this is not an auspicous start for the summer. I hope there is a permenant fix soon.

 

[dtbaker61]

Let your dealer know.... they can pull error codes and remove replace your bezel and associated modules if needed.

Ford sent the parts and a field service engr to help my dealership replace mine after I documented my failure to them....

 

[wolmart2]

This has happened to me several times while driving. I has cleared up on it's own after a few minutes. As with most electronics these issues don't get better with time, they just fail. Let's hope Ford recognizes this is an issue and come up with a fix.

 

[dtbaker61]

This has happened to me several times while driving. I has cleared up on it's own after a few minutes. As with most electronics these issues don't get better with time, they just fail. Let's hope Ford recognizes this is an issue and come up with a fix.

This should never happen..... the only path we have to tell Ford is thru your Dealer though.

Have you sent this picture to your dealership?

 

[jdsimard2012]

This happened to me twice while driving since January. Took a pic and went to dealership and reported nothing was wrong. Any solution or reason for this?

Had a center screen problem when DC charging, solved with reboot:

 

[Chudsaviet]

This happened to me twice while driving since January. Took a pic and went to dealership and reported nothing was wrong. Any solution or reason for this?

Reboot helps. Also I haven’t seen this for a couple of weeks, probably it is fixed via OTA.

 

[dtbaker61]

This happened to me twice while driving since January. Took a pic and went to dealership and reported nothing was wrong. Any solution or reason for this?

If it happens again insist that your dealership do online diagnosis to verify error, and push for replacement of console display in Associated modules. It took me a couple weeks to push this through my dealership but they replace my entire display

 

[jdsimard2012]

If it happens again insist that your dealership do online diagnosis to verify error, and push for replacement of console display in Associated modules. It took me a couple weeks to push this through my dealership but they replace my entire display

I'll do that next time. It happened 3 times in 5,000km of driving since January. But it is bloody frustrating as you are locked out of most of the controls.

 

[johnsonx]

This black screen issue happened with my MME. The touchscreen worked fine when I drove from my home to the mall. Then when I got in my car to drive home, the touchscreen was blank (black). I started the car, but no radio, no A/C, and everything you do through the touchscreen was inoperable including the A/C, radio, forward crash alert, brake assist, auto lane assist, all while I was driving home. When I got home, I plugged the MME into my Level 2 charger in the garage and started researching this forum. 30 minutes later I returned to my garage to try the Sync4 reset mentioned above; I started the ignition - and the touchscreen booted up completely into full operation mode. The only odd thing was the tire pressure read "2.8 bar", and my settings were missing; but all of the stored setting took about two minutes to fully restore including the tire pressure at 40 PSI. I guess the electronics needed some sort of wake up which the Sync4 reset could solve, but maybe just plugging it into a Level 2 charger works too like it did for mine. MY MME range was over 300 miles at the time. Thanks for all the posts!

 

[dtbaker61]

This black screen issue happened with my MME. The touchscreen worked fine when I drove from my home to the mall. Then when I got in my car to drive home, the touchscreen was blank (black). I started the car, but no radio, no A/C, and everything you do through the touchscreen was inoperable including the A/C, radio, forward crash alert, brake assist, auto lane assist, all while I was driving home. When I got home, I plugged the MME into my Level 2 charger in the garage and started researching this forum. 30 minutes later I returned to my garage to try the Sync4 reset mentioned above; I started the ignition - and the touchscreen booted up completely into full operation mode. The only odd thing was the tire pressure read "2.8 bar", and my settings were missing; but all of the stored setting took about two minutes to fully restore including the tire pressure at 40 PSI. I guess the electronics needed some sort of wake up which the Sync4 reset could solve, but maybe just plugging it into a Level 2 charger works too like it did for mine. MY MME range was over 300 miles at the time. Thanks for all the posts!

screen *should never* go black.... despite re-boot working, you should tell your dealership, send this photo, and have them schedule replacement of display and associated modules.

In the meantime, be sure not to park facing south without putting your sunshade up to prevent the back of the display from getting super hot.

 

[Chinook86]

Reboot helps. Also I haven’t seen this for a couple of weeks, probably it is fixed via OTA.

I have had my car since Sunday. Love it so far but just had the screen issue when I started up to drive home from work. Started with pixels/lines then went black after a few minutes. Came back on after about 10 minutes of driving. Forgot to put the window shade up after lunch so I am assuming it was heat related. If so that would be a big blunder for it to be that sensitive to heat. I will keep an eye on it and let the dealer know about it.

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