"Drive moderately. Apply additional braking when necessary. Consult nearest service center."

[808Pants]

Thanks, Art & Nomad - I've downloaded two versions of ISTA now, but will have to wait until I'm back on the right island to check for errors.

As to:

...the latest psdzdata for flashing to the newest I-level...

I don't have a clue as to what this is about, but probably don't need to know, either, at least until I've successfully connected with ISTA and, with luck, found the brake-related code. I suspect Youtube would cover this somewhere...?

 

[alohart]

I don't have a clue as to what this is about, but probably don't need to know, either, at least until I've successfully connected with ISTA and, with luck, found the brake-related code.

The huge psdzdata file is needed only for ISTA programming, not for diagnosis. My old MacBook doesn't have enough free disk space to install the psdzdata file which is probably >300 GB when expanded.

Apparently, the psdzdata file includes, probably among other things, the system software for every recent BMW model when that version of the psdzdata file was created (no wonder it's huge!). ISTA 4.39.20 is recent enough to work well with all U.S. i3's, and psdzdata 4.39.20 would contain i3 system software recent enough to increase the integration level to probably a 2021 version. There probably haven't been many (any?) significant i3 system software changes since 2021 considering that i3 production ceased in 2022 and probably few hardware changes were made since the 2018 LCI.

A U.S. i3 owner has reported successfully increasing the integration level of his i3 using ISTA 4.39.20 and a recent psdzdata version using only the OBD to Ethernet cable used for ISTA diagnosis, not the recommended expensive ICOM cable, while leaving his i3 in drive ready state so that the DC-DC converter would provide 12 V power rather than the recommended external 12 V power supply. No connection to a BMW server is required. He admits that had something gone wrong, he could have bricked his i3. I never plan to use ISTA for programming, so don't need to install a psdzdata file.

 

[alohart]

I've downloaded two versions of ISTA now, but will have to wait until I'm back on the right island to check for errors.

You back on Oʻahu?

 

[808Pants]

The huge psdzdata file is needed only for ISTA programming, not for diagnosis. My old MacBook doesn't have enough free disk space to install the psdzdata file which is probably >300 GB when expanded.

Apparently, the psdzdata file includes, probably among other things, the system software for every recent BMW model when that version of the psdzdata file was created (no wonder it's huge!). ISTA 4.39.20 is recent enough to work well with all U.S. i3's, and psdzdata 4.39.20 would contain i3 system software recent enough to increase the integration level to probably a 2021 version. There probably haven't been many (any?) significant i3 system software changes since 2021 considering that i3 production ceased in 2022 and probably few hardware changes were made since the 2018 LCI.

A U.S. i3 owner has reported successfully increasing the integration level of his i3 using ISTA 4.39.20 and a recent psdzdata version using only the OBD to Ethernet cable used for ISTA diagnosis, not the recommended expensive ICOM cable, while leaving his i3 in drive ready state so that the DC-DC converter would provide 12 V power rather than the recommended external 12 V power supply. No connection to a BMW server is required. He admits that had something gone wrong, he could have bricked his i3. I never plan to use ISTA for programming, so don't need to install a psdzdata file.

Art, as you surmised, I've got more pressing priorities than bricking my car, so I'll leave the psdz alone.

 

[808Pants]

You back on Oʻahu?

Yes, coming and going both because I've still got a huge amount of work to do to make our place here rentable, and because I don't quite have the guts to resign, at which time I'd be purely burning savings, with no income, and would rely on med-quest for health coverage for myself and family. (Now I'm wondering if Elon will EVER let me retire, without having the concept of a plan for doing so with no SSA - seems like it could just vanish overnight.)

 

[808Pants]

So I successfully downloaded and apparently installed the ‘standalone’ ISTA software, 4.39.20.

It has probably frozen a dozen times or more while I have been trying to figure out how to use it… Definitely not user-friendly.

To those who have experience with it: how long should it be sitting with no apparent activity, but with what appears to be an “active“ operation, per the image below?


The only evidence that it has not frozen is that the clock continues to increment. But on a regular basis, when I try to click on another tab, or even just move the window elsewhere on my screen, it will hang.

—————-
Car symptoms to do with braking recently broadened: brake lights stay on during each drive, as soon as that warning indication comes up, but not before - along with the red all-caps "BRAKE" warning on the dash. Feel-wise, brakes work fine.

Before too long, I will give up and download BimmerLink, but I expect that it is going to be skimpy on codes and diagnosis, of course won’t allow me to reset anything,and I think it will force me to use my iPhone, since I don’t think it comes in a PC version.

Any suggestions welcome.

 

[808Pants]

Accidentally uploaded a draft… Deleting.

 

[Mondomensch]

BimmerLink is easy to get and use, why not just try it and see what codes you get?

 

[alohart]

It has probably frozen a dozen times or more while I have been trying to figure out how to use it… Definitely not user-friendly.

Its UI is ancient Windows 95-style. Amazing that it hasn't been modernized after so many years. For a Mac user, trying to use ISTA just enforces the stereotype of Windows software being poorly designed and implemented. But it is what it is and there apparently aren't many (any?) alternatives for some of its functionality.

To those who have experience with it: how long should it be sitting with no apparent activity, but with what appears to be an “active“ operation, per the image below?

I've discontinued ISTA operations that don't seem to be progressing even though they're indicated as in progress by the squares along the upper left of the window. ISTA wasn't hung because it allowed me to stop in-progress operations. The report of the ISTA session showed that I had terminated some processes before they finished.

I'm running ISTA 4.39.20 on a 2016 Macbook with a 1.3 GHz Intel Core m7 Skylake processor (M7-6Y75) with two independent processor cores on a single chip, a 4 MB level 3 cache, an integrated Intel HD Graphics 515 graphics processor that shares system memory, 8 GB of onboard 1866 MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM. Upon launch, ISTA displays a warning that my laptop doesn't meet its minimum requirements, so I expect sluggish performance. That said, ISTA has never hung and it's never hung Windows, so it could be worse. Not being familiar with Windows, I'm amazed that ISTA runs at all and would not know what to do if it didn't.

Before too long, I will give up and download BimmerLink, but I expect that it is going to be skimpy on codes and diagnosis, of course won’t allow me to reset anything,and I think it will force me to use my iPhone, since I don’t think it comes in a PC version.

I was recently disappointed with the current version of BimmerLink because it scanned only 5 of a 2014 i3's ~25 electronic controllers. It scans all of these controllers on our former 2019 and current 2021 i3's. So it was pretty useless for reading stored DTC's on the 2014 i3 but seems to work well with our 2021 i3. I'm confident that it would have deleted any stored DTC's that weren't permanent. However, if it doesn't scan controllers with stored DTC's, it can't delete them. It's worth a try. If it doesn't scan ~25 controllers, hopefully the BimmerLink developer would refund your license fee.

 

[808Pants]

OK, thanks guys, especially Art with another of your extremely detailed replies.

I’ve left ISTA running for at least two hours with nothing apparently happening, so it’s time to pinch this off, and try BimmerLink, as it seems like it’s my only remaining option at this point.

 

[alohart]

I’ve left ISTA running for at least two hours with nothing apparently happening, so it’s time to pinch this off, and try BimmerLink, as it seems like it’s my only remaining option at this point.

Before giving up on ISTA, do you have any ISTA tutorials or manuals? If not, I could post a tutorial that was made using an older ISTA version but that seems to be valid for ISTA 4.39.20.

 

[808Pants]

Yes, PLEASE, Art! I do have the 146-page user's guide, but it just convinces me that "something ain't right," because I can't get into 4.5.4, which is where the "vehicle details" are supposed to be displayed, immediately followed by testing results.

In the interim, I did manage to get BimmerLink installed, but had to put it on my wife’s phone because mine is newer and has only a USB-C connection… The adapter I bought expressly for this is the “old” lightning type. It never ends.

Anyway, BimmerLink did come up with some 39 errors, and I was/am in the process of poking through them to see what is pertinent.

But B'link is extremely difficult for me to get "connected" successfully. Out of maybe 50 tries, only one time succceeded - so I know my cable and adapter are OK, and per the above, I got a list of errors. That's when I decided I'd better go back to "units" and change to miles vs. km so I could assess more easily when the recorded errors had taken place. And of course, I can't connect again since then. IIRC the one time I *did* get connected, it was "automatic" and happened immediately after I'd finally decided to try changing some of the default settings (which didn't seem to be set up to do anything useful.)

ANYWAY: I got here trying to fix my car. Looking at the errors, a couple stand out, both brake-related.
29/ Dynamic stability control - 48070E - brake-light switch error - specifically "plausibility error," which I find amusing.
This rang a bell for me, because as a part-time driving instructor (the wife is my only student) I'd rigged the car up like a year ago with a crappy but seemingly-appropriately-cheap ebay-sourced passenger-side brake pedal. It's emblazoned with Mandarin characters, and connects via a simple bicycle-style control cable. Ir was very difficult to set up without too much slack/play in the panic-pedal...but this problem began quite some time after I'd last messed with tensioning. When just now I checked to see if the pedal was returning on its own, I couldn't really say that it was or was NOT - I mean, maybe a paper-thickness from not fully returning, if that? And I know the brake-lights being on continuously hasn't been a longstanding condition.
But the pedal-arm switch isn't a simple mechanical switch; there's no mechanical contact between it and the flat on the pedal-arm...so is it Hall effect, or a reed-switch, etc? I'm wondering whether there some crazy-high sensitivity to slight pedal pressure that I'd never have expected.

The companion error to this, maybe, is 40/body domain controller - "80409E - Brake light switch - continuous operation."

So I just got done monkeying with the cheesy cable-tensioning "adjustment" to try to be sure there's really nothing going on there. I will report back...

 

[Mondomensch]

Re: “ so I know my cable and adapter are OK”

Working once out of many tries would not give me much confidence in that. I’ve had bad experiences with flakiness of those 4th tier Ethernet/USB/Lightning adapters.

 

[alohart]

Yes, PLEASE, Art! I do have the 146-page user's guide, but it just convinces me that "something ain't right," because I can't get into 4.5.4, which is where the "vehicle details" are supposed to be displayed, immediately followed by testing results.

Attached. Good luck!

But B'link is extremely difficult for me to get "connected" successfully.

My old Vgate iCar 2 OBD to WiFi adapter always connects when using BimmerLink, BimmerCode, iFlow, and mi3. It's probably not as fast as an OBD to Ethernet cable which I use to connect to my laptop when using ISTA, but I don't have the adapter necessary to connect it to the Lightning port on my aging iPhone 13 mini.

 

[808Pants]

Re: “ so I know my cable and adapter are OK”

Working once out of many tries would not give me much confidence in that. I’ve had bad experiences with flakiness of those 4th tier Ethernet/USB/Lightning adapters.

Possible, but I don't know what I'd do other than order a dozen more to play the numbers. I don't know of a means to test without special adapters, etc. But it did work consistently when I was flailing around with Bimmercode (before discovering it couldn't do any diagnostics.)
Edit: just realized I was using my laptop with B'code, so the Enet-to-lightning adapter wasn't involved. Hmmm...

For (my) record, thinking back on B'code, what's the requirement for the level of on-ness of the car (or even presence of a fob) to diagnose or code? IIRC with Bimmercode, it was just having the fob in my pocket - no turning anything on at all. When faced with connection failure, that uncertainty adds a bunch of "well, what if I try it while I'm standing on my head"-type variables...to say nothing of wondering how much the process would take my batteries down while futzing endlessly...

 

[808Pants]

Attached. Good luck!

My old Vgate iCar 2 OBD to WiFi adapter always connects when using BimmerLink, BimmerCode, iFlow, and mi3. It's probably not as fast as an OBD to Ethernet cable which I use to connect to my laptop when using ISTA, but I don't have the adapter necessary to connect it to the Lightning port on my aging iPhone 13 mini.

Art - THANKS. I'll go through this out with the car a bit later when I more awake. Mahalo - Dave