Serious problem with new BMW ConnectedDrive Website (USA)

[gps1539]

+1 for bimmercode

Very fast way to check how charged the car is and provides lots of other useful info. I'm also looking at the code to see if it is simple enough for me to contribute and enhance it.

I also echo others feelings here. While I bought my i3 used (car is great so far), BMW have done nothing but piss me off as an owner. Probably my 1st and last bimmer.

 

[robthebold]

I've been doing some more testing, and it looks like the BMW servers are not responding in a reasonable amount of time when using functions that actually contact the car in real time. Namely lock and unlock doors, climatize, flash lights and sound horn. Other status info is periodically gathered from the vehicle by the servers and a cached value is returned to the client.

Things like querying fuel or battery level, or lid states is just a call to the server and doesn't require the extra step of contacting the car over the cellular network. These queries don't seem to give me any problems.

But back to the remote services: I changed the bimmerconnected library remote_services.py module to increase the remote timeout to 300 sec (5 minutes). Even giving it that unreasonably long timeout delay I didn't get a response from the server. The services worked, however. Horn honked, lights flashed, locks locked and climatize . . . climatized. So it seems that the BMW servers aren't returning confirmation that these remote services worked. I doubt it's a cell network problem, since the non real-time functions still work. Perhaps they've just changed the protocol out from under us. Would this cause the BMW app to misbehave when climatizing? From what I've read above, it just doesn't work, right? Not that it cools the car even though it says it didn't. Am I reading that correctly? (I don't have a phone that supports the app).

Anyway, I've made some fixes and improvements in the underlying library and my script that I'll upload and share "soon".


Edit: updated motorlaunch.py on github to add function to download rendered images of your vehicle. Rearbirdseye doesn't work for me for my '17 i3 + Rex. (library throws error) If you see different results with your car (like success!) let me know . . . Also front and frontside views are the same, as are rear and rearside. I would've expected one to be head on and one from an angle, but that's not how it worked for me. Files will show up in your .motorlaunch directory with the other config file.

Also, if you have a sunroof, there is a bug in the bimmer_connected library that throws errors when getting status while sunroof is tilted open. To fix this, go to the directory with m1n3rva's bimmer_connected files and edit state.py. Look for:

class LidState(Enum):

At the end of the list add:

    OPEN_TILT = 'OPEN_TILT'

. . . ensuring that the indent matches the line above

 

[Jgehrls]

Well, I’ve been having the same issues with Connected drive and my i3. All features worked except the climatize option. Weird thing was, I could climatize using my Alexa linking connected drive to the service.

Well, today, everything started working!! I don’t see where anything got updated—BUT I can finally climatize again!!

 

[stumbledotcom]

Yes, the Climatize option worked three times for me today after continuous fails for two plus months. Hopefully the fix will prove permanent.

 

[spinball]

I can also confirm that the Climatize Now in Connected Drive app started working consistently again with my 2017 i3.

BMW has to do better than a 3 month outage with zero communication. That's really pathetic. Even non "premium" brands do better than that.

 

[EVMan]

Can some one please provide me the url for connected drive, where i can actually see the car range and kapa ect

https://connecteddrive.bmwusa.com/app/index.html#/portal/dashboard

The url i had does not show me any services but goes into the loop of - insists that you buy the service and you already have the service
I cannot see anything useful data of the car , which is the purpose of buying the service

 

[alohart]

Can some one please provide me the url for connected drive, where i can actually see the car range and kapa ect

The recent redesign of the ConnectedDrive Website has eliminated all useful information about one's i3. Maybe it will return in the next redesign, but that could be years in the future.

 

[nickp]

Let me put it mildly. The Connected drive is POS software app that appears to be written by someone or some people as a beginners project. And, my apologies to beginners.
BMW as a car company should be ashamed to put their name on something like this. When you call yourself a f*&^&*g luxury brand you have no business putting this **** on peoples cars and phones. PATHETIC!
Also, while I do have Bimmercode and the BT adapter, one DOES NOT need to BUY an outside app to just see what's going on with the car in a friendly easy to use software. I can understand that adding Hold SOC etc will not be possible with the BMW app and I have the Bimmercode for that.

I wonder how they can get away by keeping that software team employed and not implementing something new.

 

[alohart]

Connected drive is POS software app that appears to be written by someone or some people as a beginners project.

Just to be clear, this thread is about BMW's U.S. ConnectedDrive Website, not the BMW Connected smartphone app. Two completely different things.

 

[nickp]

Connected drive is POS software app that appears to be written by someone or some people as a beginners project.

Just to be clear, this thread is about BMW's U.S. ConnectedDrive Website, not the BMW Connected smartphone app. Two completely different things.

Yes and they are both garbage POS apps. I am in the good ol US of A!

 

[mkeaton1967]

Hello—

I have had the same problem for about a year. The ConnectedDrive App will still show me the correct location of my car, whether it’s locked, state of charge, etc. However, for the last year or so I have been unable to send any commands to my car.

I’ve tried using different phones to install the app including trying the app on both an Android and an Apple phone.

I have contacted the dealer twice, they send me to the toll-free number for BMW ConnectedDrive.

I have 4 times contacted BMW ConnectedDrive, they torture me through a series of troubleshooting attempts and then promise me that they will escalate it to a senior technician. I never hear from them again.

I would appreciate it if anyone has found a way to solve this. I also see that several users have discovered a workaround where they reprogram the “panic” function on the remote as a “precondition” command to the car. If anyone has those specific instructions I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks. And, I wish anyone reading this a Very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a season full of Happiness.

 

[Fisher99]

Can you post the number that you called at BMW for ConnectedDrive? Even if it didn't ultimately provide a solution for you, I've been looking for any way to contact BMW and register my displeasure with the ConnectedDrive service.

As for programming the panic button to "climatize" the car, it's fairly simple. You need an OBD2 dongle and a programming app. I use the Vgate dongle and the BimmerCode app (available for Android and IOS). One of the options in BimmerCode is assigning functions to each of the buttons on the the remote. Easy, peasy.

 

[vreihen]

Can you post the number that you called at BMW for ConnectedDrive? Even if it didn't ultimately provide a solution for you, I've been looking for any way to contact BMW and register my displeasure with the ConnectedDrive service.

Operators are standing by, 24/7/365: :twisted:

https://connecteddrive.bmwusa.com/app/index.html#/portal/contact

 

[Fisher99]

Excellent! Thanks! I'm sure that once I call, all of my problems with ConnectedDrive will quickly and magically be gone!

 

[vreihen]

Excellent! Thanks! I'm sure that once I call, all of my problems with ConnectedDrive will quickly and magically be gone!

More like you'll be talking to some minimum-wage-earning support operator working from a corporate troubleshooting script, who probably hears 15-20 complaints per day about how useless the service is...... :roll:

 

[jadnashuanh]

FWIW, lately, things have been working on mine. Every once in awhile, and it may last a week or longer, it always times out, and fails.

Way back when, at the first six months of ownership, things would get in a loop and fail on occasion. Then, I found that pulling the fuse for the cellular connection for a bit, then reinserting it would cause a reboot. That failure mode seems to have been fixed years ago on one of the firmware updates.

 

[mkeaton1967]

FWIW, lately, things have been working on mine. Every once in awhile, and it may last a week or longer, it always times out, and fails.

Way back when, at the first six months of ownership, things would get in a loop and fail on occasion. Then, I found that pulling the fuse for the cellular connection for a bit, then reinserting it would cause a reboot. That failure mode seems to have been fixed years ago on one of the firmware updates.

I would like to try this trick, but I can’t tell from the fuse guide which one is cellular. Does anyone know the fuse number for cellular?

Thanks

 

[jfran2]

Yes, it's fuse number 115 located in the fuse panel under the glove box. Worked like a charm for me!

 

[mkeaton1967]

Thank you jfran2 for the hugely helpful suggestion. I just successfully sent a command to my car for the first time in nearly a year.

To anyone else reading this, pull out fuse 115, wait a minute, put it back in, wait another minute or two. It really worked.

 

[Fisher99]

Mine has been functioning perfectly again for the last couple of weeks. I was attributing it to the fact that the dealer just replaced the Body Control Module, but more likely it is just that when they did so, they reset the system, including the GSM/Cellular module. The equivalent of pulling that fuse. I'll definitely keep this trick in mind if (more likely when) the app starts failing again.