MFT version 2.11

[jrmexplorer]

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend MFT version 2.11

i'm disappointed in Ford. They waited so long to deliver this?

I've now had three black screen of death's in two days (the first two occurred when I had the audacity to connect an iPod that hadn't had it's software up to date). I also had to disconnect the battery today.

For the past two days, I've been trying various things to get my Droid X text messaging to work (others have gotten it to work). I even reset my phone to factory (deleting all settings in the process) and tried various paring/unpairing options (e.g. reverse pairing, etc...) and various third party text apps.

I managed to be able to download text messages by manually downloading any new messages (the system doesn't notify me) by pressing the download new button in the messages portion of MFT (and sync says "no new messages" but then pops up the messages) but the message shows up as from "unknown" - which is useless if you don't know who sent the message. Trying to send a message caused my third BSOD - the screen locked up - a windows prompt briefly came up and then the system reset.

Today, when trying to call home on my way to work, voice command refused to recognize contacts that it never had a problem recognizing before - "call home" produced a frustratingly bizarre exchange which resulted in it finally dialing my "#min" number which tells me how many minutes I've used.

I tried unpairing and repairing when I got in to go home from work to fix this, and it took 30 minutes to dowload my phone book (with about 40 contacts with 1-2 numbers each). Normally this takes 10 seconds or less.

Additionally, it took over 30 minutes for the GPS to acquire signal - probably related to the phonebook download.

While this was happening - various graphics abnormalities were observed with text overlaid in places it wasn't supposed to be at.

I pulled the battery and did a factory reset and that has fixed the issue so far. The phonebook synced perfectly and the voice command seems normal and so does the GPS. We will see if that holds.

Granted, It's probably my fault for trying to get a neat feature (and one prominently featured in sync ads) to work (when other's have reported it does with my phone) in the first place - but I should be able to pair/unpair my phone and download all kinds of texts without it going crazy like this.

This software is not good. I developed software professionally for 5 years at a major company and I would be fired for producing software this poor. It makes you wonder if they ever ran a code checker (flexilint or lint for example) on it. I bet the memory leaks found would be staggerring (the behavior I've observed seems consistent with poor memory management).

Oh and the Sirius channel browser still does not work.

I'm sure that it will work just fine as long as I don't try and mess with the text messaging, but seriously - this is a disappointment and I've been a Sync supporter on this site for some time now. I cannot say that these problems would not be in 2.8 as I never tried to push 2.8 this hard - (I only dabbled in text functionality and did not try my wife's video iPod before) but hey - this is supposed to be magic bullett to make everything work right?

Very few things seem to be actually fixed except that now when the system crashes it automatically reboots. I suppose Ford figures this will "make a lot of people happy" because comparatively its better than pulling the battery which many users report having to do regularly (I dont' have these issues but the forum is literally filled with stories of people having to do this). It doesn't make me happy - they need to fix this system.

<end rant>
-J

EDIT: I'm sorry Ford, but the facts are the facts - I love the car, and I love the system when it works, but it needs to be fixed.

[Lucille]

Aside from the text messaging function, were you having problems before you upgraded to 2.11?
I'm trying to decide if/when to make the switch to 2.11. Currently I'm not having any problems with 2.4, and am thinking that I'd probably be crazy to mess with things.

[jrmexplorer]

Originally Posted by Lucille

Aside from the text messaging function, were you having problems before you upgraded to 2.11?
I'm trying to decide if/when to make the switch to 2.11. Currently I'm not having any problems with 2.4, and am thinking that I'd probably be crazy to mess with things.

I had a few minor issues and a few glitches.

[JDJones]

Wow, I know you are a supporter of MFT and Ford, so I understand you must really be frustrated. Having said that, the arguement you describe feels more like frustration.

First, I'm in the camp that this update (2.11) was not a silver bullet, would not solve every issue that has occured, and no one would every have another MFT issue after 2.11. I think Ford took a list of issues and picked the top 10 or so and worked hard to make MFT better and more stable.

I read your statements and summarize by saying 2 things didn't work for you. First you plugged crap into MFT, it crashed and you think MFT should never crash, no matter what crap you plug into it. 2nd, you had a service (text messaging that never worked at least for you) and you messed with MFT enough that it became unstable.

Ford should never had advertised features like text messaging, if it only works on 5-10% of the phones they tested. Having called it a feature, people expect it to work and it doesn't for a vast majority of the smart phones (my blackberry 9700 as an example). Ford should get heat for a service that doesn't work for most people. But if the feature doesn't work with only a bit of configuration, then you must understand the system will become unstable/crash if you keep pushing buttons.

Plugging crap into your MFT and crashing it shouldn't suprise anyone.

[11Limited]

JRM,

I'm in the TC as well. Can I ask what dealer are you going to for service work? PM me if you want. I think I might want to stay away from them.

[jrmexplorer]

Originally Posted by JDJones

Wow, I know you are a supporter of MFT and Ford, so I understand you must really be frustrated. Having said that, the arguement you describe feels more like frustration.

First, I'm in the camp that this update (2.11) was not a silver bullet, would not solve every issue that has occured, and no one would every have another MFT issue after 2.11. I think Ford took a list of issues and picked the top 10 or so and worked hard to make MFT better and more stable.

I read your statements and summarize by saying 2 things didn't work for you. First you plugged crap into MFT, it crashed and you think MFT should never crash, no matter what crap you plug into it. 2nd, you had a service (text messaging that never worked at least for you) and you messed with MFT enough that it became unstable.

Ford should never had advertised features like text messaging, if it only works on 5-10% of the phones they tested. Having called it a feature, people expect it to work and it doesn't for a vast majority of the smart phones (my blackberry 9700 as an example). Ford should get heat for a service that doesn't work for most people. But if the feature doesn't work with only a bit of configuration, then you must understand the system will become unstable/crash if you keep pushing buttons.

Plugging crap into your MFT and crashing it shouldn't suprise anyone.

I dont necessarily disagree with your comments as I was messing around with it somewhat, but that being said, I guess I was expecting a bit more from Ford on this update than what they gave us.

However, as to the text messaging goes, others have reported that it worked for their droid x's - so I was attempting to get it to work on my Explorer. Not unreasonable.

As to the iPod, why should an older software crash the Sync system? I can understand not working with it - (maybe an unsupported device error or something), but crashing it? That suggests to me that input validation is severely lacking in the software. Proper design of software components is to check every message passed from an external source to ensure it is in the proper form and format. If it is out of format, then it is rejected with no harm to the system.

I guess no harm, no foul, as everything seems to be working well this morning after the reboot but I was expecting a bit more stability out of the system than this.

It was a bit late when I posted, so maybe my post was a bit harsher than normal - but I at least wanted to post my experiences so people can decide if they want the upgrade or not.

[wheeling]

What I don't understand is that the X has been out for a year and the MFT is a center piece for marketing, and it is still not working as marketed after so many upgrades?

Someone should get fired on this.

I'm still waiting, and I'm sure not the only one. But time is runing out.

[Joe Dirt]

Given up waiting... We're going to buy a 2-3 year old Ex in a few years if they're worthy.

[w1kedz]

+1 on OP's post. 2.11 runs twice as fast for me, therefor crashes twice as much in the same amount of time. The only advantage I have found to it so far is that it reboots automatically when it crashes rather than requiring fuse/battery disconnect.

It's time for them to say "Live with the problems for 6 months while we rewrite the software form scratch".. Then hire a team of 20 developers to get it done the right way. They really need to evaluate who was in charge of the QA process on this one.

[wheeling]

Originally Posted by w1kedz

+1 on OP's post. 2.11 runs twice as fast for me, therefor crashes twice as much in the same amount of time. The only advantage I have found to it so far is that it reboots automatically when it crashes rather than requiring fuse/battery disconnect.

From the 2.11 release note:
Implemented corrective action to recover automatically from remaining known “black screen” root causes using a module reset timer.

So don't expect it won't go to "black screen" any more. All they did is pull the fuse for you automatically when it goes to the black screen. What a great fix!

[w1kedz]

Originally Posted by wheeling

From the 2.11 release note:
Implemented corrective action to recover automatically from remaining known “black screen” root causes using a module reset timer.

So don't expect it won't go to "black screen" any more. All they did is pull the fuse for you automatically when it goes to the black screen. What a great fix!

Yep.. great example of fixing the symptom and not the root cause. It's really bad programming. Putting bandaids on top of bandaids to make things "appear" to be working correctly is a recipe for disaster, and it seems like Ford is getting in deep with this methodology.

[JStellato]

It's not so much that there are problems, as there is ABSOLUTE SILENCE from Ford. Can you post a message saying what you intend to do about this Ford? Honestly, the only thing that's making this worse is the fact that there is no one talking to the customers, telling them the problems will be fixed.

[gdecamp]

I thought this was suppose to be THE BIG FIX?

Sounds disappointing....getting mine done Thursday.

[calb]

Originally Posted by wheeling

From the 2.11 release note:
Implemented corrective action to recover automatically from remaining known “black screen” root causes using a module reset timer.

So don't expect it won't go to "black screen" any more. All they did is pull the fuse for you automatically when it goes to the black screen. What a great fix!

Actually that is encouraging to me. They are aware of a remaining "known" black screen issue? Question is, why weren't they able to put the fix in? Time to recode and wanting to keep customers as happy as possible in the interim?

I'm was far more concerned that Ford was dealing with unknown problems or problems they couldn't reproduce.

[calb]

One more thought - if it is hardware related they may not have a fix, short of swapping out hardware .. hmmmm.

[Joe Dirt]

Originally Posted by calb

Actually that is encouraging to me. They are aware of a remaining "known" black screen issue? Question is, why weren't they able to put the fix in? Time to recode and wanting to keep customers as happy as possible in the interim?

That's why the silence is deafening...

[janskim]

What was Fords JD. Power ranking (20 something) I feel another drop in the standing with 2.11 not living up to the consumers.

[TennesseeTider]

What can we do ladies and gentlemen? What recourse do we have?

I have been told by Ford customer service that it was normal for the system to crash and reboot. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, FORD!!!!

Is it time to pursue legal action? Again, mine has been to the dealer 6 times, had new hardware and software installed and the problems remain.

You Ford apologists can blame whomever you want, but the owners are not at fault here. The blame here lies squarely on Ford Motor Company and no one else.

[gdecamp]

Originally Posted by TennesseeTider

What can we do ladies and gentlemen? What recourse do we have?

A letter writing campaign if it turns out 2.11 does not meet our needs? Mine gets installed Thursday. I have to say I don't have huge problems but sure would like it to work faster and be more reliable. I will see how it works Thursday...

[TennesseeTider]

Originally Posted by gdecamp

A letter writing campaign if it turns out 2.11 does not meet our needs? Mine gets installed Thursday. I have to say I don't have huge problems but sure would like it to work faster and be more reliable. I will see how it works Thursday...

Funny that you mention a letter writing campaign. I just finished typing a formal letter notifying Ford of a non-conformity with my vehicle in need of repair. The letter will be sent via certified mail and is a formality required by the Tennessee state lemon law.

I am setting the ball in motion. I suggest others who are not happy do the same.

The address I used is:

Ford Motor Company
16800 Executive Plaza Drive
Mail Drop 3NE-B
Dearborn, MI 48126