I think someone said it runs Windows Embedded if true it could explain a lot!

 

I thought that was just a joke.

maybe not lol

 

Maybe we could flash Linux Mint onto it

 

Yes - screen went black. No reboot, no reversing camera to manouevre back out, nothing until the next journey.

 

Personally I’d be taking that to the garage.

 

Two recorded incidents where the many info unit has fallen over on its arse on two different cars.
Not really a problem if you are just listening to the radio, but can be a bummer if you are using the Sat Nav at the time when it goes tits up.
On the first occasion in my car, the screen went black for a short while and then recovered itself.
On the second occasion only five mins later, the screen went completely black again and the radio stopped working.
It was a complete failure / shut down because the unit then rebooted with out even touching anything or restarting the car.
The screen was displaying the MG logo as it rebooted.
That’s not acceptable when you have no ability to adjust anything that is controlled through that main head unit.
Nav / Phone / Hvac etc etc !.
Dealer has said they need the car to run a software check before contacting MG direct.
I have told them I wish to wait a week to log any further incidents and speak to other affected owners first.
The dealer is a 140 mile round trip, and I have already told them it’s not sitting on the car park all day for nothing.
I have been told that the software update for the delayed charging issue was done prior to delivery last week.
I need to get my dumb Rolec unit fitted with a timer switch before I can try it out !.

 

I need to get my dumb Rolec unit fitted with a timer switch before I can try it out !.

Worth plugging the car into the Rolec when it is switched off, coming back an hour later and seeing if turning the Rolec on gives a charge. At least that will prove that all is well before you take the car back for the other issue.

 

Ok, so thats one bug and not serious. Its not like a sudden power failure, that would be serious. Good news is its "just" the head unit, so a bug fix can be investigated and if it turns out there is just odd dodgy unit they can replace them.

Does the HVAC not work when the stereo is off/rebooting? Do the controls do nothing? Or is it just that you can't see what setting you've selected?

 

Ok, so thats one bug and not serious. Its not like a sudden power failure, that would be serious. Good news is its "just" the head unit, so a bug fix can be investigated and if it turns out there is just odd dodgy unit they can replace them.

Does the HVAC not work when the stereo is off/rebooting? Do the controls do nothing? Or is it just that you can't see what setting you've selected?

Hi @Sandy
Sorry I have no idea if shuts down the Hvac controls as well.
It was not down long enough to try it.
Maybe the Hvac controls will still respond, but you have little idea what the hell you are adjusting because you have no display to indicate your request.

 

In 12 months of Zoe ownership I've noticed the head unit reboot once. It was carrying out satnav functions too. It carried on right where it left off but I was somewhere I knew so it wasn't too bad. It was probably a 20-30 second interruption.

Does MG head unit behave differently if you're using bluetooth music rather than radio? Could it be tuned to a DAB station which might switch over to an FM signal all of a sudden? Are traffic announcements or similar likely to be causing a weird interruption?

There's quite a few possibilities of why it would suddenly just fall over.

Does it have an SD card? Is it possible to run it without the SD card in to see whether it behaved differently?

 

The unit was only being used to play a Dab radio station at the time of the failure.
Phone not even connected at any point of the trip either.
It was really strange ?.
Screen suddenly turned black.
But you could just about see a thin coloured line across the very bottom of the screen is was about 2 mm thick.
Just as if the display had been compressed into that very small part of the screen !.
The second time it black screened, the music stopped and it went into full reboot all on its own.

 

Well add my car radio stopping playing as I adjusted my fan speed today! Tried volume up and down , mute and unmute - nothing! Apple CarPlay still worked..

 

Hi ZSEVuser
Did the radio just stop playing music, or did you get the "Black Screen Of Death" at the same time ?.
When did it start working again ?.
Did it fix itself, or did you have to power the car down and then back up in order to get a result ?.
Thanks.

 

Is there any pattern that could be attributed as a cause? For example, were you accelerating or braking, or hit a pothole. I'm thinking if there is a loose connection then vibration or lateral forces could set it off. If you can reproduce the fault then you should get it on video and send it to your dealer who can advise further, rather than do a long drive to take it to them only for them to not be able to recreate the fault and you have to return home without it fixed.

 

I follow your train of though, thanks.
But on reflection, there was nothing i could think of that could have caused this situation to happen ?.
No potholes, not braking, just steady progress.
The weather was terrible, heavy wind and rain.
But it was the same on the day we collected the car and we drove about the same distance.
It's a bit of an odd one alright.
But I am not on my own, two other owners have reported the same thing in the last 24 hours.

 

Duplicate post removed.

Strange that Rolec's "smart" solution apparently used a trickle charge. Perhaps that has been superseded by the MG update?

 

I assume Rolec's "smart" solution is just a work around to charge using an app. I suspect theirs may work just the same if

Thank you @Norfolk Dumpling
I will give it a try !.
No App, will take a note of the SOC before and after the trial !.
The car is currently sitting on the drive with roughly 80 miles of range still on the GOM but we have no trips planned for a couple of days.
I will be extremely happy if it works, because I can then organise getting a mechanical timer installed in my 3 year old Rolec wall box.

I think it should work ok. I think Rolec's solution is just to enable charging using their app. I suspect it would delay the charge if it was switched off at the mains and then had the power restored when needed.

 

I experienced the black screen issue this evening. Car was stationary and I had just unplugged the charger.
Turned car on and main screen was black. Pushing button didn't bring it back to life..
Turned car off and restarted. Everything was then ok.
Will keep an eye on things.
Have another couple of issues.
1. Rattle that starts at the A pillar and works it way round to just in front of driver. More apparent over rough ground and seems to disappear when the car is warm. Beginning to wonder if the windscreen is not bedded in correctly.
2. Noise that sounds like a hand brake pull coming from the brakes. It seems to happen when I'm slowing down and also pulling away. Frustrating thing is that it doesnt happen all the time. Intermittent and first thought was that there was something moving around in the boot, but I've ruled that out and same noise has been noticed front and back.

 

When you powered up the car, did the radio jump into life and produce any sound from a radio channel ?.
Or did it fail to boot and therefore NO music came from the radio and no colour display appeared.
The "Black Screen Of Death" - No audio / No colour display !.
Powering the car back down, then re-powering the car back up - must also give the head unit another fresh chance of booting up once again.
Can I please suggest that you notify your dealer of this problem A.S.A.P. as the only way we will get MG to investigate and provide a fix, is when enough customers are experiencing / complaining about a similar problem and are notifying them !.
It can only be a software issue that requires a patch, or in fact the head units do indeed have an issue in themselves.
I am tending to go for the first option myself.
We now have 4 owners in just over 24 hours who have witnessed some type of a fault / issue on the head units of their cars.
The issue will not go away itself, we can not expect MG to provide a fix to the problem, unless they are aware that there IS a problem in the first place !.
I believe, the head units in UK cars are different from the head units in both the home & Thailand markets etc.
They may not have received the same level of extensive testing in the car as the home market cars did ?.

 

Reported all the minor faults I’ve experienced and the senior technician said he hadn’t come across any of these yet on other models.

Two points he raised

1) Loss of sound may have been due to signal loss. Mentioned that DAB sounds much better but is less reliable than FM and he’s experience similar sound drop outs on various DABs.

2) Mentioned iPhone needs to be unlocked for CarPlay to start up properly. I said I was fairly certain at some point in all my experimenting it was but possible. Would not explain my weird green pixels on the display. He asked if the shielded cable seemed to have helped and I said so far so good.

He took notes on all the issues and ran a diagnostic and confirmed on the latest firmware and that there was no errors on the log showing up.

For my windscreen they just washed it and put something on it. Visually it was very clear though. I’m not convinced that’s going to work but we will see.

 

Had a few issues today.
1. Listening to amazon music via iPhone, and using google maps all going well then music started stuttering , screen 80% went black and nothing would change. After about 40 secs the unit rebooted, MG logo showed and then back to normal. My iPhone had carried on playing the amazon music so missed half my oasis track !
2. A little while later a pickup pulled in front and a few strands of straw flew off onto my car. 20 secs later the central display behind the screen started displaying faults with front collision sensor. Acc went off and some other systems warnings appeared. I pulled over thinking that a bit of straw must be stuck to something but nothing was apparent. Switched off and restarted and was okay for a min then did it again. This time I ignored it and after about 5 mins everything came back on

 

Had a few issues today.
1. Listening to amazon music via iPhone, and using google maps all going well then music started stuttering , screen 80% went black and nothing would change. After about 40 secs the unit rebooted, MG logo showed and then back to normal. My iPhone had carried on playing the amazon music so missed half my oasis track

Will you be reporting the "Black Screen Of Death" to your dealership ?.
The more people who report it, the more chance we have of getting a fix !.
Thanks.

 

Bit of an update :-
Had a couple of hours spare, so went for a drive, just for the hell of it really !.
Usual weather, very high winds and some rain thrown in the mix, nice !.
About 4 miles to the A55 express way in North Wales.
Elevated and very exposed in a lot of areas.
Had about 100 miles of range, had no plan, just jumped and and drove !.
Heater on pretty high today, no misting inside the car for the entire trip.
I turned the heater On / Off to see how it affected the range.
About a 4 - 5 difference with it on.
It was on high, very cold wind !.
I kept a close eye on the info screen, looking for any issues.
Left the A55 at Llandudno and set off for home.
Continues driving, no stopping.
No problem with the head unit or the car this morning !.
Lot of wind noise due to the high wind though.
Yellow weather warning in place at the moment.
Given the conditions and no planning for the trip, it handled the range vs the mileage covered very well !.

 

Should have called in for coffee, i'm in Rhos on Sea ;-)

 

Managed to capture a photo of the graphical glitch occurring. I’ve sent a copy to my dealer. Using CarPlay, parked up at the time.

 

When you go back to the main home screen of the car does it still have the glitch? If not its a carplay (AA) issue. I know blocking AA google maps is a well documented thing.

 

The screen went black with only the "Be aware of your surroundings" warning! Has anyone else had this happen?
This morning following reversing off the driveway, I engaged "D" and the screen went black other than the warning about being aware of my surrounding which is on the screen when Camra is in operation along with the little car icon top left of the screen. Operating the heater controls brought up the graphic as normal but nothing else on the screen so that although the audio was coming through the speakers I had no idea what source was playing. Forget Navigation too as I had disabled the sound prompts. I tried restarting and shutting down the car several times and opening and closing doors, locking doors etc still the same. After leaving the car for 45 minutes in a car par I found everything working as normal!

 

Be aware of your surroundings

Had you been mucking about with the screen while the car was moving before the message came up?

 

@BarryH I think that needs sending back to the dealer!

 

The dealer said to bring it in but if it is a one-off I'll wait until the next time I'll be passing unless it reoccurs!

 

Strange indeed BarryH but I have put a few odd things down to the car's individual personality!

Two days ago I had a blue line appear near the top of the screen. The is only the second time I have had the lines. The line appeared on the track playing screen via an iPhone CarPlay app called NRG (French streaming radio station, free.) I pressed the home button back to the three colour screen then pressed the music button again and the line disappeared. Did not un-plug and replug the cable as last time.

 

I don't know if anyone else has said this: My Zoe sometimes randomly resets the screen. The DAB will randomly go silent. The maps will reboot. Yesterday it told me that I couldn't use the UK and Ireland mapset before rebooting everything and loading the maps just as I was reversing off the drive. Infuriating.

 

I have has about 6 sudden reboots of the head unit myself, since getting the car. No apparent pattern or repeatability to them yet. Have occurred when running AA and just the radio.

 

Worth flagging up to dealer that.

 

It seems then that I'm not alone in getting sudden black screens although these instances on the forum (i.e. @udnylad ) look different to the circumstances my screen blanked as I still had the wording overlay from the reversing camera which makes me think mine just got stuck trying to show the camera image and somewhere else in the system the camera had been powered down because I'd deselected reverse. I've told the dealer but hopefully, it was a one-off as it rectified its self after parking up for 45 minutes.

 

You know the sensation you get when you ask your ageing computer to deal with multiple tasks ?.
It becomes slow to respond, then just falls over and crashes.
That’s what this system reminds me of !.
Just not enough processor power to deal with multiple tasks !.
It feels like it is running on the edge of its capabilities and has nothing in reserve !.

 

Exactly, it seems to be creaking with the load of the tasks.

 

That's the one

 

Thank you Brian !.
I imagine it is popular post, it looks like one side of the post was out of order for a good while.
Zap - Map is reporting that both sides are now up and running !.

 

Have had 2 episodes in nearly 3 months of sudden shutdown: black screen, radio goes off.

On both occasions it rebooted after about 60secs and was fine again.

Happened every couple of months on my B250e.

Doesn't particularly bother me and suspicious would get nowhere with taking to dealers.

If frequency increases or new symptoms develop may consider asking for head unit change.

 

T

Have had 2 episodes in nearly 3 months of sudden shutdown: black screen, radio goes off.

On both occasions it rebooted after about 60secs and was fine again.

Happened every couple of months on my B250e.

Doesn't particularly bother me and suspicious would get nowhere with taking to dealers.

If frequency increases or new symptoms develop may consider asking for head unit change.

Thanks @CasperStorm
Please keep us posted, will do like wise.

 

Same issue, though for us it doesn't reboot, just goes black. Turning the car off and on again is hit and miss, 50% of the time it disconnects the HV battery and leaves you with no power, but still allows selection of gears! Disconcerting when it releases the handbrake and rolls on pressing the accelerator.

But the main worry is a crunching brake application, hard when slowing in cruise control, and randomly when driving at other times. Display software is one thing, but there appears to be some rough-around-the-edges driving software too.

 

crunching brake application

Yes I get that and it seems to only happen when it automatically applies physical brakes under traffic-jam/que shuffling along. It seems like it an anti-knock breaking system being used. I keep meaning to raise it with the dealer. I'm glad you've mentioned it so now I know it's not just me going mad ?

 

The info system crashing is one thing, but there are serious safety control and people safety now at risk here also !.

 

Unsettling, but I haven't felt unsafe. Pressed against my seat belt a few times...

The brake applications at speed feel very gentle (but noisy)