Infotainment System Blackout (Shutdown)

Army Girl · August 24, 2024

On 5/1/2024 at 3:43 PM, GMCustomerService said:

We are sorry to hear that you are having concerns with your 2018 GMC infotainment system and would like to take the opportunity to learn more about this concern. To do so, please send us an email to [email protected]. Be sure to include your Username and Forum name in the subject line with additional details. We look forward to hearing from you.

On Tuesday, August 20, 2024, I took my new 2024 Chevy Silverado LT that I bought July 24, 2024, into the dealership for a Warranty oil change. I was not having any electrical issues of any kind with the truck and was not having any issues with the infotainment system. I waited at the dealership in the waiting area and was readily accessible for any questions or updates. When my truck was ready to be picked up the service technician told me that while they were doing the Warranty oil change, they found a Customer Satisfaction recall for the Serial Data Gateway Module and took care of that also. This was not discussed with me beforehand. Immediately upon leaving the dealership issues became apparent. Braking, clicking and popping noises while driving, pedestrian warning not working, and over the next three days, some of the issues that developed are Auto Shutoff shutting the engine down while slowing to a stop causing the truck to abruptly lurch forward, but with the vehicle not being at a complete stop, then not working after that when at complete stops, charging ports not charging, seat heating not working properly, voice command Google Assistant not working, Sirius XM radio going out, etc. etc. There's more, but those are some of the issues. This has all happened after the reprogramming of that module and so far over the course of the next three days following the reprogramming. I took the truck back on August 21, 2024 with the first few issues that had developed Immediately and was told they were normal and that the reprogramming would not have caused any of them. It was suggested that I just monitor things myself and let them know if i had any other questions or concerns. These issues weren't normal for my truck that I had driven every day with the radio off listening to each and every sound, or lack thereof, that the truck made - or should I say DIDN'T make, for the month before this reprogramming was done. With the additional issues that developed throughout the rest of August 21, 2024 and so far up until August 23, 2024, I do not feel these are normal for the vehicle, I do not feel that these are random coincidences, and I do feel that a vehicle that had no issues prior to the reprogramming has been substantially impacted in a negative way by the reprogramming of the Serial Data Gateway Modual. I do not feel that I can depend on this truck to be safe. I am a Disabled Vetetan and put every penny I had saved into purchasing this truck. Now I feel like I have a spent my savings on a truck that has significant problems caused by this reprogramming and a potential danger to drive.

I need these issues resolved, without further damage being caused to my truck during the process of fixing them. I need these issues fixed permanently!

Thank you for your time in reading this, and any advice that you could give me.

rrmccabe · August 24, 2024

I would not expect the dealer to come out and tell you that they are going to reprogram your vehicle. Its just stuff they do under warranty if it fits inside the time they told you they would have the vehicle.

I would be getting the dealers customer satisfaction manager involved. GM does not want unhappy customers and in my experience the dealer will jump though hoops to make you happy.

That said, I have not had many issues post COVID and I feel with parts and vehicle shortages things have slipped.

I have had a new 2024 LTZ for a few weeks and have found the infotainment system to be quirky and unreliable at times. They did an update about a month ago and it was better but has wigged out about 3 times since.

I don't think its a defective part(s) in my case, but just a design program as I have seen lots of posts where people are having issues.

In your case I am wondering if the damaged something during your oil change. A lot of that stuff does not sound like its related to the update.

Regardless... Customer Service Manager. Find out who it is and contact them.

My dealer has a great one who gets stuff done. I ended up sending her flowers as a thank you for taking care of issues the service department was not resolving.

ember1205 · August 25, 2024

13 hours ago, rrmccabe said:

I would not expect the dealer to come out and tell you that they are going to reprogram your vehicle. Its just stuff they do under warranty if it fits inside the time they told you they would have the vehicle.

I would be getting the dealers customer satisfaction manager involved. GM does not want unhappy customers and in my experience the dealer will jump though hoops to make you happy.

That said, I have not had many issues post COVID and I feel with parts and vehicle shortages things have slipped.

I have had a new 2024 LTZ for a few weeks and have found the infotainment system to be quirky and unreliable at times. They did an update about a month ago and it was better but has wigged out about 3 times since.

I don't think its a defective part(s) in my case, but just a design program as I have seen lots of posts where people are having issues.

In your case I am wondering if the damaged something during your oil change. A lot of that stuff does not sound like its related to the update.

Regardless... Customer Service Manager. Find out who it is and contact them.

My dealer has a great one who gets stuff done. I ended up sending her flowers as a thank you for taking care of issues the service department was not resolving.

Warranty work is paid by GM. In order for the dealer to be paid for performing that work, the customer has to sign a form. I 100% -AM- expected to be notified that they will be performing operations on my vehicle that I did not explicitly request before it makes it onto the repair order.

The Infotainment system in these new trucks is garbage. The communications processes among / between the different control modules is garbage. My truck was fine off of the lot in October '23 and started having issues two weeks later after installing an OTA update. problems got progressively worse until everything went to complete hell in early January. At that point, the dealer had already had my truck a week and found "no problems" with the litany of items I reported. It wasn't until the truck half disabled itself while in use that they magically discovered a software problem in the Communications Gateway Module and re-flashed it. Their claim was that it was corrupt, my believe is that it was yet another example of GM pushing the wrong software to a vehicle during the OTA update process.

Good to know that GM has effectively "given up" on trying to create their own software for the Infotainment system but the fact that they laid off so many software engineers and stripped down a team that already didn't know how to manage software and release cycles is scary.

Army Girl · August 25, 2024

1 hour ago, ember1205 said:

Warranty work is paid by GM. In order for the dealer to be paid for performing that work, the customer has to sign a form. I 100% -AM- expected to be notified that they will be performing operations on my vehicle that I did not explicitly request before it makes it onto the repair order.

The Infotainment system in these new trucks is garbage. The communications processes among / between the different control modules is garbage. My truck was fine off of the lot in October '23 and started having issues two weeks later after installing an OTA update. problems got progressively worse until everything went to complete hell in early January. At that point, the dealer had already had my truck a week and found "no problems" with the litany of items I reported. It wasn't until the truck half disabled itself while in use that they magically discovered a software problem in the Communications Gateway Module and re-flashed it. Their claim was that it was corrupt, my believe is that it was yet another example of GM pushing the wrong software to a vehicle during the OTA update process.

Good to know that GM has effectively "given up" on trying to create their own software for the Infotainment system but the fact that they laid off so many software engineers and stripped down a team that already didn't know how to manage software and release cycles is scary.

Could you describe the problems that began after the OTA update and what happened with the truck half disabling itself? Or at least tell me if any of what I have detailed that is now happening with my truck sounds like what happened with your truck?

I found some information that indicates there was an OTA that was pushed to vehicles without them being taken into the service department and there were problems after that which then required a fix and a trip to the service department for the fix. I don't know if that is correct. If it is, I don't know how to tell which update I have now: the original update that caused the problems or the update to "fix" the original update.

ember1205 · August 25, 2024

1 minute ago, Army Girl said:

Could you describe the problems that began after the OTA update and what happened with the truck half disabling itself? Or at least tell me if any of what I have detailed that is now happening with my truck sounds like what happened with your truck?

I found some information that indicates there was an OTA that was pushed to vehicles without them being taken into the service department and there were problems after that which then required a fix and a trip to the service department for the fix. I don't know if that is correct. If it is, I don't know how to tell which update I have now: the original update that caused the problems or the update to "fix" the original update.

It started with a check engine light. Pulling the codes indicated a "communications error" with the ABS module (made no sense). I cleared that code and continued to watch for it to re-appear.

My passenger side lane detection worked very inconsistently. It would often not detect a semi truck next to me but would commonly 'warn' me about the guardrail in the shoulder.

Radio would cut out right after starting, wasn't loading the driver profile I created.

Touch screen on Infotainment is 99% non-responsive unless you are completely stationary and can exactly touch specific spots on the screen (kind of pointless in a vehicle that requires you to do so much through the touch screen and is meant to be in motion).

Wireless charging was erratic (still is - I've given up hope on this EVER working correctly).

Took it to the dealer to address these issues a laundry list of cosmetic problems that were a fight to get fixed. They had it a week and fixed NOTHING. On the way home from the dealership after picking it up, the check engine light came on, I got warnings for "Service Stabilitrack", "Service Steering Column Lock" (which my truck doesn't have - first clue that GM borked it), "Reduced Power" (limp mode), and all kinds of other things. My code reader had a laundry list of codes about all kinds of faults, misfires, and communications issues, and the truck was running like complete crap because of the limp mode. I was able to finally get the truck restarted WITHOUT being in limp mode and drove it directly back to the dealership and told them I didn't want to hear from them until it was fixed and verified as being fixed.

I needed a case with Chevy to get them to do an actual work on the truck and all that they claimed they did was to re-flash the communications module stating that it was "partially corrupt" (which is a lie).

Army Girl · August 25, 2024

3 hours ago, ember1205 said:

It started with a check engine light. Pulling the codes indicated a "communications error" with the ABS module (made no sense). I cleared that code and continued to watch for it to re-appear.

My passenger side lane detection worked very inconsistently. It would often not detect a semi truck next to me but would commonly 'warn' me about the guardrail in the shoulder.

Radio would cut out right after starting, wasn't loading the driver profile I created.

Touch screen on Infotainment is 99% non-responsive unless you are completely stationary and can exactly touch specific spots on the screen (kind of pointless in a vehicle that requires you to do so much through the touch screen and is meant to be in motion).

Wireless charging was erratic (still is - I've given up hope on this EVER working correctly).

Took it to the dealer to address these issues a laundry list of cosmetic problems that were a fight to get fixed. They had it a week and fixed NOTHING. On the way home from the dealership after picking it up, the check engine light came on, I got warnings for "Service Stabilitrack", "Service Steering Column Lock" (which my truck doesn't have - first clue that GM borked it), "Reduced Power" (limp mode), and all kinds of other things. My code reader had a laundry list of codes about all kinds of faults, misfires, and communications issues, and the truck was running like complete crap because of the limp mode. I was able to finally get the truck restarted WITHOUT being in limp mode and drove it directly back to the dealership and told them I didn't want to hear from them until it was fixed and verified as being fixed.

I needed a case with Chevy to get them to do an actual work on the truck and all that they claimed they did was to re-flash the communications module stating that it was "partially corrupt" (which is a lie).

Aside from the wireless charging, did the re-flash of the communications module resolve the other issues?

Army Girl · August 25, 2024

58 minutes ago, ScathaTheWorm said:

The new Tundra also has infotainment problems...

Before anyone says Toyota is better...they are NOT.

It was just yesterday that a mechanic told me I should have bought a Toyota. I guess the quality of vehicles is down across the board.

ember1205 · August 25, 2024

5 hours ago, Army Girl said:

Aside from the wireless charging, did the re-flash of the communications module resolve the other issues?

The passenger side detection system is definitely better, no more warnings about ABS issues, no limp mode, etc. The infotainment screen's "accuracy" requirement is still way too fine for a vehicle in motion (but it does seem a bit better) and the wireless will never work right because of stupid programming stuff on GM's part.

Here's the part that would concern me.. Mine was fixed in January. Yours just started having this issue. Either the dealership borked something with the programming (it's entirely possible they allowed the OTA update instead of manually programming it) or the latest software is broken in some other way.

Army Girl · August 26, 2024

4 hours ago, ember1205 said:

The passenger side detection system is definitely better, no more warnings about ABS issues, no limp mode, etc. The infotainment screen's "accuracy" requirement is still way too fine for a vehicle in motion (but it does seem a bit better) and the wireless will never work right because of stupid programming stuff on GM's part.

Here's the part that would concern me.. Mine was fixed in January. Yours just started having this issue. Either the dealership borked something with the programming (it's entirely possible they allowed the OTA update instead of manually programming it) or the latest software is broken in some other way.

I'm thinking the same thing about the OTA vs. manually programming it, or the latest software is also broken. These vehicles cost too much money to be having issues like this. Thanks for your feedback.

Worty52 · September 20, 2024

My 2022 Silverado LTZ has been doing this for about 5 months. Dealership charged me over $300 to update the software and it is still doing it three days later. I have over 50,000 miles so they say no warranty work.

Since 2014 I’ve bought four new Silverado LTZs. If they can’t repair this, I will not get another Silverado. I’ll probably go to Ford and not because I want to.

GM should shove these costs back to whomever sold them this system.

ember1205 · September 20, 2024

18 minutes ago, Worty52 said:

My 2022 Silverado LTZ has been doing this for about 5 months. Dealership charged me over $300 to update the software and it is still doing it three days later. I have over 50,000 miles so they say no warranty work.

Since 2014 I’ve bought four new Silverado LTZs. If they can’t repair this, I will not get another Silverado. I’ll probably go to Ford and not because I want to.

GM should shove these costs back to whomever sold them this system.

Different brand, different problems. They ALL have issues.

The problem is their software design - they suck at development.

BBell · December 20, 2024

I have the same issue on my 2021 GMC Sierra Denali. my screen now at start up shows a cadillac logo then goes dark. Onstar doesnt work; radio, bluetooth & wifi dont work. back up camera works so i know the screen works. I have had multiple issues with my truck over the years. lots of warnings about sensors and other crap. still have a 2007 denali and that screen works fine. time to stop buying GMC i guess... Has anyone had any luck getting this issue figured out?

ember1205 · December 20, 2024

1 hour ago, BBell said:

I have the same issue on my 2021 GMC Sierra Denali. my screen now at start up shows a cadillac logo then goes dark. Onstar doesnt work; radio, bluetooth & wifi dont work. back up camera works so i know the screen works. I have had multiple issues with my truck over the years. lots of warnings about sensors and other crap. still have a 2007 denali and that screen works fine. time to stop buying GMC i guess... Has anyone had any luck getting this issue figured out?

Sounds like you got a bad over-the-air software update. There would be no other reason for the system to have changed to showing a Caddy logo unless something was borked by them pushing the WRONG software to your truck. This happened to me a year ago with a brand new Chevy and it took me months to get the problem fully corrected. I have since turned off the OTA update option and will never turn it back on because GM doesn't know what the hell they're doing.