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MFT 3.5.1 bugs

26K views 130 replies 50 participants last post by  dervari 
#1 ·
I thought I could start a thread specific for MFT 3.5.1 so anyone could report any bugs or glitches they find. Then ford could use the information to improve MFT on the next update.

Please try to keep it clean and no ranting or raving (you catch more flies with honey than vinegar) and keep it 3.5.1. specific, if you want to get 351 there is another thread for that.


I'll start, dealer installed 3.5.1 on 11-20-12 and so far all is well.
 
#2 ·
I installed this update myself (via the PDF) and I can safely say my concerns have been all fixed now!

Climate was "broken" from the previous update (3.2.2 I believe) and has come back to life now and work perfect.

All bluetooth calling was very messed up previously, with any version. After I installed this one I can perfectly hear and speak via the car now and it makes me happy.

I have yet to find any problems now with the MFT not working and I hope it stays that way! Just thought I would post something positive because I know the MFT gets a bad rap most of the time :)

Good luck with this new version!
 
#4 ·
MFT wants to start at the first track on my usb no matter what I was previously listening to.
Mine did this for a week or so after my involuntary "upgrade" to 3.0.2 last spring. I tried everything I could imagine to resolve it (master resets, fuse pulls, etc.) with no success, then one day it spontaneously rebooted itself for no apparent reason and the problem went away.
 
#6 ·
Was getting some weird results today on my long drives trying to play songs by voice. Figured since I had some driving time I would initiate a reindex. iPod w/about 6200 tracks, exact same song setup I had pre-3.5.1. Indexing took 1 hour and 15 minutes. Building voice commands took 1 hour 20 minutes. over 2 1/2 hours all in. Used to take about 25 minutes all in (20 minutes indexing, 5 minutes building voice commands). I think I had a similar issue post-3.0.2 and I had to restore and reload the iPod. Gonna try that tomorrow and see. Hope it is not 2 1/2 hours always because I have to do so many reboots just to get Sirius traffic/travel link back that I don't want to have to log 2 1/2 hours of driving time before I can use voice commands for music again each time.

Sirius traffic/travel link-MFT integration still seems messed up and unreliable.

That is all I have noticed so far. The other bug fixes, voice command fixes, and things like BT call quality fix have been terrific though.



No it is dealer-only right now. If you don't have Nav there is a link in the pdf up in the first post of the thread in the TSB section related to this update. You can get it from there and install it yourself. If you have nav you have to go to the dealer because you need a new nav card (A4). Totally worth it though IMO. Lots of fixes in this one!
 
#7 ·
I thought I could start a thread specific for MFT 3.5.1 so anyone could report any bugs or glitches they find. Then ford could use the information to improve MFT on the next update.
Please try to keep it clean and no ranting or raving (you catch more flies with honey than vinegar) and keep it 3.5.1. specific, if you want to get 351 there is another thread for that.

I'll start, dealer installed 3.5.1 on 11-20-12 and so far all is well.
Glad to hear all is well, I Bleed Ford Blue! I'll definitely be checking this thread periodically.

Is this update on the Syncmyride site?
Hi, SaToX -

Due to the need for vehicles that have the navigation option to receive a new SD card, the software is currently only available through the dealership. In the meantime, we do not recommend installing the software from any source except for a certified Ford or Lincoln dealer.

Jaclyn
 
#8 ·
Hi, SaToX -

Due to the need for vehicles that have the navigation option to receive a new SD card, the software is currently only available through the dealership. In the meantime, we do not recommend installing the software from any source except for a certified Ford or Lincoln dealer.

Jaclyn
Hi Jaclyn, just to let you know I was at my dealer this past Monday to have this done and they told me it didn't apply to my vehicle and that they couldn't figure out what was broken with MFT 3.2.2 when I described the climate control issues I was having.

I decided to do the update myself and went to the dealer this morning to get the new V4 card. They at that point told me, they would like to do the update...... I said too late you had your chance on Monday, I already did it, now all I need is the card for my Nav. Needless to say I got the nav card.

This is nothing against my service adviser, as he has been fairly good so far, but he becomes the face for the techs that apparently cant look up a TSB, or figure out the clearly broken MFT.


END OF RANT. [rolleyes]
 
#12 ·
Ok, looks like I am the only one having issues with the new software. I had 3.2.2 installed when I purchased the vehicle just over a month ago. I never had any issues, the voice command always understood me and I could never understand why there were so many threads about the software. Anyways, I installed the 3.5.1 software last week and I regret it every day. So far what I have noticed:

Voice recognition is down to about 50% accurate (from about 98% with 3.2.2)

Reverse camera overlays (fixed and active lines) randomly change settings. I have it set to have both active and fixed. Sometimes it switches them both off, sometimes it just switches the active off. I have to go into the settings and turn them back on almost every day now which is really annoying.

I also noticed that the phonebook download takes forever.

If I remember any of the other bugs I have noticed I will post them.
 
#15 ·
Had my first crash/reboot yesterday. Fired up the car, let everything load, and before I even made it out of the driveway the screen went black and launched "scheduled maintenance".

Had this one happen twice to me so far (first time I hoped it was a one-off so I didn't think much of it but it happened again a little while ago). Told it to play a song. Brought up a list of four lines for me to choose from. The first line was just the song title, not followed by a band name. The next three lines were the same song title but each one was followed by a band name. Thing is, though, none of those bands have a song by that title.

Just went out to run acouple of errands and I noticed no breadcrumbs were being laid down on my map. I had them previously set to on. I checked and they were still set to on in the menu. Turned them off and immediately back on again and when I checked the map it was putting them down again.

Ah, let the quirky MFT behavior commence (still 1,000 times better than it was w/3.0.2 for me though).
 
#16 ·
911 assist reminder still pops up even though the settings are set to off. This also happened with 3.0.2. So I finally caved and set it to on in order to get the reminder to go away.

Also, source switched from USB to SD card after hanging up a phone call.
 
#17 ·
Had another quirk happen today, would not recognize the wifes phone (samsung galaxy S3 i747 on att) had to stop the car, shut it off, open door, then close door and restart car to get it to recognize phone.

Even tho 3.02 was buggy and 2.xx was really bad, they never failed to recognize the phone.
 
#19 ·
Thought I would share my experience with the MFT 3.5.1 update. Before I was on 3.0.2, and had a world of problems. Laggy, bluetooth connections constantly messing up, settings dropping, continuous resets, just a whole world of hurt.

So, a little over a week ago I went to my dealer to get an oil change and have them do all the updates. Took a few hours for everything to get completed, but afterwards, following the update and a master reset I was starting fresh on 3.5.1. To this point, I have no run into a single problem, knock on wood. Here are a few of the big things I have noticed that seem to be fixed. For reference, I am using a HTC Incredible 2 phone running Android 4.1.

Media Player:
1) Bluetooth connections and audio connect much faster and are more reliable. After numerous short trips of hopping in and out of the car, the system never seemed to get messed up. Previously on 3.0.2, the entire MFT would basically give up by the 3rd restart in a short time and I sometimes had to just delete the phone and re-add it after rebooting the MFT system.

2) When selecting bluetooth audio now, if the device hasn't been detected it will detect and start playing. Previously, you had to click to detect, then return to the homescreen and then select bluetooth because the option got stuck highlighted. This is now fixed.

3) Also both the FM radio and Sirius seem to search almost 2-3x as fast which is a welcome relief from the mountains of lag before.

Phone:
1) Phone call audio, dialing and phone book seems to be fixed. My phonebook now doesn't auto-delete every 5 minutes like it did in 3.0.2.

2) Audio call quality is miles better. People didn't even realize I was on the phone. One person even said "Oh wow, I thought you were talking into the phone, because your car audio was terrible before but I just didn't want to say anything." Also calls seem to reliably connect and answer more quickly now.

Climate Control:
1) All the climate control stuff seems to be working perfectly normal.

Navigation:
1) New navigation is much faster and smoother than before.

2) I was having tons of reboots when navigation was used for an extended period of time before. Now the system seems to be very stable.

3) On the home screen the navigation displays the current street you are on regularly. Before, in 3.0.2, this was really hit and miss if it ever worked. It seems to be fixed now.

4) Entering and finding locations, especially when using the on-screen keyboard is MUCH better. It is now fast and smooth. I've also noticed the layouts seem to be better in the menus.

5) All of the new menus, and the new navigation layout are really nice and work well. The settings are much more convenient and easy to use now. Also zooming and panning is faster than before. Panning is still a little slow but, all in all, it is a lot better.

6) Lastly, the maps load much faster now. There is still a slight delay as they are read, but they appear correctly much quicker.

Overall Interface Changes:
1) The clock and a few settings, along with outside air temperature are working.

2) The messups on the homescreen seem to be pretty much fixed from what I can see.

3) The animations all seem to be either significantly shortened, or largely removed. This makes the whole interface much more snappy and less frustrating.

Other Possible Changes I noticed:
Not sure if this was part of 3.5.1 but I noticed that the dash-display, the area directly in front of the wheel now responds much faster than before. A lot of the animations here seem to be sped up and shortened. So overall everything feels much smoother.

Conclusion
After playing with the update for a week (and really trying to screw it up) the system is still moving along strong. I haven't run in to any reboots, and bluetooth and everything are still without problems. I was a little hesitant to get the update, but I have to say that the difference is night and day between 3.0.2 and 3.5.1. I am finally not pissed at my MFT system when I wake up every morning. There are probably some changes that I missed, since I don't use everything, but this is an update you don't want to wait or pass on. I'd try to swing by your dealer as soon as you can. Now that my transmission ironed out, and the MFT update fixed most of the system, I have to say that for the first time since buying the car this summer I am really 100% pleased (or at least 99%) with my purchase of this vehicle. Really starting to love this car now!!!
 
#30 ·
4) Entering and finding locations, especially when using the on-screen keyboard is MUCH better. It is now fast and smooth. I've also noticed the layouts seem to be better in the menus.
Does it load up the list of choices faster when using voice to enter a destination?

In mine, it'll ask you to select from something on-screen and then either a) not pop it up for 45 seconds, resulting in the Sync Lady progressively asking you to select an option you can't see and eventually timing out or b) displaying the list, but hiding it behind the keyboard that shouldn't still be on-screen.

Also, do you know if the estimated times are fixed when selecting a routing option? I think 3.2.2 broke that. It shows mileage for Fast/Econo/Short but no times.


Those of us that originally had 2.XX used to have a song progress bar.
Honest to god, I don't understand how this hasn't returned yet with all the updates we've had over the past year.
 
#20 ·
1) All of the Sirius information services I pay extra $$$ for stop working randomly. I was driving out of NYC when the MFT said I didn't subscribe to any of the extra services. This probably cost me another 1/2 hour in my trip home as I was stuck in heavy traffic. I was counting on the Nav to use the Sirius traffic service to avoid it. After getting out of traffic and stopping at a rest stop and shutting the car off the services came back.
2) I used a way-point for the navigation trip home and the MFT would not update the ETA or distance remaining during the way-point leg.
3) When I turn on the car or cycle power on the entertainment section of the MFT I will get a random source of music upon restart.
4) The navigation seems to stutter, and will change the view from 3D to 2D on its own.
5) MFT is still too sensitive to changing ambient light. I drive lots of back roads and while transitioning from light to shade, or while driving during dawn/dusk, the light level of the MFT can change every 10 seconds, very distracting.
 
#21 ·
1) All of the Sirius information services I pay extra $$$ for stop working randomly.
Yeah, I was really hoping this was going to be fixed, especially as I just renewed for two years traffic/travel link, but seems so far it is not. I don't get the "unsubscribed" thing so much as I get the fact that the information just stops integrating with the map all of the sudden (but I still show as "subscribed"). In my scenario a power cycle doesn't bring it back. I have to run a delayed reboot to get it back (and I no longer have music voice commands because I have to wait for my iPod to index/build voice commands again after every reboot). The remaining services (weather, sports, fuel prices, etc.) also seem to take a really, really, really long time to load now. I wish there was some sort of manual "refresh" or "re-sync" screen button that would cause it to re-process/re-integrate the signal.

4) The navigation seems to stutter, and will change the view from 3D to 2D on its own.
I haven't had this but mine does change zoom level randomly after certain events, primarily switching light/dark mode or checking the weather map and returning to the nav map. Upon light/dark redraw or return from weather map it is usually zoomed out one increment further than it was before doing so (even though the legend still lists the same scale on the map as it was prior e.g., 0.5 mi)

5) MFT is still too sensitive to changing ambient light. I drive lots of back roads and while transitioning from light to shade, or while driving during dawn/dusk, the light level of the MFT can change every 10 seconds, very distracting.
No doubt. I swear sometimes I'm going to have seizure when I drive down a tree-lined road and enter into shadows and out of shadows across the road frequently. Usually I am out the shadows before it even finishes redrawing the dark screen so as soon as it gets done redrawing, it realizes it is lighter out and it immediately blanks and starts redrawing the light screen (and, after the first transition, my zoom has been changed).


All of these didn't happen to me w/2.11 and just started after 3.0.2 so I was really hoping they were going to be addressed w/3.5.1 but apparently they were not.
 
#22 ·
3.5.1 added a few nice features but ended up breaking others. I came from 3.0.2 loaded from the factory on a 2013.

1. BLUETOOTH AUDIO. 3.5.1 added an elapse timer shown on the Bluetooth audio screen. This timer is constantly out of sync with the actual elapse timer on my phone (using Spotify). For example, if I select a song from Spotify on my phone and start it from the beginning, the elapse timer will correctly show 0:00 and start counting up. But when I switch the track using the car screen or steering wheel controls, the elapse timer on the next song will start at an arbitrary number like 1:31 and start counting from there. Then once it reaches some other arbitrary number, IT WILL SKIP TO THE NEXT SONG ON ITS OWN. This is extremely annoying and obviously broken.

I did several master resets and delayed reboots and finally, the elapse timer stopped working (it would just stay at 0:00 while songs played). When this happened, the auto-advancing track issue disappeared. Yesterday however, as I got into the car, the screen had a "Performing Maintenance" message and guess what? The car "fixed" itself and the elapse timer is working again and of course auto-track advance problem is back.

2. NAVIGATION. When I "broke" the elapse timer above, POI icons on the map were not toggling on and off as imputed. For example, I was driving along and decided to go into my maps and noticed that gas station POI icons were showing... I go into the settings to toggle it off but they would not leave the screen. This issue fixed itself when the car did its own maintenance yesterday.

So I must choose between breaking the elapse timer (fixing the auto-track advancing issue) and having POI icons broken, or having the the icons working but having songs skip to the next track on their own... [?|]

I've only had this car for 3 months and it's my first Ford, but this is a joke... a cruel joke. [thumbd]
 
#23 ·
BLUETOOTH AUDIO. 3.5.1 added an elapse timer shown on the Bluetooth audio screen........the elapse timer will correctly show 0:00 and start counting up.
Gotta admit I laughed my a$$ off when I noticed they added this to BT in 3.5.1. You got your car w/3.0.2 and have always had a count-up timer for your USB music source. Those of us that originally had 2.XX used to have a song progress bar. You knew not only how long the song had been playing but also how long that was relative to the entire track length. A count-up only timer is useless, it provides no valuable information (unless one wants to memorize the track lengths of their entire collection). A count-down timer would make more sense as you would know when it reached 0:00 the track would be over. Another approach would be the count-up timer and total track length, for example start at 0:00/4:54 and have the first part count up.

When I first noticed the song progress bar had been removed and replaced with the count-up timer in 3.0.2 to me it screamed "We put no thought into this design." It seemed no one on the design team (if they even had a team) questioned/analyzed anything. "Why are we putting this particular feature here?", "Does this feature provide the user with any valuable information?", "Is there a use for this?" Had anyone questioned this I would like to hope that they would have come to the conclusion that no, it does not serve a purpose. Seems more of a case of "We are just putting this here for the sake of putting it here." That is why I got a chuckle when they took the same senseless approach and transferred it ti the BT audio source as well.
 
#26 ·
I've had the 3.5.1 update for a week. Here's my observations:

Phone

Call quality is better

Messaging still doesn't work with my Atrix 4G

Entertainment

If I turn off the car with BT Audio on and then turn it back on, radio starts playing for 10 secs or so before BT reconnects

Navigation

Address voice recognition is slower but more accurate

The "View" button gets moved next to "map mode". All the buttons including "zoom in" and "zoom out" are bigger. This is somewhat annoying because they take too much space, especially in the turn list view.

Route preference can be defaulted to "Fastest Route". So you don't have to hit "Start Route" every time.

Navigation is more stable and seems to be able to restart without locking up the whole system. I used to have a lot of reboots when using Nav. Now it just goes back to the main MFT screen, shows "Navigation Loading" and comes back online in about 20 secs.

MFT still crashes when using Nav and playing mp3 from a USB drive at the same time. It doesn't crash when playing BT audio. I guess it's due to the high system load since playing mp3 requires MFT to decode the mp3 files rather than the phone doing the work.

Lane guidance is added to some freeway exits but not to local streets.

Climate

My Climate worked fine on 3.2.2. The new problem I'm having is the fan setting doesn't "remember". Every time I turn the Climate on, it defaults to "Auto"
 
#27 ·
Very strange problem. Spoke with a nice chap at ford help desk but to no avail. I just got the car back from the dealer with the new update due to my phone periodically losing its text ability with 3.0.2. Used to need to odd fuse pull.

Now it's doing something the MFT team has never heard of. The phone is an HTC One S, and it is a supported phone. Heres what its doing:

Text comes in. It's displayed on MFT. I press listen or view depending on if I'm moving or not. I can here the message and/or see the message. I then press reply and select one of the pre-written responses. The "sending message" box appears, followed by "send message failed". Problem is, the message Does actually get sent, every time. I look at my phone and there it is. Top it off, that very message also appears back on MFT.

Next problem. I press the steering wheel paddle and say "listen to message" only to be greeted by "this device does not support texting" When in fact it does support it, and is supporting it.

I've done multiple re-connects and even did the hard reset and it still won't work right. It also pairs differently. Before it worked like this:

I'd begin the pairing procedure and MFT would display the 6 digit pin I'm supposed to enter in my phone. It still does this...........but, on top of that another window pops up with a completely different 6 digit code asking me if I see that same number on my phone, which I do. I then press pair and it connects.

Hope that's not all confusing.
 
#29 ·
This morning I experienced some freezing issue.
I was on the nav map while playing a song from my iPod. The music abruptly stopped and everything froze on the screen and system.
I thought oh no.. but about 3-5 mins later everything suddenly sprung back and worked fine again
Though with a bit of lag of it catching up to all the button mashing I did
 
#33 ·
Overall it is working much better than previous versions but the same thing has happened to me twice. I was listening to Bluetooth Audio on my iPhone 5 and stopped at a store. When I got back in and started the car back up, the entertainment section could not connect to Bluetooth Audio and the lines on my Backup camera (straight and based on how the wheel is turned) disappeared. I had to go into settings and turn the lines back on. Also after this happens, when I switch to my USB thumb drive, it restarts at the first song instead of at the song / album I was last listening to.

But at least when this does happen it will connect back up to Bluetooth Audio in a minute or two. With 3.0.2, the Bluetooth Audio connection was toast until it decided to reconnect, which took a while.
 
#34 ·
Well just had the 3.5.1 updated installed. Now note, I still had v2 in my car. So this was a major upgrade.

So far pretty good. So much faster than the previous version I had. But there is one bug (so far) that is driving me nuts!!

All my music is on a SD Card. I cannot get it play genre "blues" via voice command! When I try it plays "rock". It works fine if I say "jazz" or "classical" and "rock". But will not do blues for some reason. If I do it manually via the touch screen I can get it to play blues. I did a couple of master resets and forced the SD card to be indexed, but no luck so far!
 
#38 ·
Well now the select music via genre using Voice Command seems to be working. I guess it was not fully indexed and did not finish building the voice commands when I first tried. So....I am liking this upgrade!
 
#35 ·
I just got my car back today after being updated to 3.5.1. Previously had 3.0.2. My 3.0.2 issues were similar to everyone else, sporadic reboot, button labels blank, slow response, etc...

What I have observed so far...
1) I cannot make a call with voice recognition. Repeated attempts to make calls using names from my IOS5 iPhone ended with "please say a name as it is listed in your phone book". Despite me speaking clearly and the same way I spoke with 3.0.2, it would not make one call. I tried about 6 names from my contact list. I finally resorted to "dial xxx-xxx-xxxx". She repeated the number back to me and dialed.[facepalm]

2) I'm primarily a Sirius listener. For some reason today I could not locate anything that I wanted to listen to so I decided to use my iPhone BT connection. This is where the frustration began. 20 seconds into track 2, it decided to start track 3. Um, okay. When I reached the end of the album, it switched to a new album with unknown artist, 0 tracks. It would not skip forward, backward, or play. Silence!
I selected a new album from my iPhone (yes I pulled over first). I skipped to the last track and let it play. When it reached the end, the same thing happened, silence. I changed source to Sirius, then back to BT. Still wouldn't play.

I started a new album and let it play. I had to stop for gas. When I got back in and started the car, it was still on BT, but now the display read Walt's iPhone where it should have the artist and song title, the track listing was where I had left it, and it would not play, skip back or forward. It was silent again! I finally had enough and switched it to Sirius for the rest of my trip.

Anyone else having this BT quirkiness? IOS5 or IOS6? I don't really want to upgrade to IOS6 but I may to see if my issues are resolved.
 
#36 · (Edited)
2) I'm primarily a Sirius listener. For some reason today I could not locate anything that I wanted to listen to so I decided to use my iPhone BT connection. This is where the frustration began. 20 seconds into track 2, it decided to start track 3. Um, okay. When I reached the end of the album, it switched to a new album with unknown artist, 0 tracks. It would not skip forward, backward, or play. Silence!
I selected a new album from my iPhone (yes I pulled over first). I skipped to the last track and let it play. When it reached the end, the same thing happened, silence. I changed source to Sirius, then back to BT. Still wouldn't play.

I started a new album and let it play. I had to stop for gas. When I got back in and started the car, it was still on BT, but now the display read Walt's iPhone where it should have the artist and song title, the track listing was where I had left it, and it would not play, skip back or forward. It was silent again! I finally had enough and switched it to Sirius for the rest of my trip.

Anyone else having this BT quirkiness? IOS5 or IOS6? I don't really want to upgrade to IOS6 but I may to see if my issues are resolved.
You are the 3rd person on here (including me) that has experienced the BT track auto-advance (skip) problem on 3.5.1. I'm kinda glad others are experiencing this but I'm sorry that it is you. I have the same problems as you described and I use an iPhone 4S 6.0.1. BT audio has always been the worst part of MFT and it looks like 3.5.1 doesn't fix it completely. I suggest you avoid BT audio until someone has resolved this issue. Someone reported that they did a master reset/delayed reboot and it fixed the issue for them. However, this did not fix it for me. I'm going to do a fuse pull+master reset tomorrow to see if it helps. For now, I just plug my phone into the USB and listen that way.

Here is my log of the problem

*Edit* A fuse pull+master reset did not fix this issue for me.
 
#37 ·
Got my upgrade and new nav card this week. Initial impressions are that navigation locks on faster and the HD FM signals are way stronger. I'm finding new HD stations I never had before. Also, my IPod synced up much faster. Very happy with it so far! I do wish they had fixed the song timer to count down rather than up. That "feature" is still a bit of a mystery to me.
 
#73 ·
Noticed that too. What's up with that? Is 3.34.4 part of 3.5.1?

Anyone notice a change in driver and front passenger window "auto up & down" behavior after getting the update?
 
#42 ·
MFT 3.5.1 working great. Got new A4 card. Navigation is more responsive. Try typing in a destination address as a test... way faster. iPhone texts received are displayed or spoken if you want (I suppose you don't want that automatic for passengers to view). Indexing and voice commands build were super fast with ~7500 songs. DST is automatic now. General little improvements like that sprinkled in. And the calls are much clearer...

If you have WiFi enabled theres a little indicator now next to the I on the bottom of the screen... seems they are working toward something going on with that.

Went through all functions and menus and couldn't find anything to complain about.
 
#46 ·
The only thing that I've noticed, I'm assuming that I now have the latest version since they replaced the entire MFT system and added an update earlier this week is that with HD Radio Active, the Display of the Song is now smaller than the Artist.. so it just looks awkward. Doesn't do this when using a USB device, CD, or Sirius. Maybe Ford will get it right eventually.
 
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