# Infotainment Issues - Help!



## kootenaydub (May 15, 2009)

My Infotainment unit is on the fritz, here's what it's doing:


Does not turn on immediately when starting the engine
Shutting off intermittently, when restarting it has completely reset itself: radio stations presets gone, not paired, etc.
Navigation in perpetual 'Checking navigation database....' nothing ever loads
Something everything but the radio is in 'Loading mode' for 1-5 minutes, nav never loads.
Radio sometimes stays on once the vehicle is shut off and the doors opened. Have to restart the engine and shut off.
Does not always respond to turning on/off when pressing button. Sometimes it take 1-2 minutes before it turns on.


*Timeline:*

*Day 1:* made a change using vag-com to open/close windows with remote. During this period with the ignition on, the battery went dead in 5 minutes! The message flashed "Battery voltage low, turn off ignition" once I did that it was already dead and would not start. Had to jump it.

*Day 2:* no issues, everything seemed normal

*Day 3:* no issues, everything seemed normal

*Day 4:* navigation stopped working, including the directional indicator in the MFD (N, NE, etc.) Navigation in perpetual 'Checking navigation database....' nothing ever loads. Infotainment system shut itself off once.
*
Day 5:* Did some more vag-com changes, thinking this was a navigation issue, did the usual needle sweep, fogs with highbeams, etc. did not intentionally mess with anything on the infotainment system. Unit completely lost it's mind now, doing all the things mentioned above. Reset the unit to 'Factory settings' on everything, did not make a difference. Tried a 'reset' based on some internet info, holding the on/off button down for 20+ seconds, didn't seem to do anything, but unit would not turn immediately afterwards. 


Not sure if some changes I made in vag-come set this off, or the battery going dead did something, or the unit is coincidentally toast at the same time.

Luckily I have an appointment with VW Dec 28, downside it I have a 6 hour drive for the holidays and it would be nice to have the system running.

Tonight I'm going to reset some of the vag-com changes, might do a scan first to see if something comes up. I was also thinking of doing a hard reset which used to work with things on my GTI, disconnecting the battery for 20min.

Anyone else have any ideas?


----------



## Hfqkhal (Oct 14, 2018)

I have made the changes for the Comfort windows like you and I also unblocked the the menus while driving. Now it has been almost 2 weeks and I have noticed zero issues. The one thing for me was to make the changes to unblock the menu while driving, the only way it worked was when the car was running and gave me a blocked message when done when in accessory mode. I doubt your changes had anything to do with it. Hopefully your hard reset will do it for you. Oh yes, the reset thing was a bit tricky for me as i kept on holding and it always came back to the clock mode. In the end it worked by releasing when the screen was off and it rebooted with changes in place.


----------



## kootenaydub (May 15, 2009)

Thanks for the reply.

Driving around yesterday for a bit, it's clear that the unit is stuck in some reboot loop. Seems to shut off every 10 minutes or so, all the radio presets wiped, etc. Navigation never gets out of checking database.

Hoping to disconnect the battery tonight and see if that does anything. Otherwise I let the dealership know to prepare for our service. The service person on the phone seemed to kind know what I was talking about, so maybe they have an update or something.

I've also been reading that the nav SD could be corrupt and that's causing the issues. I'll remove it before I start up after work and see if that helps (I accidentally popped it out with 'safely' removing it). 

Does any one know if the VW SD card is supposed to be in the locked position on the small SD card switch...I'm assuming it is.

I'm going to roll back on the needle sweep and easy in/out on the seats so I don't get a 'you've been messing with this' response from the dealer.

Any other ideas are appreciated.


----------



## kootenaydub (May 15, 2009)

well, due to _overwhelming _interest, I thought I'd update...

I did the following:

Pulled the nav card before start up. After a few short trips where the unit would usually restart 2-3x every 10 minutes, it has not restarted, so good.

I also disconnected the battery the next day, to get a full reset. Again, no issues after that so far. But I have not put the nav card back in. Considering I have a 7+ hr drive this week, I'm not putting it in until I get to my destination (and subsequent service). 

So, I'm thinking it has something to do with the nav card/system.

Also, out of fear of the stealership messing with me, I went into vag-com and took out the needle sweep and easy in/out on the seats so there's nothing obvious to them, just in case they pin programming on the issues.


----------



## kootenaydub (May 15, 2009)

Update:

Took my Atlas into service, and told them about the issue. They said the infotainment issues were due to a bad battery, which they replaced under warranty, no cost. Everything seemed to work fine after that, navigation, etc.

I had also found on other car sites that folks were having issues with their batteries, supposedly a batch batch was installed with bad cells. No recall, but perhaps a 'known' issue.


----------



## shivanss (Mar 6, 2021)

is VW Polo GT infortainment system is capable to show the unicode instead of English?


----------

