Where I am now

 

Thanks for the confirmation. I just have no clue as to how I can get to the latest versions when FRDS says I am at the latest versions... I can kinda understand now how the techs at the dealership at unable to get anywhere. If the tool doesn't guide them to the modules that should be updated, then they are left awaiting contact back from Ford engineers who take hours to days to respond...

 

Just got off the line with the Ford OTA Customer Service team (thanks for the phone number @5.0 Growl ). That was quite the interesting call.

Just a bit of background. I picked up my truck Saturday as it continues to sit at the dealership with very little being done to it. They said they were trying to work with Ford engineering hotline, but they would get return calls anywhere from hours to days later between things they tell them to try. They were just shooting in the dark, and I was without a vehicle (no rentals available for 8-9 weeks) for about 3 weeks. I said enough and picked it up.

I finally got FDRS working and got in to look at the status of modules. Everything is showing as up to date with the only SW update being the GSM. I applied that update successfully but it never cleared off the list. Everything else is showing up-to-date.

The Customer Service person told me that the SW for my truck wasn't due to be released for a few more weeks. I told her about the 21G01 program and she said it conflicted with what she was being told by her supervisor. My VIN was not "scheduled" to have the BC updates available for a few more weeks. They said my options were to go to another dealership to see if they could make it work or take it back to my original dealer and let them continue to work with the Ford engineers. Given that FDRS doesn't show ANY updates available and the Ford system is responsible for the queuing of the new updates, I decided I am just gonna hold off and wait, and send back the Mongoose J2534 interface and Pro-Logix charger. She did say that they are having this issue with MANY trucks, so it is a wide spread problem. So really they were talking out of both sides of their mouth saying the SW wasn't available for my VIN, yet this is a wide spread problem they are aware of and trying to fix... Hmmmmmm..

Anyway, just wanted y'all to know what I heard. If they are having issues updating your truck and you don't have a rental, you might as well go get your truck and drive it till they get their stuff figured out....

 

You have my luck it seems. The software is definitely out and it's roulette who you talk with. Hate it hasn't worked out for you. Hopefully all will resolve itself with time although I know it's not the end result you wanted.

 

Ya, but you know what... It's still all good. I just wish they could get their act together and would have told me that 3 weeks ago before going without a vehicle for that whole time. Especially if it is true that FDRS is configured by design to only allow my VIN to update to where I currently am. That defines lunacy thinking that something will change. Unless they release that update for a range of VINs that mine falls into, it will sit there and tell the techs all is up to date. I saw no way to force an update to a version that isn't showing as available in FDRS...

Anyway, I now know what to expect so at least I got that going for me. No more bugging the poor techs that are left on the front line to take the daggers on something that they cannot fix. Why in the world the Ford engineers didn't tell them this is baffling me...

 

Do you know what the last update applied was? One guess, if they did the IPC update, it is possible that it said it was applied, but only half of it actually worked. The bad thing when that happens is that it disappears from the list, but since not everything updates, stuff is held off the list. It has happened to a few people, and it's recoverable. I unfortunately don't know how to fix it, or how to tell if something only got partially updated.

 

Mine was stuck on an update and froze a while back. I disconnected the battery for about 20 minutes and it reset. It didn't update, but it didn't fail either. That might be something to try before sending your gear back. I just have a hard time believing they would send out letters of instruction on the 21G01 program and then not allow access to the update databases.
My truck updated fine, comparatively speaking, and it wasn't included in the early access program or on the wait list for what that's worth.

 

Thank you much for that reply, as well as to @powerboatr for also commenting about the Deep Sleep Mode/battery-drain issue. My truck was assembled four months before yours, in March '21, which was only a month after widespread reports of Deep Sleep found their way into the Detroit Free Press.

Another thing which I brought up on page 106 of this thread hasn't been commented on since then: recommendations for getting OTA updates "unstuck". Again, I plan on waiting a while to allow the "kinks to get ironed out" in the application of 21G01 at dealerships; but regarding getting past my current "stuck" point on the OTA's, which seems to be at 2.1.1 (with all the usual symptoms in the "Connectivity" section of SYNC), comments here pertaining to restarting OTA's seem only to be in the context of also accomplishing 21G01. For the time being, I want a standalone fix of the OTA process. Safe to say that I should ask that the dealer first apply any available update(s) to the GWM, then to the APIM? Or is there a single update that is a comprehensive fix of the OTA's? Or what? Anyone? Thanks!

... On the announcement document for the 21G01 program, the first referenced TSB at the top is 22-2117 - "Unable to Update the APIM Or TCU with USB - Module Recovery". Is that a comprehensive remedy of the OTA blockage--period, end of story?

 

On mine, the first step the dealer had to do was replace the TCU( telematic control unit). This being Ford's recommendation to move forward with 21G01.

 

Do you mean that, as the first step for at least most owners who are experiencing "stuck" OTA's, Ford recommends replacing the TCU itself (which is an item of hardware)? Or by saying "on mine", do you intend to imply that replacing the TCU may not be necessary in everyone's case?

And regardless of whether my first step should be replacement of the TCU, the rest of the question is, what additional steps--regarding software and/or hardware--are required merely to get OTA updates coming again? To emphasize once more, moving forward with 21G01, per se, is not a priority of mine until that process is better defined/refined.