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Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

electrek.co

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Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#31

Post by gravitronic »

I used to work for a company that built satellite receivers that would be installed in all sorts of weird remote environments in order to pull radio or tv from satellite and rebroadcast locally.

If we pushed a broken update it might mean someone from the radio company would have to make a trip to go pull the device and send it to us physically.

Our upgrader did not run as root, but one time we had to move a file as root.. so I had to figure out a way to exploit our machine reliably from a local user, gain root, and move the file out of the way. We'd then deploy this over the satellite head end and N remote units would receive and run the upgrade autonomously. Fun stuff.

Turns out we had a separate process running that listened on a local socket and would run any command it received as root. Nobody remembered building or releasing it but it made my work quick.

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#32

Post by willio58 »

wil421 wrote: post #26
cs702 wrote: post #13

It's easy to underestimate how hard and expensive it is to build, deploy, and remotely upgrade software that runs reliably on a fleet of diverse cars (different models, different years, slightly different components from batch to batch, etc.). It makes updating a mobile phone OS look trivial in comparison. So far, only Tesla seems to be able to update car software remotely, regularly and reliably. I'm certain it's ne…

> So far, only Tesla seems to be able to update car software remotely, regularly and reliably. I'm certain it's neither easy nor cheap. My Jeep Grand Cherokee has OTA for over 5+ years. BMW has been doing it since 2018. I’m almost positive a family member had it with GMC on star back in the late 2000s.

I don't think the Jeep or BMW infotainment systems are nearly as fleshed out or complex as Rivian's, especially not Tesla's. Maybe I'm wrong!

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#34

Post by wil421 »

willio58 wrote: post #32
wil421 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far, only Tesla seems to be able to update car software remotely, regularly and reliably. I'm certain it's neither easy nor cheap. My Jeep Grand Cherokee has OTA for over 5+ years. BMW has been doing it since 2018. I’m almost positive a family member had it with GMC on star back in the late 2000s.

I don't think the Jeep or BMW infotainment systems are nearly as fleshed out or complex as Rivian's, especially not Tesla's. Maybe I'm wrong!

That’s a huge plus for me. CarPlay or nothing. BMW is becoming closer to a Tesla like screen. GM is supposed to drop CarPlay in favor of whatever they are doing on their EVs.

I don’t want my ICE/EV to become a SaaS app where I’m paying $500 a year to use my own car.

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#36

Post by ben_jones »

martin8412 wrote: post #33

Stuff like this is why I don't want OTA updates in my cars. Let the car dealership deal with it during regular maintenance. They'll be on the hook for fixing it before handing the car back to me.

But what if your car doesn’t have the latest emojiset or social sharing functionality within the notes app?

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#37

Post by galangalalgol »

martin8412 wrote: post #33

Stuff like this is why I don't want OTA updates in my cars. Let the car dealership deal with it during regular maintenance. They'll be on the hook for fixing it before handing the car back to me.

Don't even need OTA. A seattle radio station bricked a bunch of mazdas.

https://www.autoblog.com/2022/02/09/seattle-radio-station-br...

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#38

Post by dilyevsky »

martin8412 wrote: post #33

Stuff like this is why I don't want OTA updates in my cars. Let the car dealership deal with it during regular maintenance. They'll be on the hook for fixing it before handing the car back to me.

There is nearly zero regular maintenance to be done on EVs though. No oil, no belts, no fuel filter, spark plugs etc. Even the brakes will likely last entire lifetime of the car

Re: Rivian software update bricks infotainment system, fix not obvious

#39

Post by nomel »

scardycat wrote: post #24

Bringing CI/CD mindset to cars is probably not a great idea. Software updates to commuter vehicles should have a high bar for operational standards, and a simple thing such as an expired certificate should have never been deployed. Having isolated networks in vehicles helps but doesn't prevent broken updates from, eventually, bricking the cars.

I think this shows more of a fundamental flaw in their update mechanism, than anything.

I don't think a botched update is a big deal. It happens, and should be expected, in a sane design. The fact that the customer noticed is a big deal.

There are many implementations that could be used for an "auto rollback" feature. They either failed to implement that in a sane way, or they were goobers, and assumed things would always be rosy.

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