sango

i confrim that my orange lights stopped working after i update software to 16.xx.
I think we must wait another software which can fix this problem. Right?

Rudy

If this new software causes the amber lighting at the front of the car to not illuminate, the car is in violation of US DOT regulations and most likely state regulations as well.

If this is something BMW is aware of, I'm surprised they didn't pull the software from the dealers and recall any cars that were upgraded...

whihr

It it stops the amber lighting working what other problems might there be with the car after the upgrade. Do BMW not fully validate their software when a new release is issued - what happens if a safety critical function is affected? This is disgraceful - so much for quality control!

sicce

It it stops the amber lighting working what other problems might there be with the car after the upgrade. Do BMW not fully validate their software when a new release is issued - what happens if a safety critical function is affected? This is disgraceful - so much for quality control!
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Just checked mine - upgraded from 13.xx to 16.2 few days a go. All lights work fine on mine - pheewww.

paasan

Very annoying, indeed. What happens the day BMW forgets to enable e.g. an airbag or seatbelt pre-tensioners, if those are also controlled by software?

seakat

So its a known issue, as I suspected, but no solving service buletin exists at this time.

Reading this thread posts, it's easy to note that this is not a version issue alone, as there are reports of working and non-working leds for both 16.xx and 17.xx.

Probably a combination of control module AND CIP version.

But the whole subject does raise the old discussion of s/w vs h/w control.

Even though I generally favour the former (and the later usually depends on some form of low level s/w) I can't figure a good reason for having the LED's under s/w control.

Maybe this one: most LED's can have it's colour changed according to the input voltage/current, so probably the amber colour is a specific value for some variable stored in one of the eprom's.

I can imagine a combination of a car tunner and hacker changing it's LED's colour to pink or green

Rudy

Just about everything is software controlled on BMW's these days -- it has nothing to do with LED color. Instead of miles of wiring harnesses, relays, etc., I think circuits are connected to a bus system. Each device on the bus is addressable via software so they don't need to wire a light to a relay or switch. They simply wire the switch to the bus and the bulb to the bus. Then, the software logic says something like "if switch A22 is depressed (when other optional conditions are true) then turn on light G57" which reduces the complexity of the "hardware" but obviously increases the complexity of the software. The benefit of software control outweigh the drawbacks and it allows changes to be made at any time without retooling or modifying major components...

EBMCS03

It has to be a combination of somthing... since not all of us who updgraded found them not to work. Weird.

seakat

Just about everything is software controlled on BMW's these days -- it has nothing to do with LED color. Instead of miles of wiring harnesses, relays, etc., I think circuits are connected to a bus system. Each device on the bus is addressable via software so they don't need to wire a light to a relay or switch. They simply wire the switch to the bus and the bulb to the bus. Then, the software logic says something like "if switch A22 is depressed (when other optional conditions are true) then turn on light G57" which reduces the complexity of the "hardware" but obviously increases the complexity of the software. The benefit of software control outweigh the drawbacks and it allows changes to be made at any time without retooling or modifying major components...
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I agree with you Rudy.

But the issue of increased s/w dominance on cars has its thin ice areas, and BMW is (in)famous for boldly walking through them, mainly to achieve technological leadership (and good sales figures).

Lets hope the ice doesn't crack, although I must admit I choose to accept (and follow) this path long ago, otherwise I would not be driving an E61, and I still think the overall result is highly positive.

Rudy

Yup. One thing that's important to note -- I think the E39 used similar "addressable" components connected to a bus architecture. It probably wasn't as extensive as the E60 but it's been around longer than people might think. The concept of a small bug in the software causing an LED not to illuminate under some unique combination of circumstances doesn't surprise me the least.

I would only be surprised if this type of thing happened on a Japanese car...