tried starting the car today, took several times, thought it was the battery. last drove it last tuesday. anyway, it finally started up, then i get the gear icon indicating a transmission fault - to drive moderately and that gear could be shifted without stepping on the brakes. tried it an of course it did shift w/o applying the brakes. anyway, no clue on the emissions fault. only have 2600 miles not really a daily driver...but considering...any thoughts? thanks.

also, i drove it, neither steptronic or automatic mode works, it's set at D3, so pretty much as you increased speed, rpm goes with it! bummer, i'll drop it off at my dealership. wish there was a way to reset as i'm quite sure it's a computer thing.

Almost the same happend to an exposition 530d, that the dealer was showing me. Because of the low battery power, all kind of fault messages come up. (Transmission fault, increased emissions, check engine ...).
I was told that the car has some kind of SLEEP MODE that goes into after a while that the car is not operated. So I assume that going IN and OUT of the sleep mode couses an increased battery consumption.
I think that's the main reason of your problems. It appears that the computer is not capable of recovery after that battery low power state.

I had something like that in the 730d E65.

In the E65 there is a battery sleep mode switch inside the right side of the trunk near the fuses compartment.
It's supposed to be switched off when the car is going to be stopped more than a week to prevent the battery going down.
When the battery goes down it happens something like you said.
Go to your dealer and get the battery checked and the car connected to the computer to reset in order to stop working in that SAFE MODE.
Once again the software.... the previous model E39 didn't worked like that.

so i drove it today to the bmw center, surprinsingly enough, the transmission fault disappears, although there is still the "service soon" increased emissions fault.

Last time that it happened to me i ran two days with the High emissions signal.
On the third day i went to dealer and guess what? The light switched off when they started the car......

bmw center called me up this afternoon, they're replacing the screen, reprogram the whole thing and will take at least 3 days! got a 325i for a loaner, now i realize what active steering is all about! thanks for all your posts!