Hey all

I'm working on the hands free phone modules for the TL. I know that some of you have experienced the system locking up. This generally results in the display not turning off and the buttons not functioning. I was wondering whether any of you could provide me with anything you remember about when yours locked up, such as sequence of events, conditions, etc. It would be especially helpful if you know a reliable way to lock up the system. Hopefully I can diagnose if there is a real problem given this information or whether it was just a freak occurrence. I realize there are previous posts on this problem, but I would like anyone who may have had this problem to let me know about thir particular specifics in this post so that I can more effectively troubleshoot this thing. Thanks!

 

I had it occur one time only thus far. I resolved it by hitting the "phone talk" button. The system then allowed me to recall with no problems.

 

I was making a call when another came in, I answered the incoming call and when it was over the phone disconnected with the car. The phone would not sync/connect with the car anymore and the MID displayed a "Booting Up" message. The Service advisor said they had one other issue like this and the only solution was to replace the HFL module.

I have not had an issue since the module was replaced.

 

I've had it occur when, for some reason, the connection between the phone and BT was "off"...meaning, although the connection showed and "appeared" to work, after dialing the number, the phone never rang through BT. But, if I picked up my cell phone, I could hear the ringing there. When I tried to hang up through BT, the system would lock.

 

Good morning,
I have had this happen to me multiple times. The talk button on the steering wheel would be pressed and appear to be stuck in the in use mode. I tried pushing the back and disconnect button but no change. The dealer replaced my talk button on the steering wheel. I have had this happen again since. However, by turning off the car and then on, rebooting the system I guess, would work so far. But occaissionally the system locks up again. By pressing the two buttons multiple times, it seems to fix itself. I still am not happy though, but don't have the time to take it in right now. As noted above, my phone seems to not link up with the BT of the car when reception is good but goes down while in use. I then reboot the phone itself and the car BT recognizes it. HELP!
Bruce

 

Thanks guys. I'm trying to compile as many cases as possible in order to hopefully accentuate common characteristics leading to these lockups.

Is anyone else had a lockup? Again, if you could focus on what you were doing before it locked up, that would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

A week after I bought my car. The sequence was that the beep you get when you press the talk/hang-up buttons wouldn't work first but the display was there and the voice system heard me and dialed. But no audio even if call completed. Turned my phone off and on and this killed the connection between HFL and my phone. Restarting the car didn't help. Still saw the "Main" screen on the MID but nothing else. And after I left my car a while and started it, everything was gone -- even the Main screen on the MID and no more phone icon on the display above the NAV screen.

Only fix (after 3 days at the dealer) was to replace the HFL unit. I think this is a buggy design and my thing will very likely fail again. My dealer claimed he has seen no other HFL problems like mine.

 

It locked up one time - first week I had my car. I was checking it out - pairing the phone, calling my wife inside the house from the driveway, silly stuff. Anyway, I don't think I ended the call properly when I left the car - using the steering wheel button. Next time I got in the car, I couldn't get it to work. No beeps when I pressed the buttons, no response at all. The MID phone display showed "system booting" or something like that. It stayed like this the rest of the weekend. On the next Monday, I got in the car and everything was working fine. I haven't had the system lock up like this since.

Another odd behavior: I typically leave my phone in the car overnight and I have noticed in some cases that the next day the bluetooth connection is not complete. The car and phone appear connected, and I'm able to intiate the call through the voice activation, the phone dials the number, but the audio never comes through the car. I've also had this happen on incoming calls, I hear it ringing, pick up, but don't hear anything. My wife says she hears the phone pick up, but never hears me. Closing the bluetooth connection on my phone and reconnecting always resolves this. Could be my phone as well - a Nokia 3650.

 

Sometimes, it would just be stuck in the phone mode, not displaying any radio information on the secondary display when I started the car, that was with my SE T616, my Moto V600 doesnt do it at all, no display lock up, but now I have the annoying problem of incoming calls being routed to the hand set not the HFL when the clamshell is closed. Is Johnson Controls working on a Motorola V600 fix?

 

Well, I've had my TL for a couple months now, but haven't had a chance to try the HFL till today (as I just got myself a v600). I went to go pair the phone (per the instructions from the acura website). When pressing the hfl talk button...no beep....I went to the HFL link in the MID, pressed select, "Booting Up". Waited a while....Booting up. Shutoff the car for 15 minutes or so, came back, waited for Nav System to finish it's 'boot', then tried again, "Booting Up".

So I take it my HFL is 'stuck'. I'm going to take it to the dealer tomorrow, see if perhaps I'm just doing something silly, or if, in fact, something needs to be replaced

So for me, there were no real sequence of events that lead to it being stuck

 

There wasn't any particular event or sequence that cause my HFL to lock up. One morning I got up and the I didn't see the usual phone icon in my TL, so I switch my MID to HFL and it displayed "BOOTING UP". The talk button or cancel won't respond at all. I turn off the engine and start it backup, still the same. Finally, at same night, I disconnected the car battery for 15 seconds, and hook it back up, HFL was working again. However, that didnt' last long, 1 or 2 days later, it locked up with the same message "BOOTING UP" as I get back into the car from supermarket.

Finally after 1 week, took the car to dealer, they order a new HFL module and replaced it and it has been problem free since. I tried to ask the technican whether he got a newer (revised version) of HFL, he said he didn't know.

BTW, my phone is Sony Ericsson T616

 

Mine also happened to me twice as well. I was doing setup for various option, ie ring tong on the HF unit. And I thing I have press too fast before the voice and complete the sentence. The the HF unit hang. NO radio no nothing....Even restart the car several times, no go...left the car off for 15 min (battery is still on)...then everything is back to normal.

An other time, I have the car started and blue tooth is on, everything is fine. I left the car on and went to the bank...and my phone and it is in my pocket. So I took the call when inside the bank. When I came back to the car, HF will not see my T610 anymore at all. No pairing will work...finally I need to delete old profile and re-pairing again.

Any new firmwire to update the box yet?

 

It seems that the SE 616 and 637 users have a similar problem. When you get into the car and start it up, about 50% of the time the radio screen is stuck on "phone" and the only way to reset is to press the phone button on the steering wheel and then the cancel button... then all returns to normal.

 

a_tech,

I don't know who you really are, but it's always good to know someone likes to collect this info in order to help others.

This is another link (you may find another link inside), you may like to take a look...

http://www.acura-tl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82502




It's like 50% of chance, when starting my engine, my MID will disply the phone, the only way to reset the screen is to press "talk" and "cancel".

No matter what battery level or singal strength of my SE T610 has, this could happen. (I always check my Cell first when my MID is stuck)

 

I have a SE T616 and it does that about 50% + the time when I get in the car and start the engine. I have talked to the dealer and seems that they are aware of it and suggest to replace the module in my next service. Hope that will help

 

Just purchased my TL a little over a week ago, the HFL has never worked, so there's no particular sequence. I went to pair my phone that first day, pressed the talk button, no voice prompts, noticed the same "booting up" message in the MID. I just had a chance to turn it into the dealership this morning, so we'll see what they say. It seems that replacing the HFL is the way to go, everyone else who has just disconnected the battery or done anything else besides getting the HFL unit replaced has had repeated problems.

 

The only time the HFL would lock up on me was when I had already paired my Motorola V600 to the car and I ended up stalling on my 6MT. I tried to get it back on but no avail. Then I had manually set it to HFL and saw what everyone else had seen . . . "Booting up". After starting my car and pairing the phone again, I've never had it locked up on me since that incident.

 

This lockup mode (audio functions no longer working; MID handsfree shows "BOOTING UP") used to happen when I had Sprint Treo 650 with patch 1.08. Now, with Treo patch 1.12, I still see "booting up" when HFL has not connected with the treo but I do not lock up as before. I have only had my car for less than a month. The patch 1.12 is only 5 days old for me and I use the HFL each day.

 

I finally got my the car back from the dealer. The HFL unit was replaced, everything is working, so far so good. The HFL links to my Blackberry 7100G, sound out the speakers, etc. Will keep my fingers crossed.

 

Well, it happen again with patch 1.12 for the third time since I had the car

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...73#post1236373

I applied the patch applied on June 17. I had just come back from a weekend trip and just started the car the next morning (June 29) in my garage. I did not look at my treo to see what screen it was on but I usually, place the display into the phone screen. I do have Logitech bluetooth mouse and keyboard setup and Jabra BT200 around or more than thirty feet away in my home office upstairs from the garage but I do not know if my neighbors have bluetooth equipment. As I remember:

1) Computer is off so the Logitech mouse LED base is off.
2) The Logitech keyboard and mouse are near each other. They are on but may be in sleep mode
3) The Jabra BT200 is connected to it's base connected to the power cord with neither LED on. It is further away relative to garage and HFL by couple feet.

I also have WiFi equipment (router, Palm Tungsten, laptop) and so do my neighbors.

The second time I hung, I was listen to XM radio on the road stopped at traffic light surronded by cars and people on their phones and as soon as the song had stop, the audio system hung. The phone icon was showing when this happen and I was on patch 1.08 on the treo. The first and third times (patch 1.08 and patch 1.12), I just started the car outside my garage and inside the garage. I do run applications on the treo that force the phone to do a data connect but I am pretty sure that in both garage situations, the phone was not downloading anything. I do notice the HFL connects quickly most of the time after the system has not been idle in most cases. It is when HFL has been idle, it is random if the phone icon shows up on the console display. Eventually, it does shows up after some random amount of driving:

1) driving for a while
2) ignition on and off
3) force a phone call from the treo

I have had the car only month and treo for little over month. I hope this help.

 

One thing I'm confused about here... Is this a resettable situation, or does the MID lock up indefinitely, to the point where the car has to go into the dealer?

I've had the MID lock up a few times with my old t610 and my new RAZR, but never something I couldn't reset by either shutting the car off or taking the battery out of the phone..

Most annoying HFL bug i've found is that with my razr, if I don't answer call waiting, the CURRENT call will hang up!!! ARRRGH! Awful.

 

I must either go to the dealer to take off the negative lead on the battery or I can do it myself. It does not reset without one disconnecting the power (MID display booting up, "HF Link" on console). From what I have read, the HFL connection is not turned off immediately after tuning off the car ignition is off. The HFL eventually timeouts.

If it happens again, on the road, I am going to the dealer. If it only happens around my home, I have to assume, it is interference (bluetooth or WiFI) but Acura needs to fix this. To try to explain/simulate this to the local Acura technicians to reproduce will be impossible unless they know what equipment is involve.

Everything works when this issue is not happening. I just wish I could have the phone icon/connection more reliable each time I turn on the ignition. Eventually, the phone icon/connection happens.

 

Guess I spoke too soon in my previous post. My HFL is stuck on "Booting Up" and disconnecting the negative terminal on the battery still didn't help. This problem occurred last Friday and I have an appointment with the dealership tomorrow to let them take a look at it.

 

Unplug it again. This fourth time, I was just stuck in booting up mode on MID. Audio was still working. I tried rebooting my Treo and even force a phone call which force a bluetooth handfree event (from blue background with white foreground to white background with blue foreground) on the phone. HFL never responded. I decided to disconnect the negative terminal and once I turned on the ignition, everything worked (phone icon in console). Again, I notice this last failure seem to start while the car was in the garage before heading out early in the morning to work. I figure the phone would sync up after I was on the road. It never did even after several trips back and forth to the job. Later on that evening before heading home, I disconnected the negative lead as I stated above. I hope it will work later on today

 

I had tried disconnecting the negative terminal twice and both positive and negative terminals once. The only thing that seems to reset are my Trip Computer and my Trip A/B. Radio and XM presets never flinched.

Well, it's at the dealer's now. I just hope the module will be replaced like some of the other owners had reported on here.

 

UPDATE:

Just got back from the dealer and they replaced the HFL module as I had hoped. w00t! Now I'm back in business! I just have to program the names and phone numbers again.

 

2004 Acura TL w/ Navi

I use a Blackberry 7290 with mine and its worked fine for the past 6 months. Locked up this morning when I tried to end a call and is stuck in the "Phone" mode on the display above the NAvi system.

The MID screen says "In Use" when I step through to the HFL menu page. Disabled BT on the 7290, even turned off the phone, no change.

Turned the car off and left it for several hours. Went back and it is still locked up.

Called the HFL Customer Care, they said take it to the dealership so they can reboot it.

Called the Dealership, they have scheduled me a service appointment for next damn Tuesday!

I can live with or without HFL...but what pisses me off is I can't use my stereo or voice commands while this thing is stuck.

So, Am leaving work early to go to the dealership TODAY and raise some hell!

Wish me luck!
ME [/COLOR]

 

Disconnect your battery cables for a 10 count. Then reconnect. You should be good to go. My HFL system has been replaced. So far no additional problems like this one. However, it does drop the call from HFL sending it to my phone all on its own. If I don't catch it quick enough, the call hangs up. So far no fix for any of this.
Bruce

 

Mine locked up on me yesterday: the first problem I've had with my 2 year old TL. I got in the car and noticed that the "phone" icon on the screen wasn't on. When I accessed the HFL on the MID, it said "booting up" but it still never came on. I followed the suggestion of disconnecting the battery at the negative terminal for 15 seconds. When I tried it again, everything was and continues to work fine. I phoned my dealer and he still recommended that the HFL module be replaced which I will do in a couple of weeks. Just my 2 cents.

 

Good to know that this is a known issue since mine does this exact same thing. Any updates to this specific issue?

 

Got my HFL replaced finally. More my fault than theirs it took so long. Works fine now...then my company switched me to a Blackberry 8700 from the Blackberry 7290, and it connects/disconnects every few seconds. Can't win for losing with HFL lately.
ME

 

I just got an '04 TL 6spd w/Navi and when I went into the system, I changed the voice prompts to "female" to which it didn't change. I figured it would take a reset or something to initialize that change. I then went into the Phone Setup using voice commands and setup a pairing code for the phone. The system instructed me to put my phone in pair mode. My phone found the car and allowed me to pair with the HFL and it even showed a car icon. The HFL still shows "PAIR" with my code "0000" below it. The top middle console shows "phone". The system is locked up and pressing cancel, end call, turning the car on/off even over night has not reset the HFL. I will try the battery/fuse trick tonight.

Phone: Sprint SPH-A920 (I know it's not compatible but I didn't check online first)

 

Removing the negative lead on the battery for 10 minutes and reattaching it, pressing my codes in, I was able to reset the HFL. I'm guessing that's what Acura's HFL hotline and Acura Dealership meant by "the car needs a hard reset". I'm glad I was able to do that myself and save 100 miles round trip + hassle.