A SiriusXM Update Sent Some Audi Screens Into A Forced-Reboot Loop For Months

This week, a reader wrote to us sharing that the infotainment in their 2020 Audi A4 had been “rebooting every five minutes all year.” It looks like the problem was caused by a compatibility issue with a SiriusXM app update. Audi tells us the situation’s been rectified, but it illustrates a serious pain point in modern cars—myriad apps interacting with a diverse population of in-car software systems.

Our reader was not the only Audi owner affected. “Randomly restarting” Audi infotainment screens have been discussed on Reddit, the Audiworld forum, and elsewhere, going back many months. Audi’s recall notice and related service action only went out this summer.

It looks like this particular problem was caused when the satellite radio app pushed an update that was supposed to work on the latest version of Audi’s infotainment software, but not all cars were running that. Then SiriusXM reverted, which, I guess, did not solve the problem for every owner.

Audi now states that the problem has been fixed and originated with the SiriusXM app, but really, the automaker bears more than a little blame, too.

Just like Apple holds all its App Store programs to a compatibility standard before letting you download one to your iPhone, automakers are going to have to do the same thing and thoroughly sandbox every update, even trivial ones, before letting them go live to cars. Because the reality is, with all modern car systems so deeply networked, something as small as a radio glitch could bring down an entire human-machine interface. And that shouldn’t be acceptable on any car, let alone a highline product like an Audi.

The A4 driver we heard from directly seems to have had a particularly frustrating experience, too—they told us that their Audi dealer wanted them to “buy a new $4,700 5F module” (that’s what Audi calls its main infotainment cluster) until the recall went out two months ago.

In the official service action related to this (embedded below), dated mid-August, in Audi stated:

“Some customers have reported unexpected reboots of the infotainment system.

“After a thorough investigation, Audi has determined this change originated outside of Audi and that the issue was triggered by a broadcast change made by SiriusXM, which interacts with the infotainment software in a way that was not anticipated in the original system design.

“Audi is providing a software update to correct the infotainment system behavior and prevent further reboots. This software delivers enhanced system robustness, multiple bug fixes, and additional performance improvements.

“SiriusXM implemented a temporary broadcast adjustment to help stabilize system performance while updates are being applied.”

I dropped our own contacts at Audi a note about how and why this might have happened, and they added this clarification:

“At the beginning of the year, SiriusXM did a programming update which was addressed via a software update to the MMI. However, as not all customers had their cars updated and SiriusXM then reverted back to the previous category numbering. Nonetheless, a MMI update is recommended as the two versions do seem to cause the issue.”

We made contact with a press rep at SiriusXM, too, and will update this post if they come back with any more insight on what exactly went wrong.

So, yeah, it sucks for Audi that another brand’s failure is making it look bad. But the German automaker also didn’t do enough diligence on what was being beamed out to its customers vehicles, and I hope some operating policies change due to this.

My view is that stuff like this is going to be happening more, not less, in the future. Across cars in general, I mean. No matter what public statements say, you can count on the fact that every car company is working hard to cut costs and create recuring revenue. As cars become more heavily networked and computerized, the opportunities for a small glitch to spill over into critical systems will grow.

But, there are upsides to connected cars. Soon you might be able to watch ads instead of the road while driving!

Here’s the relevant Audi service action we’ve been referencing:

Audi-Service-Action-MC-11022659-0001

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