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GPS Time Rolls Over Tonight

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Old 04-06-2019, 05:27 PM
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GPS Time Rolls Over Tonight
This will be interesting...

Since October, everyone with a COMMAND NTG3 head unit has been dealing with issues related to the date and time. This was caused by a bug in the interpretation of the received GPS Time signal: On October 21, 2018, the Week Number went from 999 to 1,000 and the system couldn't handle this so it reset back to a date in 2003.

Everything changes at midnight tonight! GPS will roll over the Week Number from 1,023 to 0 first thing tomorrow, Sunday April 7, 2019.

Presumably this will eliminate the date and time issues we've all been fighting with these last 23 weeks. But that assumes the programmers correctly set the system to handle the new GPS Epoch. It could also cause all sorts of other weird issues, and might even kill the navigation system entirely. I guess we'll find out very soon!

I wrote a lot more about this on my blog if you're interested in how this works: GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)
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Old 04-07-2019, 12:10 PM
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Ok so no such luck. Today is one day after yesterday, August 23, 2003. Before the car was made.
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Old 04-07-2019, 10:12 PM
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I checked the time and date today (Sunday, April 7, 2019), in the morning. I showed the correct time and date! I did not do anything.
Also, I have just checked the time and date in the COMAND. It is after 10 p.m. It still shows the correct information. I hope it stays that way...
Finally, I read your blog about this on-going issue. It is very interesting, BBanzai.
Last edited by Pitek; 04-07-2019 at 10:14 PM.
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Old 04-09-2019, 01:01 AM
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Originally Posted by Pitek
I checked the time and date today (Sunday, April 7, 2019), in the morning. I showed the correct time and date! I did not do anything.
Also, I have just checked the time and date in the COMAND. It is after 10 p.m. It still shows the correct information. I hope it stays that way...
On Monday, April 8, 2019, in the morning - the date was still correct.
The same day late at night the date in COMAND was August 23, 2019.
Back to the future, I mean back to square one.
Last edited by Pitek; 04-09-2019 at 10:08 AM.
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Old 04-09-2019, 05:55 AM
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2014 - W212 - E400 ( M276.820, 3 liter Turbo) RWD not Hybrid
Nice info. I will check on my boat and my friends boats Nav system too. Who knows it uses common GPS chip and would behave the same.

UPDATE : My personal handheld GPS a Garmin 78s is okey. Date n time accurate. So its a Mercedes thingy not GPS chip issue.
Last edited by S-Prihadi; 04-09-2019 at 06:10 AM. Reason: Add info
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Old 04-09-2019, 08:13 AM
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2014 - W212 - E400 ( M276.820, 3 liter Turbo) RWD not Hybrid
Just to update. Garmin 585 , 2 different units, both went banana , 24 Aug 1999. Time is accurate though.
I know its not a car NAV, but this means it is not Mercedes fault per se, but it has to do with the GPS chip, I think.



Last edited by S-Prihadi; 04-09-2019 at 08:15 AM. Reason: add info
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Old 04-10-2019, 01:22 AM
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W221 S600, W220 S55 AMG Kompressor, W124 300E, W140 S320, W210 E3204M W164 ML320 Bluetec
I have been anticipating this event for a while as I personally own more than one Mercedes-Benz vehicles affected by this event beginning at Week Number 1000. I have also been looking at the compiled code for some of the units to see to see if I could get any information regarding how the COMAND determines the date, what the artificial EPOCH may be, and if the Week Number 0 rollover would fix the problem. This is unfortunately an issue that is, based on information received from numerous sources, not something that could have been fixed easily and orchestrating a fix would be much more difficult.

As already mentioned, GPS Time and Date takes place in the Navigation Processor. In the W211/W219/W220, for example, this would be contained in the DVD Drive in the trunk that holds the Navigation DVD. Some vehicles show the year 1999, and some 197X, etc. Although it is easy to point the finger at Mercedes-Benz or Daimler, the supplier of the navigation portion of COMAND is the one to blame for the software bug. It affected the W210s from 2000, COMAND 2.5s from W220s and these were manufactured by Bosch. It is somewhat understandable that the engineers were not anticipating 19 years later (or if you consider the development probably started on these devices up to three years before we started seeing them in cars on the showroom floor). Although I think if one was working with GPS code, it looks like they would have known there are a limit of 1024 weeks, so let’s simulate what will happen when the obvious takes place and that changes to “0” and codes in an intelligent way to deal with the rollover (it could write data to flash memory when Week Number 999 was encountered, and when Week Number 0 was received by GPS time, look to see if the flag for Week 999 exists, and know that the “new” Week 0 would be the year 2019 and increment from there.

Many GPS manufacturers have their own EPOCH and code it based on the current date the firmware is written to extend the time until an issue regarding the Week Number is encountered. Some of the unusual dates we saw from the Week 999>1000 change was probably due to this.

What I find unusual, however, is that this bug beginning at Week 1000 affected units manufactured by Bosch, Harmon (Harmon/Becker) and others. I have not received any reports of the MCS II units found in the ML, GL, and R class with the dual disc slots behind the display which debuted in the ML in 2006 and was manufactured by Alpine was affected or not.

For those interested, here are some data from the GPS Processor from the NTG3, and although it is compiled and only so much information can be concluded without disassembly or source, it does provide enough to get a glimpse on some of the process the GPS portion of COMAND uses to calculated the Date/Time. Also, a glance at the COMAND NTG3 application code does confirm as most I am sure expected, there is indeed an Engineering Mode on the units. Actuating this is not currently known in the public domain to my knowledge, but due to the keys/hard buttons that the COMAND is receiving data from, it is likely a combination of keys from the Telephone Number Pad, and could be in addition to holding any of the four hard keys in which the two outer ones are shortcuts to NAVI, TEL, RADIO/DISC, and includes the ones such as Massaging/Lumbar Seat. It may even include pressing the Dial button. Even if one guessed the key combination, it is likely you would have to be on the correct COMAND screen in when you pressed them, which makes discovering this more difficult.

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Last edited by Polar Bear; 04-10-2019 at 01:44 AM.
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Old 04-12-2019, 01:06 PM
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I’m currently testing a patch for this glitch,... will see how it all pans out.
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Old 05-18-2019, 01:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Mackhack
I’m currently testing a patch for this glitch,... will see how it all pans out.
Any success?
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Old 05-18-2019, 01:22 PM
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Yes it’s working again with it.
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Old 05-18-2019, 01:26 PM
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Is this something you can productize?
happy to pay for it
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Old 05-18-2019, 02:28 PM
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Officially MBUSA has never been in contact with MB in Germany about this problem. They have simply ignored my many requests to refer this to MB and or Harman. They literally told me they are not going to get this fixed as there is no need for it in their opinion. Therefore I will not release this until I get the official go by Daimler.
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