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Your displayed MB 2218703891 is not the real MB Number even though it stupidly displays saying it is.
When you print the Merc diagnostic info the MB number for my unit is 2218201426 and you can find it in the list of units supported by the update software. You can find this in the ENG menus
MB number as printed in diagnostics says serial number (which is crap as its not unique). The bottom number in this picture (for your car) is the one can check in the CD's update list of Units supported written in the list below
so it LOOKS like your isn't on the list which is indeed ODD, I wonder if you can contact Polar Bear and check in on his view - EDIT for those following the thread fully - issue was resolved after this post by realising
tidied the list so just the bits that matter and in order
2168200926
2168201026
2168201226
2168202885
2168206885
2168207085
2168207285
2168207885
2168209726
2168209926
2168701226
2218200192
2218200326 2218200392
2218200592 2218200692
2218201226
2218201426
2218207826
2218700191
2218700192
2218700391
2218700591
2218701992
2218706192
Originally Posted by BOTUS
Just looked at the file MAYBE they were not missing....
BOTH MIGHT be there as 221 820 392 and 221 820 692 whereas BOTH missing MB units are 221 870 392 and 221 870 692
WOW !!! I was following this up and realised the other guy in the UK not getting this update to load never bothered to come back and confirm his real MB number. He just did it today and has the same issue as you... the update doesn't list his or your comand unit....
even after going to a main dealer to try and sort the problem he got nowhere ... but now I have his MB number I wonder if it's just a typo on the list of supported units. He has 391 not 392 and the other is 992 when your unit is actually 692
So either be brave open the update as a txt file, edit the file adding yours carefully and save, then attempt to rename the file extension and hope the functionality stays in place - A HUGE RISK I DON'T RECCO... or we try and contact the Polar Bear and ask his advice. At least we have a reason in both cases !!!
Wow, that would certainly be some level of bravery, eh?
The funny thing is, everything seems to work just fine with the car. The clock keeps time. The nav and ETA stuff all works. The date is correct in COMAND as long as it has had time to get a GPS fix and update itself (a cold start and immediate date check yields 2003). So definitely not interested in bricking this over "nothing" but maybe someone braver than I could give that a whirl.
Otherwise, I will hope that BenzNinja can fix me up if/when I finally subscribe to his services and procure a Star/Xentry setup for myself. Surely there is a dealer way of resolving this.
I do feel *slightly* vindicated that I had zero issue downloading, burning and getting into the engineering menu. Clearly I wasn't doing anything wrong.
later satellites do time differently, so beam info the W221 can make sense of - so if your car has regular contact with new satellites it will pull the time and date... but usually within 30 mins it finds another and the date is wrong
If you haven't disconnected the battery the year tends to stay correct - but take the battery off and it will usually only display 2003. The only long term fix is a rewrite of the headunit's Vespucci package, there is nothing else that can cure it
the bug doesn't stop GPS positioning from functioning, the update only cures the lies old satellites now give out about time and dates after a 19 year term rolled back to zero
Hi - I was the one that released this media some time ago in October when it seemed that Daimler was not addressing the issue (and said nothing publicly about anything in the works). Incidentally, they released this exact same media on January 2 a few months after I posted it with a TIPS document to their dealers. The CD media is the exact same - you can MD5 or SHA the image I releases against the one Daimler released and they are bit-for-bit identical.
This makes sense that a dealer encountered the same issue you did, as the dealer is using identical media that you did.
no - the car is old the amount of data transfer back then was considered way past a reliable timely download - so the Xentry system links in monitors what's crashing and just informs the user how to do it... and what CD they need to use. Which it validates before proceeding
re the clock, I got this
The COMAND part numbers that are included in the supported list all have some internal components that are common among them. The others that are not listed were either refurbished units, or units that will not accept the firmware correctly and execute it.
So I guess the remaining question is, can I update the system to one of those supported numbers?
The alternate question goes back to your premise - what happens if I add my number to the CD_INFO file and try? No way to know without trying I suppose.
So I guess the remaining question is, can I update the system to one of those supported numbers?
The alternate question goes back to your premise - what happens if I add my number to the CD_INFO file and try? No way to know without trying I suppose.
It would be clear enough to make that change, and one of three things would happen - the COMAND would continue to refuse to download the GPS time calculation file, the COMAND would accept it and it would fix the date/time issue, or the COMAND would become inoperable. The percentage of risk is unknown
But in the code looks like file hash check so not sure....
NOTE the clock update is NOT the full telematics update - thats 3 hrs the clock is 10 mins
I know this probably seems like apples and oranges but on the Cadillac side of things, when this issue happened, the update would only work if the system had already been updated to use later map DVDs. Actually, I remembered one other thing. My year wasn't explicitly supported (2005) but the Denso engineer said, I don't see why it won't work so give it a try. Worked fine.
Getting back to the original issue - I was never unable to set the clock manually. I don't know if I have just struck the ideal mix of a GPS fix (or not) when I've tried that lets me do it. I do also know that I have version 422 on that screen you showed me and I believe I should have 423.
the UK guy didn't get the risk and tried... and got nowhere ... ..said he couldn't save the changes
if you have the code language compiler would be safest - a guy at work recognised it, but that was 2 years back and I forgot what he said it was. Then of course you create an ISO with CD authoring software
the UK guy didn't get the risk and tried... and got nowhere ... ..said he couldn't save the changes
if you have the code language compiler would be safest - a guy at work recognised it, but that was 2 years back and I forgot what he said it was. Then of course you create an ISO with CD authoring software
Hi
I've unfortunately got a CD changer issue and it won't recognise CD's or DVD's (keeps scanning and then comes up "error"). Can you advise - is the system able to read updates from the PCMCIA card reader (with a CF memory card) below the CD changer, and if so, how? Thanks in advance.
any update to the comand unit can be ONLY an "official Mercedes Update CD" nothing else would be accepted. The Clock fix was a "development" of an official disc and so the car didn't know better - as fas as I know without manu tools there is no other possible way to alter the comand units operating system software - as I expect you can imagine there are lots of checks and balances to achieve this
as for UK bod, I did wonder if he got the whole ISO to a txt file and back again.... I'm not a software engineer, but I fully expect it needs to go back to the original programming language, get an edit and then saved, and then a ISO created
It is possible there are some hidden files that didn't go back into the ISO....
most software is not just text its mad gobbledegook. it only comes to life correctly and can be viewed or changed by using the specific programming language editor it was built with.... so few of us have the tools to open, to see, to improve, to add malicious extras or to steal the code.... all we can do is look break it and potentially damage the device it was designed to operate
whilst rewriting the file extension so your PC tries to open it as a different file type... (and quite frequently even notepad can give a clue about what's there) you can't correctly edit and even open it and close without damaging its functionality...
Maybe that's all it is? Actually I could test it this way. I could make an ISO by simply opening it up, and resaving it. Then I could try it in my car again (without the modified CD_INFO). If everything works exactly the same way, then there is no copy protection or other nonsense. If it says "invalid CD" or something, well, then MB/Denso was playing games for sure.
Here is the new ISO with no changes at all (just opened and resaved). The total size of the files in bytes matches the original exactly, as expected. So maybe it's just compressing it somehow. I will try this. Should be safe, since I'm not tricking it into updating my unit (yet).
Ok so that was good. Car not running, ejected disc 1. Slot 2-6 have discs and I didn't eject them. Inserted my new test disc with just a resaved set of files to make the ISO, but no file changes to CD_INFO. Went into eng menu, selected update, and it did the same thing it did the first time. Briefly opened the disc, probably scanned through all the numbers, and since mine is not one of them, concluded that everything went fine and said update successful. So this is promising. I means I don't think anything funny is going on with copy protection or the ISO file system format. As long as I really think my unit is compatible, it may work just fine. But I don't know enough to say it should work or if I am going to brick it. Any thoughts?
11-28-2021, 12:21 PM
