This forum has been of great help to me, so i figured i'll contribute a bit as well in hope this helps somebody down the line...

Happened out of nowhere. Battery voltage good. Ignition on, no glow plug light, tried to crank, nothing happens. Esp malfunction and visit workshop message pops up in the display. Put on jump starter pack and the car starts fine, no malfunction codes. This was happening more frequent and within 2 weeks i had to hook up the jump starter pack every time in order to start the car. Very frustrating. Eventually it got to the point where the glow plug light wouldn't come on even with the jumper pack... Long story short, turned out to be a faulty ecu. Had it sent out to be repaired, and all is well now and i can continue on my journey of bringing the car to factory like condition and drive the crap out of it...

Happy motoring my fellow enthusiasts

 

I am having the same problem with my ECU. Can you recommend the place of where you sent your ECU for repair?

 

Had my local mb specialist remove the ecu and send it in for repair. They sent it to bluelink diagnostics. Car has never missed a beat since.

 

What process did you go through to finally identify the ECU as being faulty? Did you change anything else on the way, and if so did it make any difference, even for a short while? It's details like this that are really useful.

 

EdKramer: did you get this issue resolved, and if so how?

 

How old are the batteries?

 

I had no crank no start, it was starting sometimes, after I found a relay jump method, worked for some time, after it died completely. Had ecs, abs errors, fan was kicking in. Took apart ECU, checked some elements for obvious problems, resolved most of contacts on those elements that were looking suspicious, but had no luck. Talked to few guys on forums and came to conclusion that ECU is bad. Was contacting different companies in USA on subject of repairs of diesel ECU - most of the companies turned me down. Googled German part of eBay and found there DS electric (electronic) - a company in Austria Vienna, their eBay listing was describing problems that I saw on dash and fan... Sent to them, had troubles to pay for their eBay listing from USA, contacted them, paid by PayPal, he was able to send me my ECU and 2 weeks later my car is running back again. It looks like a regular problem that happens not only with MB, but audi, Renault, BMW...
They only downside is the Austria postal service, you won't be able to track your shipment - it will just appear in your mailbox, mine was delivered by hands.
I'm happy with his service - 250 euro and 30-40 for shipping to USA.
Looks like my ECU is mostly USA only, I tried to find a spare to resolder my eeprom to a donor... No luck or 800+$ price is too much... I recommend to look for Europe shop if you have European car... This company made my car to run again.