[walsh]

So I got in m car yesterday and everything seemed fine. Radio turned on and everything, after about a minute there was no sound so i thought maybe the station got cut off. So i tried a different station but still no sound. Then tried the cd player, no sounds here either. Next thing i know I get an SOS malfunction alert. Tried plugging in my ipod and it didn't recognize that either. It also wouldn't connect to my phone via bluetooth like it always does. Does anyone know what would cause this. I did a bunch of searching and found some people saying it might be a TCU, not sure what it stand for, but didn't see any definite answers or anyone saying they got the problem solved.

I tried restarting the car a bunch of times, letting it sit over night, hoping it might fix itself, funny how often that happens with electronics, but nothing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have a 7 hour drive coming up soon and no music for 7 hours would be horrible.

[GMWNashville]

could be anything on the most bus system-anything audio related(radio, sat radio, amp, cd changer, ipod, etc) or TCU...

[jopa489]

Get it to the dealer before your trip if it doesn't fix itself. You'll never troubleshoot the electronics in these cars yourself, unless you really know your stuff.

On such a new car, they should be bending over backwards to fix this for you.

[vadim]

Originally Posted by bwalshy99

So I got in m car yesterday and everything seemed fine. Radio turned on and everything, after about a minute there was no sound so i thought maybe the station got cut off. So i tried a different station but still no sound. Then tried the cd player, no sounds here either. Next thing i know I get an SOS malfunction alert. Tried plugging in my ipod and it didn't recognize that either. It also wouldn't connect to my phone via bluetooth like it always does. Does anyone know what would cause this. I did a bunch of searching and found some people saying it might be a TCU, not sure what it stand for, but didn't see any definite answers or anyone saying they got the problem solved.

I tried restarting the car a bunch of times, letting it sit over night, hoping it might fix itself, funny how often that happens with electronics, but nothing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have a 7 hour drive coming up soon and no music for 7 hours would be horrible.

I experienced *exactly* the same just over a week ago. Drove to a grocery store - the radio was fine, playing tunes off a USB stick; I was on the phone over BT for almost 10 minutes before I arrived at the store's parking lot. Shut the car down; went to the store, came back - boom! SOS malfunction, no USB, no BT, no sound. Tried shutting the car off and on a few times - no go. Upset, drove to another store; shut the car down, got in the store, came out, started the car - boom! All back to normal. Has been good since.

I did find some info on this being caused by an "incompatible BT phone", but this is hardly the case as mine had been working fine for almost 1.5 years since new (full BT functionality and no issues whatsoever). Oddly, the glitch showed up a few weeks after I got the car from being serviced at the dealer, during which they upgraded BT.

[DocYahoo]

This used to happen about once a month in my 07 335. I have always ignored it since the iDrive will reboot itself after about 20 minutes and everything will be fine again. Before my warranty expired, I took it in to have it looked at and they ended up replacing the CCC. Just make sure you bring it in shortly after the problem occurs otherwise they may not find the fault code (I have actually mentioned the problem before during an oil change but they couldn't find the fault code).

[sanhegs]

I have 09 328i w/iDrive, Ipod and USB in glove box and noticed SOS malfunction 1st time a few months back. I was using a unlocked Nokia E71 BT phone. I was talking on my car BT connected to my e71 when I suddenly got disconnected, iDrive rebooted etc and got SOS malfunction. Nothing worked after that associated with iDrive, nav, Radio, CD, etc. etc. etc.
Took it to Stevens Crk dealer who kept the car till evening and while returning back my car fixed, I was told that I was using an "Un approved bt phone" which blow a fuse in its circuitry. I was warned of not using that phone otherwise it will not be covered under warranty. SO, now I use a sony ericssion w350i after finding it on their approved list of phone on bmw usa website. I haven't seen SOS problem since then.

BUT, the nightmare of iDrive hasn't left me. I converted all my music CD to aac format at 400 kbps or so. Uploaded them in the car hard drive. When I play music through the hard drive, each and every time I am in the car, iDrive reboots on me with a loud noise. After rebooting itself, it remembers the last song from previous reboot (not the song which was played before the noise).

SO, I uploaded a small bunch of same music on my sandisk cruser 4GB and is plugged into my armrest compartment. Interestingly, I still see iDrive rebooting on me but less frequently.

I have to take it to the dealer next week ( this time mtn view dealer where I bought my car... some how, Stevens crk dealer service people weren't friendly). I'll post updates soon.

Has anyone seen this?
things to note:
Regarding music: aac (m4a) is an approved format to play. HOWEVER, there is no mention on bit rate of this file. Obviously, a larger file is likely to be culprit. If I use lower bit rate, 128 or so, it *might* work just fine. I haven't tried that yet since it defeats the whole purpose of having upgraded audio system.

[hyeline335]

I dont know what it is...most likely blew a fuse. Let me know if you know anything!

[E92oreo]

I have the same issue now on my 06 e90 330xi. Any insight would be greatly appreciated

[ctuna]

Most common problem is the amp getting wet.
There are usually batches of this reported after bad weather.
Trunk seals , Sunroof drains , and rear light seals are usually the
way the water gets in .

Next is the bluetooth phone Sos module failing.

Any Module attached to the Most Bus can cause this failure.

[jezzy]

Sounds like a TCU module failure.

[tenxaday]

I had this problem as well. My problem was some water leaking in the fuse area and it blew the TCU fuse. They ended up bypassing the TCU or something. SOS light comes on when I start the car but the Audio Works no BT though. I have to look at the paperwork in the car. I got lucky and did not have to replace the TCU

[papajetta]

Its crazy how they can lean on , not using an approved phone, to wash their hands of a problem. How could a non approved phone bring down an entire network?.... Sounds like its something involving the MOST ring as all devices on the ring are being brought down at the same time. If anyone's is interested in self diagnosing, there is a most loop-around connector on the drivers side kick panel, that is connected to a MOST diagnostic port. You can't use this one as it is needed there, but you can either buy one or borrow one to isolate a potential module that will bring down the network.

[adeelfaizi]

hi papajetta, can yo help me more with this issue. Ihave SOS malfunction on my 2008 m6.

[Isaiah5411]

This happened to me when I tried to connect my sub amp improperly. It was simply a blown fuse.

But...in my research, I found this:

This problem generally means there is something wrong with the MOST bus, here are the possibilities:

"1) One of the unit on most bus is dead/non responsive

a) Check BT unit, its most connection, its power connection, its fuse.
b) Check L7 unit for the same as above
c) Check CDC unit for the same as above
d) Check HUD for E6x for the same as above
e) Check any other fibre optic connected device like TV,DVD changer etc for the same as above

2) Open most bus connection

If MOST port is left opened, e.g. the port for OPS (in the glovebox) somehow become loose and its connector came off, very rare but possible.

3) Broken/twisted most bus fibre optic wire

Super rare but possible, if problem appeared after recent change/retrofit then look for twisted/damaged fibre optic wire

Problem will be among these possible situation. Generally I have seen if power is disturbed to a most unit then it simply breaks the most ring and you get this problem. To isolate it you need to buy most bypass part from dealer and you can individually bypass each component to see if problem is due to that unit. Isolate and identify is the key to work on ring topology network."

[CoralRedGuy]

This has happen to me. Two weeks ago the audio went away. My guy said its my amp. But all threads that I read online say it can be anything.