Server Error 500 sees some Tesla drivers locked out of their MuskMobiles
- Reference: 1637539087
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/11/21/tesla_server_error_500_lockout/
- Source link:
Teslas don't use conventional keys. Instead they require the presence of a fob, key card, or authenticated mobile phone app that links to the electric vehicles over Bluetooth. This is apparently easier and/or more convenient than a key, or something. Heck, everything's better with Bluetooth, right?
Drivers that use the app to start their cars reported it couldn't do the job and instead produced an error message.
I’m experiencing 500 server error to connect my [1]@tesla Model 3 on my iOS app in Seoul, S.Korea. Seems like this is a worldwide issue. [2]@elonmusk — Jaehwan Cho 조재환 (@hohocho) [3]November 19, 2021
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk personally replied to the above tweet, with the following information:
Should be coming back online now. Looks like we may have accidentally increased verbosity of network traffic.
Apologies, we will take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) [4]November 20, 2021
Measures like, maybe, letting people open their cars with keys? Just a suggestion.
Tesla appears not to have made any other public statement about the incident. The company put its support forums behind a regwall earlier in 2021 and owning a MuskMobile is a requirement for entry. Your correspondent is therefore unable to explore any official missives. Tesla's Twitter account is silent on the matter and the electric car biz doesn't bother with Facebook. The exact nature of the outage is therefore hard to divine.
[5]
Which leaves us trying to guess at what a combination of Server Error 500 and "increased network verbosity" might mean.
[6]
[7]
One clue us that The Tesla app was updated on November 18, to version [8]4.3.0 on iOS and [9]4.2.3-742 on Android.
Outage-tracking site downdetector.com [10]recorded outages on Saturday – a couple of days after the app updates dropped – and The Register can find no reports of bricked MuskMobiles immediately following the app upgrade. It looks like the app is off the hook as the source of network verbosity.
[11]Tesla slams into reverse, pulls latest beta of Full Self-Driving software from participating car owners
[12]Truck, sweet truck: Volvo's Chinese owner unveils methanol/electric truck with bathroom and kitchen
[13]US road safety watchdog decides against probe into Tesla battery fires
Error 500, defined by [14]the World Wide Web Consortium as an Internal Server Error, produces the error message "The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request."
Might Musk's Tweet therefore suggest that something related to Tesla's authentication of app users was tweaked to be more verbose and effectively DDOSed Tesla's own infrastructure? We can only speculate.
[15]
Whatever the cause, it was swiftly fixed. Downdetector's report indicates outages ended after around four hours, leaving drivers back behind their electrified wheels and the rest of us wondering if CEOs responding to tweets is the new best practice for tech support. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/Tesla?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[3] https://twitter.com/hohocho/status/1461806946978258955?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[4] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1461879721797603331?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YZskAST8vfam3KFim3ZnLAAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZskAST8vfam3KFim3ZnLAAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YZskAST8vfam3KFim3ZnLAAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://apps.apple.com/au/app/tesla/id582007913
[9] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslamotors.tesla
[10] https://downdetector.com/status/tesla/news/428248-problems-at-tesla/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/tesla_fsd/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/09/homtruck/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/05/nhtsa_tesla_battery/
[14] https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YZskAST8vfam3KFim3ZnLAAAAM8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Internet dependency
IMHO having as a requirement for vehicle entry, access to a server somewhere in the Internet, is one of those things that, just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done.
Re: Internet dependency
I have to wonder what the hell do you do w/o a connection? There's plenty of places locally I know of that still don't have any because they're way out in rural farmland.
And what if you have a grid blackout, and you need to get in your car for safety? "Oh I'm sorry, I can't connect to a server" doesn't cut it.
To be fair to Tesla, I haven’t opened a car with a physical key since the 1990s. It may not be Bluetooth but car keys haven’t been a thing for many of us for maybe 30 years. OK, it might not be an app or Bluetooth, but it’s been opened by a battery powered fob and a rather low tech piece of security over a low power radio signal for longer than I can remember.
Physical key
With or without an electronic fob, a metal key doesn’t require a network connection.
Re: Physical key
@Winkypop "With or without an electronic fob, a metal key doesn’t require a network connection."
Neither does the keycard that comes with the Tesla.
Whether a car comes with a metal key or a keycard makes no difference. Either type of key is all that is needed to unlock the car. I am sure that keycards could go wrong and fail but so can metal keys they can become worn or snap in the lock.
I bet your fob comes with a key...
MuskWorld
Teslas have had many problems because they were designed quickly and things weren't thought through. Tis is one of them.
In MuskWorld, everything works as it is meant to. Server outages are never considered because Elon knows they don't happen. The normal solution that every electronically unlocking car I've ever owned or rented had - a physical key hidden in the fob - was never considered because it would never be needed.
Elon is not the only one. Last month in ZuckWorld they knew employees could not possibly be locked out of the campus or FarceBook internal systems because the server would never go down.
In this brave new cloudy world, IRL has no meaning.
Don't rule out the app update
From the BBC report https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59357306
"Professor David Bailey from the Birmingham Business School has written extensively on the automotive industry. He also drives a Tesla and experienced the outage on Friday."
And
"About 500 users reported an error on the app at around 16:40 ET (21:40 GMT) on Friday, according to the outage tracking site DownDetector."
So app update released 18/11/21 error reported 19/11/21.
For the record...
You can always unlock the car with the key card they give you, without an internet connection and with your phone battery dead. Even with a phone, you can unlock and start the car without an internet connection (with Bluetooth) so long as you've previously authenticated the phone to the car properly (which requires both an internet connection _and_ physical presence with the aforementioned key card). What you can't do is control the car from outside Bluetooth range, or use some of the more "advanced" control modes available with the app, such as having your car drive itself through the parking lot to where you're standing (handy when it's raining, though I'd definitely pay attention to the admonishment to only use that feature when you have an unbroken line of sight to the vehicle), or to e.g. adjust the charging limits.
Re: For the record...
Sounds complicated. Wouldn't it be cool if someone invented the "key"?
Re: For the record...
Correct. I noticed this outage because my TWC Manager couldn’t access the car API to turn on charging and the app showed the 500 error. However, despite what the various claims are, I was always able to walk up to the car, unlock it and start it using the app. I was not locked out and the car was not useless. I just couldn’t access it from the phone app itself. No way would I go back to the Stone Age of having a key hole and worse, having to actually turn a key or press a button to start the car.
Tesla
It’s a cult for some
So, every time some poor sod wants to get into his or her tesla, Melon Usk gets notified? True, you probably don't buy them out of concern for your privacy.
Well they did one thing right...
'the electric car biz doesn't bother with Facebook'
I'm happy they don't use FB but I do wish companies would offer proper support channels, relying on FB (or other 'social' media) is useless to me for obvious reasons.
And hiding behind a regwall (that sounds like me being blocked from this site) isn't great.
My key fob has a 'hidden' key in it, the fob is a comfortable size so no compromise there.