Firmware Update?

The head unit in my 2017 4R has become possessed. It started out sporadically rebooting itself while driving. Now it will shut off and does not reboot. This has gotten worse over the last week. Has anyone downloaded the firmware to a thumb drive and attempted the update? Are there any other troubleshooting ideas out there. I’ve checked the fuses and everything looks good. It’s gotten to where it now shuts down and the screen turns gray and won’t even reboot. It’s so frustrating! Please tell me there’s hope…

 

I have had the firmware updated on both, my 2015 Tacoma and 2019 4Runner - by Toyota. It will fix the issues you are having. I just have not done it myself. Mine were accomplished while still under warranty.

 

That’s somewhat encouraging. Mine is not under warranty, so I’m afraid what Toyota will charge for the update. I’m going to try to update it myself first. Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

I had issues with constant rebooting while driving. The update cured the problem.

 

I updated my 2021 4Runner myself without too much confusion.

 

This video has the link to firmware update site and show how to update firmware. For 2017 there is a fix for "Reboot after coming out of Reverse". May be it will fix your problem as well. If not may be take to dealership.

https://youtu.be/TDVv2CDMcrU

 

@kmeeg thanks for your helpful video. I'm experiencing intermittent freeze-ups/reboots on my head unit so I followed the steps in your video. When I get to the step of updating the firmware from the USB drive, I receive a message, "Requires Active Subscription". Did I miss something?

 

That's strange. I did not get anything like that and don't know of any subscription needed for a software update. I trust you formatted the USB drive, then downloaded the firmware like below and went to the headunit menu General settings -> Software Update?

 

Yes, I did. Going to try a different flash drive but I don’t have one on hand.

 

@kmeeg I finally got a new flash drive and gave this another try this afternoon--your video was great and it worked like a charm. Thanks again for all the helpful tips you post in this forum and elsewhere!

 

That is awesome to hear that is worked..

 

Was there anything special about the flash drive you just got versus the old one?

 

The original flash drive I tried was an old cheap freebie I had lying around; I picked up a new SanDisk 128GB USB 3.1 drive for $14 and it worked just fine. I’m guessing read/write speed was the issue—old slow drives can’t transfer data fast enough to satisfy modern impatient electronics.

 

It could be that. Or - the good flash drives actually have the memory that it says it has (128GB), and not a cheap trick (software compaction or something) to make it seem like it has, such as 128GB by software when actually 64GB is what it has. And so the checksum doesn't actually come out right.