bimmerz box

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Troubleshooting ​

When the box won't behave, walk down this list in order. Most problems are in the first three rows.

Dongle doesn't power up ​

Symptoms: no LED, the Wi-Fi network never appears.

  • Check the OBD-II cable seating — the connector needs to be fully home. Some OBD-II receptacles are recessed behind a trim flap; the dongle has to push past it.
  • Verify pin 16 (battery +12 V) on the car-side connector with a multimeter. Should read 11.5–13 V regardless of ignition state on every BMW from E36 onward.
  • Some cars (e.g. E60 / E83 with very low SOC) drop pin 16 below the dongle's brownout threshold (~8 V). Charge the car battery or jump-start before retry.
  • DIY build: check the 12 V → 3.3 V buck is producing 3.3 V on TP_3V3 (probe pad near the regulator). Most likely culprit is a cold solder joint on the inductor or a reversed input cap.

Wi-Fi network doesn't appear ​

Symptoms: dongle powers up (LED on) but BimmerzBox isn't in your Wi-Fi list.

  • Wait 8 seconds after power-on. The ESP32-C6 co-processor needs to initialise via SDIO before the AP comes up.
  • Restart Wi-Fi scanning on your device. Some phones cache results.
  • If you've previously joined and changed credentials, your device may be remembering an old SSID. "Forget this network" and rescan.
  • If still missing: connect the dongle to a computer via USB, run idf.py monitor and look for wifi_ap: AP up on SSID "BimmerzBox" in the boot log. No such line → the C6 link failed to come up. See ESP-Hosted version pinning below.

Captive portal doesn't show ​

Symptoms: Wi-Fi connects but no welcome screen pops up.

  • Open a browser manually and visit http://172.16.7.1/welcome. If it loads, tap OK, got it, then Cancel the OS sheet — same effect.
  • On some Android versions the captive notification is silent. Pull down the notification shade — there's usually a "Sign in to network" entry.
  • iOS occasionally caches a previous portal-accepted state. Forget the network and re-join.

ECU doesn't respond ​

Symptoms: EDIABASX loads, you pick an SGBD and a job, hit Run, and the request times out or returns EDXN_ERR_TRANSPORT (code 8).

  • Ignition. Most ECUs only respond with ignition in position 2. Some only respond when the engine is running. Cycle the key.
  • Wrong SGBD. Different chassis / model years use different variants. If MS420DS0 doesn't respond, try MS430DS0, MSS54DS0, etc. The group file (d_motor.grp) auto-resolves for engine ECUs.
  • K-line vs CAN. Older ECUs (E36/E38/E39 and most E46 non-M) are K-line at 9600 8E1 DS2. E46 M3 / E60 / E83 and later are often K-line KWP2000 at 10400 8N1 or CAN. The SGBD knows which — the dongle picks it up automatically.
  • /rpc/uart/0 held by another app. If a flasher or sniffer has claimed the K-line directly, EDIABASX returns EDXN_ERR_TRANSPORT cleanly rather than stomping the bus. Close the other tab.

Apps load but show "Server disconnected" ​

Symptoms: dashboard appears, but EDIABASX / INPAX show a "WS disconnected" indicator.

  • The HTTP server is up (dashboard renders) but the WebSocket upgrade failed. Refresh the page — most browsers retry the upgrade on reload.
  • If a refresh doesn't fix it: visit /admin/ → Restart. Common cause is the dongle's heap fragmenting after a long uptime; a restart clears it.

Getting logs out ​

When you're stuck, the dongle's serial console is the source of truth. Connect a USB cable, then on your computer:

sh
# ESP-IDF toolchain installed
idf.py -p /dev/cu.usbmodem... monitor

# Or any serial terminal
screen /dev/cu.usbmodem... 115200

Hit RESET on the dongle. You'll see the full boot sequence and any later runtime warnings. Copy-paste the relevant lines into a GitHub issue.

ESP-Hosted issues ​

Symptoms: C6 link fails, no Wi-Fi.

The firmware pins espressif/esp_hosted to ^1.4.0 deliberately — 2.x crashed on the Waveshare DEV-KIT with a NULL queue assertion at boot. If you've manually bumped the version, revert to 1.4.x.

More help ​

Part of the bimmerz family. Open hardware & firmware (MIT).

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