Wheel Goes Dead Mid Race - DD1 / Podium GT3 Wheel / Driver 353
My wheel keeps going dead on me mid race. It's happened 4 times now in about 10 hours of racing. The power stays on but it simply disconnects from my PC. No buttons work and of course I crash and lose a ton on IR in iRacing. I'm ready to sell it because I see this is happeneing to a lot of people with no resolve.
I'm using a DD1, Podium Porsche Gt3 wheel
PC driver 353.
Wheel base firmware:670
Motor: 38,
Steering Wheel: 1
Comments
v356 has the same problem. you can use v346 or 347 without BME , wait for new stable firmware
It was my understanding that 353 was needed with the new Podium Porsche wheel. No?
353 is in 911gt3 package1.1, now has package1.2
https://fanatec.com/media/archive/78/37/e1/Button-Module-Endurance-Software-Package-v1-2.zip
Hi Trevor,
I'm sorry to hear that, the mentioned issue surfaced recently and we are currently investigating. Like one mentioned here before it shouldn't crash with 346 but sadly this version has no BME support. I'll write you a PM to ask for some more detailed information that might help us to find the root cause quicker. One problem is that not everyone has it which makes it more difficult to reproduce and solve, so we need any detail on it we can.
Hello Marcel,
just two days ago I received a new DD1 after having in repair (RMA) the previous one purchased in August and I have to communicate and regret that after a few hours of driving the fault was reproduced again, the wheel continues to turn until disconnected and all functions are locked until you disconnect from the power. This makes me think that the fault is either from the steering wheel or the DD1 bases have very little reliability. I will wait a few days to see if the fault will be replayed and how often before contacting technical support again. It is disappointing that a product like this does not have the reliability and stability that is supposed to be. I wanted to comment because I think you would have to look at fixing these problems or the Fanatec brand is going to look very bad...
This is a firmware issue of the beta release, you can try driver 346 and downgrade the firmware, then this should not happen.
Having the same situation and recently purchase the Porsche Podium wheel. Recommendation from fanatec was to downgrade to v347 driver.
reading the above posts, what is BME?
thanks and looking forward to complete resolution but also hoping to not have the wheel die anymore mid-race!
-Colin
Which wheel base are you using?
BME = Button Module Endurance.
I having the same problem with my dd1 I was just on iRacing today doing the NIS bristol fixed race and it froze when i was mid turn. I was on the accelerator and coming out of the turn I ended up alt f4ing so i wouldn't ruin anyone else race cause it went for the inside wall and was about go back on track .
I'm sure I have heard Marcel Pfister say that v347 is not for DD bases, I think it is even stated on the forum post for the v347 driver.
V347 have some issues with force feedback on the Podium DD's. The weird thing is that I had a new base sent to me when my first one was broken, and the new base was installed with base fw v664 and motor fw v34 which I believe is from the v347 driver. I'm still running it and could propably have better force feedback, but I need to create a new forum post to ask what the best beta firmware combination is at the moment for the DD1 PS4, while waiting for a new stable driver/fw combo.
Hola Jacob,
instala los drivers 346 que parecen mucho más estables. De momento mi DD1 funciona bien con este firmware...
Hola Marcel,
I installed version 346 and now it seems that the base works well...
Thanks for everything!
I have the same issue!! I tried all drivers available, the result is always the same finally. Maybe, the problem appears latter with driver 346 than others, but it always ends up happening....
I am waiting the Fanatec support respond me, because they takes more than 48 hours to answer me.
David
Unreal, still happening, still no fix despite Fanatec knowing about it for so long. I can't even quantify how many hours I put in prepping for this event only to have my wheel go dead 3 hours into the race. You can see the moment it happens right here:
So got the same problem, they renewed the f1 wheelrim... but I still got the goddamned random freeze issue.....
This has recently just started as well. Mid race the base loses FFB, doesnt shut off. I need to press the button to enable ffb again. Also their are times when I dont loose ffb but lose all function on button including paddles.
Have two podium hubs one on the porsche, the other on a oval wheel with button clusters. both do the same. disconnects and button function dont work. Nor do paddles.
However input function loss does not occur when I use my v2 wheel.
Only way to get them working again is removing the wheel and attaching it again.
I Notice that input loss mostly only happens when their a significant spike in ffb. Or a quick change in wheel direction.
Hi, here is a package of test firmware against wheel freezes. Let me know of your findings.
Thank you marcel, I will try this out, and get back to you.
Hello Marcel, can you please post the instructions about how to gather the information directly in this thread (instead of by individual PM) so that everybody who experiences this issue can gather the information? This is important because, as you note, the problem is so difficult to reproduce. By the time someone posts here, gets a PM response back how to get the data, the information is usually gone. It would also be very helpful for us to be able to some log information to look at to help understand what is happening.
This just happened with our DD2 in top split of iRacing 24 Hours of Le Mans. We were on pace for a top-5 or podium finish -- then the DD2 wheel went dead on 2nd lap of 6th stint -- car destroyed, team practiced and worked on car setup for weeks, just let the whole team down. To say I'm upset would be the understatement of the year. The wheel was still powered on, the leftmost shift light turned yellow, and the wheel had no steering input, no FFB, no button input. Nothing would work until pulling out the power cord and plugging it back in. We were running 356 firmware, 670 (WB), 38 (WB motor) with a Porsche Podium wheel. I will downgrade the firmware to 346 per the suggestions, but it sounds like Trevor Clement and David Del Cabo are still having the same issues (if I am interpreting their posts correctly that it happens for them with all drivers). At this point, I don't care about features, just point me to the most stable versions of every firmware option that has no issues.
We never had any issues over several years with the prior Club Sport wheelbase. The DD2 has had random dropouts, now this total failure of the wheel (until unplugging power cord and plugging back in). The DD2 issues seem to get worse after upgrading from BMW wheel to Porsche Podium wheel, but that might just be a coincidence. I've bought the top-of-the-line of everything available, there is nothing more I can buy to make it better, I just need a way for it to be reliable. It's one thing to have a failure in a solo event, it's quite another to have a failure in a 24 hour event where everybody spent a ton of time practicing for and on car setup and blocked out the whole weekend for the event.
Hi folks, just wanted to chime in here... I have a DD1 I bought a few weeks back and it has started to show symptoms of the problems described in this thread. Just disconnects mid game and only pulling the power gets things to work again. First noticed it a few days ago in ETS2 which is bad enough, but in an online race situation it must be soul destroying.
Was running driver and firmware v365 but I will go back to v346 and test. I also updated to Windows 10 v2004 a few days back, wondering if that's a coincidence or not ?!
FYI I use BMW GT2 and Formula v2 wheels.
I opened up a support case with Fanatec for DD2 stopping working (see 6/20/20 post in this thread) and random upshift failures (when an upshift fails, it won't upshift no matter how many times you click upshift till you wait half a second). These were both when running the 356 firmware. Fanatec support could not provide any steps for me to gather data for them to analyze the problems. Marcel has indicated in this thread that there is a way to gather information for Fanatec, but he has not responded to either my post in this thread or my PM to him on how to gather data. Support says there is no way to gather data. When the DD2 wheel stopped working, the leftmost Tachometer/Shift yellow LED was lit -- seems like an error code, but support says there are no error codes. So, basically, they don't have any explanation why it happened and there apparently is no way for us to provide them with information that will help them debug it (even though Marcel said clearly in this thread that they need that information from customersj to solve the problem). There is no science in the support of this wheel -- it's not clear how to gather data and support has no information but to try the latest driver -- It is "luck of the draw" on driver and firmware de jour (5 different drivers/firmware levels for DD2 with Porsche Podium Wheel) and no version compatible with Porsche Podum wheels seems to work.
Support recommended upgrading to driver 365 with all associated firmware updates, so now I am running driver 365 with Wheelbase firmware 672, WB Motor 38, Steering Wheel 11, and Podium Hub 2 . The upshift problem was not fixed at all. I suspect the wheel stopping working issue is not fixed either based upon the fact that: 1) It happens with 365 per David Tweddle's post above; 2) There was no science on Fanatec's part in understanding what happened with my wheel stopping working or anybody else's since nobody will NOT tell us how to collect data for them. 3) 365 did not fix the upshift issue, so it likely won't fix the wheel stopping working.
If 346 is better, that is no help to me because I can't run 346 with the Porsche Podium wheel because then none of the buttons work (BME).
I've been a strong advocate for Fanatec for years and had no issue with my CSW and BMW rim. The DD2 and Porsche Podium Wheel have been trouble with a total lack of effective support and a sea of different firmware levels and drivers that fix nothing and make problems worse (I had fewer issues on older firmware with the BMW wheel). I won't even mention what I went through with Fanalab, which was a disaster (now I uninstalled it and just don't use the LCD on the podium wheel). This is supposed to be top-of-the-line equipment meant for pro-level racing (where many of us have money or important races on the line) and Fanatec is supporting it like an Xbox game controller. Word-of-mouth is going to hurt Fanatec badly because there is no excuse for paying $2000+ for a wheel that is unreliable and that has no effective support.
I went back to v346 which worked okay but wasn't keen on it as some of the effects introduced later were obviously missing, and the wheel FFB didn't feel nearly as good. Sooo... I tried v356 again and have thus far not experienced any disconnections. I will give it a few days and try v365 again, which was previously working fine for weeks before the funny disconnection business started.
If there was a diagnostic tool that could be run in the background to capture these kinds of issues, that would help a great deal.
Exactly David!!!! It is VERY difficult to reproduce -- but produces catastrophic results when it happens. The Fanatec support person said it is probably more likely to happen under load with a lot of users online -- so it happens at the WORST possible time. For my case, it was fine for 3 weeks of practice then broke on the 2nd lap of my first stint in the 24 Hours of Le Mans (totalling our car and ruining our race 6 hourse into it). All important races have "splits" that create a full grid and, for endurance races, there are many drivers signed in for each team for spotting, etc. Again , this ruined a race for a team of 4 drivers who spent weeks prepping for it -- dead at 6 hours, 2nd lap of my first stint due to DD2 failure (the far cheaper wheels of teammates had no issues at all).
I'm doubtful 356 will fix it for you since that's the version I was running when it failed at Le Mans 24. I doubt the 365 I have loaded now will fix it, since you had the same issue with 365. The fact that either of us can run 356 or 365 for weeks without the wheel going dead proves nothing because the failures are rare, but they happen at the worst time (likely caused by heavy load). Probably will happen again in next race with splits that has full grid.
DEAR FANATEC - WE NEED A WAY TO CAPTURE DATA SO THAT YOU CAN FIX THIS -- IT IS VERY, VERY HARD TO REPRODUCE -- IT WILL BE FINE FOR WEEKS THEN DIE IN THE MOST CRITICAL RACES.
Had the wheel stop working on my DD2 again tonight, this time with 365 driver (and all recommended associated firmware for Porsche Podium wheel). This confirms David's experience that the problem was not fixed with 365 (and previously it happened for me on 356). The wheel stopped working completely while driving. This time I was just doing solo laps at Mosport, which is a track that does not present a lot of load in iRacing). This shows it can happen in low load (solo Mosport) or high load (full grid at Le Mans).
Here are a few more details: when it happens the wheel and buttons stop working completely and pressing or holding the power button on the DD2 does nothing -- the only way to reset it is to unplug the power brick and then plug back in. When the wheel stops working, the shift LED's freeze on whatever RPM the car was at when it stopped working (before I thought that might be an error code, but it looks like it is just a freeze of the RPM at the time of the issue). To try to debug it while it was broken, I pulled up the Fanatec Wheel Property page, it showed the firmware still there, then when I went to the function test page and it just froze.
It seems like the DD2 is not communicating with anything at all when it stops working -- the wheel doesn't work, buttons don't work, FFB doesn't work, RPM LED's freeze at the point it breaks, the Wheel Property program can't communicate with it, and even the physical power button can't communicate with the DD2. It is very difficult to recreate this problem -- I wish there was a way to send diagnostic info to Fanatec, but still have no information how to do that despite repeated requests.
Yes, this is the well known Freezing Issue of all newer drivers since 352.
In the driver 365 feedback thread on page 20 Marcel uploaded some new test firmwares which should fix the freezes.
Please give it a try.
Thank you. Can you point me to where the 365 feedback thread is? I searched, but don't see it. Thanks very much for your help.
Ehm... The same thread where you also somehow managed to download driver 365 ;)
https://forum.fanatec.com/discussion/1777/fanatec-beta-driver-v361-now-v365-for-csl-csw-and-podium-bases-all-wheels/p20
Thanks very much for the link. I received the 365 link from the individual case I have open with Fanatec but didn't notice it was in the "beta" subforum instead of the "wheelbase" subforum (I'm new to the forum). There are 3 files in Marcel's freeze fix package link, but it looks like only one is relevant to my DD2/Podium wheel -- the steering wheel firmware (which is now 12 from being 11 previously). I will give it a try. For the record, I am now running: driver 365, Wheelbase firmware 672, WB Motor 38, Steering Wheel 11, and Podium Hub 2 .
Would you happen to know if there is any data that can be gathered in the event of the freeze error? I looked at the files in :C:\Users\Public\Fanatec Logs" but don't see anything that actively logs errors. Thanks again for your help..
iRacing 24 hours of Spa is coming up on July 10th. I cannot go through the same issue as 24 hours of Le Mans where my entire team effort was ruined by a crash from the DD2 freeze issue (fortunately did not take anyone else out when car wouldn't steer at all).
David -- maybe you can try 365 with the "steering wheel firmware" version 12 that Marcel posted May 19th in this thread (or on page 20 of the 365 Beta thread -- I think they are the same) that is intended to fix the freeze issue. I am running it now with 365 and there are no issue with it (feels the same as 11). Only time will tell if it fixes it. I only see the problem every several weeks, so really hard to know if it's better, but maybe with both of us testing we will have a better idea of whether the freeze problem is fixed.
If anybody else had the freeze problem and found that version 12 fixed it, it would be great if you can share your experiences.
Hi Peter, although I do have an f1 v2 rim, I was using the basic BMW GT2 rim when the freezes happened, so those test firmware will not help my own particular case. This lack of commonality suggests an issue with the DD1/DD2 base firmware surely?