bstrutton

I was preparing to replace the SD card on a W4400Nex yesterday and generally I will perform the 'restore all settings' prior to doing this. Never had an issue with doing 'restore all settings' but this time it just hung there. And hung. And hung. 30 minutes later I had no option but to turn the car off.

Subsequently when I powered on the radio it displayed the custom jpeg splash screen, stuck there for 30 seconds or so, came up with pioneer loading... Then it just repeated said cycle.

This was booting with the pre-swap SD card that was working prior except for am/fm missing and carplay not pairing or even finding an iphone 13 pro, both of which I was trying to correct w/ new image/card.

Looking for some of the developers to chime in and school me. If the unit gets turned off during that 'restore all settings' does it brick the unit via some memory in the unit separate from the SD card? Any way to recover if that's the case? I've tried burning several new cards in case it corrupted the card but no dice. Still comes up to cycle described above.

Also is there a max size or type of SD for the img ? Most of what I have handy to play with is 128GB microsd cards.

Appreciate any response.

I bought one of the ebay oem copies to replace the failed SD in my W4500nex. Lasted about 4-5 months and now it's doing the same. I'm about ready to give up on W4500 it's so unreliable.

Of the newer Pioneer units, do we know which ones don't have firmware on SD cards or don't have this issue with bootlooping?

Requirements are wireless apple carplay. Nice to have would be Android Auto (wireless). Nav not required as I usually use WAZE for the police alerts.

Any insight would be appreciated.

The ebay copy of oem SD of course was just some no-name sd card, go figure.

Thanks.

You're welcome. I'd be appreciative of a long term report after you've lived with it for a week or two.  Stability? Full functionality? Do you find that the in-built nav messes with accessing apple maps or waze at all with voice commands, etc. My SD card came back to life just after I ordered the AvhtoAvic so I've been holding off. Good luck.

Here is what I received regarding Maestro.. Hope it's helpful.

Hello

After replacing the SD card, the "Device Model" of your radio has changed. Now he's AVIC-W8500NEX

you need to reprogram MRR.
download Weblink Desktop to flash your module
https://www.idatalinkmaestro.com/en

select you car and AVIC-W8500NEX model and specify Device ID: Sbtm002063uc


also you need to change the Device ID in the radio
you must use the same number: Sbtm002063uc

pdf instruction how to change Device iD in radio:
https://mega.nz/file/7AJ2QDoY#2X7Y3WYWXrkw3bmVv2QqCk88nhqtbxa9Vz4K_e1jcc4

My W4500nex worked great with my iPhone 11pro for 2 years. Switched to a 13 pro and nothing but problems with auto reconnect not working. Researching seems to reveal lots of others with this issue. Many say problem is SD card issue and new SD card fixes.

Irritating that no official w4500 firmware for download on pioneer support that I could flash to a quality sd card & be good to go. Rather you have to buy new preflashed junker card off ebay or pacparts.

It just seems a really odd problem to have. My previous W4400 had available firmware. All of the other nex units from low end to high end seem to have firmware available on pioneers site. Pisses me off & think it's quirky that w4500 doesn't.

Just wondering if this is indicative of something larger with w4500 and should bail ?

So wondering if others have tried and/or prefer any other mfg headunit specific to reliable wireless carplay with late iphones (13/14)?

Just trying to figure where to go from here. 

Thanks for the discussion!

Just curious as to what the current OEM version is for this model. I got my stock SD card to start working again & checked and it's 1.0. I don't see any fw upgrades on pioneer's site but find it hard to believe that this far into the lifecycle that it's never had an upgrade.. Is that correct?

Thanks!

Thanks for the very helpful post. Has anyone done this that has a maestro? My maestro rr refuses to communicate correctly (blinking red light, status nOK on communication screen). Tried flashing maestro w/ latest and re-entering serial number. My serial on screen is same as on chassis even after flash of 4400 modified image.

Thanks.

Does avh2avic retain the ability to use maestro rr? I ask because I have a 4500 with bad SD card and I replaced SD with one that I flashed with the 4400 image floating around (modified for resistive touch) and it brought the radio back to life but now maestro rr doesn't talk correctly to it even after re-flashing maestro and making sure that maestro is configured with the serial number. Same SN on label and on-screen so flash didn't seem to affect SN.

If avh2avic does function correctly then maybe I'd be better off paying for that.

Thanks.