Ghost in the machine - AVH-4100NEX issues

[e4nash]

So it seems like ever since I got this radio back in July from Best Buy it has been VERY buggy. Sometimes the deck won't power on for a minute or 2. Sometimes Apple Car Play just has some weird behavior, dropping the connection to the phone, screen locking up or being misrepresented. But the weirdest thing happened about a week ago. Touch screen became non responsive and faceplate would open and close by itself. The mute button would open the faceplate. Also the radio changed channels by itself as well as changed the volume all the way up and you could not stop it. I re-installed the firmware 1.03 to see if that would resolve the issue but unfortunately it didn't. The faceplate will still open by itself or the buttons will not perform their specific action. Seems to be intermittent. Called Pioneer they asked if anything was plugged into or touching the W/R port on the back of the unit. There wasn't but I checked anyway to confirm and there still wasn't. They suggested that I put electrical tape on the port because the symptoms that I'm describing are usually the result of something coming in contact with that port. Well, I was skeptical and did it and just like I thought the problem remained. They said if the issue remains that I'd need to send it to them for repair. Has anyone else experienced these issues? I saw another thread about the powering on problem. Really disappointed with this radio right now. I hate that the faceplate is detachable. I think that has really cheapened it. I have AVH-4200DVD that I've had since 2010 and it doesn't have the detachable face and it seems to not feel as cheap as the 4100-NEX. Anytime you push something on the faceplate of the 4100 it squeaks or moves and just feels cheap to me....but I digress...

[MrEos]

OK... I'll admit this is a long shot ... did the neighbor kid steal your remote control? I can't remember where I put mine - maybe yours is getting buttons pushed in the glove box.

 

Edit to add - Carplay was buggy for me too. Most recent updates seemed to have made it stable - at least I haven't had the weird reboots and freezes lately.

[jmpage2]

I have had similar but slightly different problems with our NEX4100 installed in June.  Ours will sometimes take 1-2 minutes to boot up.  The screen is simply black and none of the keys work.  1-2 minutes later the splash screen comes on and it is booting.  We have also had some weird carplay behavior which has improved somewhat with the newest releases of iOS 9.1.  We've tried a full reset of the unit but it didn't resolve any of the issues.

 

Our local shop insists that the deck should never take 1-2 minutes to start powering up and have recommended replacement of the radio. Unfortunately the NEX-4100 is on backorder for them and has been for the past 3-4 weeks.

 

If they don't get any NEX-4100 units in stock in the next couple of weeks they have offered to swap it out with a different radio, such as a comparable Kenwood model.