Alright, so I finally got my Avic-F90BT to boot back up and back to normal. I had the problem that a lot of other people have been having lately, and that problem is the one where the unit boots to the splash screen, goes black, and the illumi-buttons go off. Then it re-boots and does that over and over again. Here is a simple, anti-fancy guide as to how I fixed my problem.

**[WARNING].

Step-by-step:

1] Copy the firmware 2.0 update to your SD card, as if you had an old firmware version and you were updating it to the 2.0 version. All this does is stabilizes the unit and keeps the screen lit-up allowing you to enter test-mode.

[Download can be found here

2a] Pop your SD card back into your computer, delete the 2.0 update, and copy testmode onto your SD card. [A guide to using testmode can be found here

2b] Copy a back up copy of myflashdisk to that same sd card. NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT VERSION OF THE FILES. (i.e., if you have a F90BT...only the F90BT files will work, F900BT on the F900BT, and the F700BT on the F700BT. That was my problem on getting mine fixed)

--F90BT Back-up files can be found here

--F900BT [anyone have a link to these files???]

--F700BT [anyone have a link to these files???]

3a] Now that you have your appropriate back-up files and the testmode files on your sd card, put the sd card in your AVIC, and start your car. Go into testmode like you always have, and first and for most...make sure ALL the back-up files are on your SD card. [i take no responsibility if they are not and your mess your unit up]

3b] Open "myflashdisk" inside the file explorer on your AVIC, click Edit>Options, and uncheck all 3 of those boxes allowing all files to be seen. Hit ok. No Click Edit>Select All, then click File>Delete. Click "yes to all" if it pops up, and allow it to delete all files. This can take a few minutes. After this is finished, ensure there is no files left in "myflashdisk". If there is, delete them one by one til they are all gone.

4] Go back a screen, and open your SD card. Move the "Testmode" and the "MiTACAP" folders out of the way by click and dragging them, and select all the other files. Click Edit>Copy. Go back, and open "myflashdisk" once again. Click Edit>Paste. Allow all those files to copy over, which can take 10+ minutes.

5] Once that is done copying over, Ensure there is the same amount of files/folders in "myflashdrive", as there is on your sd card [there should be 2 additional folders on your sd card, those are your testmode folders]. close File explorer just to ensure all is done.

6] Turn your car off, remove the sd card, start the car back up. Your AVIC should boot-up like the day you had it installed. You will loose your contacts, saved info, and all that...but you have a working $600-1000 radio again.

**[WARNING].

If you have any questions, problems, comments, whatever...post and I will see what I can do.

Thanks.

ALL THIS ISNT EVEN NECESSARY

Just got off the phone with pioneer who told me that this problem occurs because the unit is bypassed, which it is. They said it would have to be wired correctly to fix the issue. I refuse to accept that. I was able to fix my unit myself. It would show the splash screen for about 10 seconds then go to a black screen. After the black screen was up for about 45 seconds i would have to press the map button and then the screen would show. Not the end of the world but annoying none the less.

It turns out the problem is in the backup camera setting (i have no backup camera connected). Go into settings>system settings>backup camera

both buttons will appear unselected. push the off button, back out of the settings screen, and try turning the car on and off. Unit should reboot normally.

This worked for me hope it works for you too.

i have no backup camera connected.

Do you have the backup wire connected?

success for me. thank you!

matt1212, that fix didn't work for me. I have no back up camera, and the reverse wire isn't hooked up. I pulled the unit out, removed the yellow wire [by-pass] and hooked it up properly, and it never fixed anything. Pushing the buttons made no sound, and did not keep the screen on.

What I did, worked for me. Mines fixed, so I'm glad.

I can't get past step one....Even with the update SD card in the unit won't stay on. It lights the buttons for about 10 seconds and then shuts down. I can hear the fan running but that is about it.

I just bought the Scion XB & it had came with the Pioneer Avic F900BT. I have had the car for a few weeks now & just had the XM tuner installed. Everything has been installed properly...but now I had the screen go black & not turn on. So, I tried to install the 2.0 firmware but when it is almost finished, I get an error message that reads, [Error Code = 18 message = 'mabe disk space is sizefull']. I cannot get past that section. However, now my system is rebooting as mentioned in this thread. So, I was going to try the test mode solution. But, I don't think I have the back up files. Can I just use the files from the update? What should I do?

Thanks to tycoonbob for the instructions and minifreezer for posting the necessary backup files!

I had the reboot issue mentioned above on my f90 and everything is working fine now.

For those having problems getting into testmode because your unit keeps rebooting before recognizing the SD card:

I pressed the RESET and eject buttind at the same time, then let go of the reset and keep holding eject for a few more seconds. You will notice that the led's start to "breathe". I guess that's some type of safemode reboot? Not really sure what it is or where I read to do it, but it works and allows the unit to reboot for testmode access.

Best solution for me....take the car back to the dealer & have them take care of it! It worked...I got a whole new system & they told me that it was a short that caused it. No matter...it works & I love it!

Does anyone know how to back up the system? How do I save the custom screen at start up?

I have the avic f900bt with the 2.0 firmware update. Unit worked great for first couple months, then one morning decided to show exact same problem. Unit would light up and show splash screen then black out. Tried the reset button but nothing seemed to work. Read the post for reinstalling the firmware update and was just about to attempt all of that but thought would try one last thing first. I started it up, same thing.. went to the black screen, after it was in this screen i pressed and held the reset button at the same time as the eject button for 5 seconds and ...presto she was working again. Not sure what this did, but tried all aspects and seems to be working fine again... Lets hope it stays that way!!!

i was wondering if anybody can help me, iv done this and its kind of working although the splash screen dosnt come on and i have to press the menu button to view the home screen, then one the home screen only the contacts button works all the others allow me to press them and acknowledge they have been pressed but dont seem to be linked to anything i have deleted all the information twice and its still not working. i used the "F-Series F90BT Backup Files" that are on this site they are around 1.6gb

but im not sure what the file structure is, there dosnt seem to be as many files from when i saw the original set of files before it broke

any help will be great or any ideas

thanks

Add me to this list, experienced the same problem last night on my f700 and now the unit is useless. I tried reinstalling the 2.0 update, but it only makes it to 37% than gives error 18 (something about being out of memory). But now at least it will freeze at the splash screen and if I push the map button it will drop me into the brightness settings, and i can move around from there, but nothing actually works. Does anyone have a f700bt backup they can send me so i can try fixing this thing. I can setup a ftp if necessary if you email me at [email protected]. I'm really avoiding having to send this thing back to pioneer for repair.

can anybody help im really stuck, i have used these files and it has worked thanks, but all i can press is the settings buttons, which then all i can press inside there is system settings not the av sound or av button

the screen registers the presses and changes the images as if they have been touched but dosnt bring up the next page, ie if i press the av button on the main menu it dosnt bring up the page to select what AV i want and that is the same on all the buttons im not sure what controls this any help would be great

thanks again

Thanks to another gsxr for the f700bt files, unfortunately It appears the flash drive has been corrupted with 200+ un-deletable files that are using up the space necessary to install the new files. So off to pioneer it goes, and they better have a good fix because my warranty is up next month and I dont want to do this again.

Absolute major props go out to matt1212 & tia...

I am not sure which of the solutions actually fixed it..but i know the combination got me back up and running. i will outline the issue i had and the steps i took to resolve it, so that it may help someone else.

Issues:

System would boot up, show the splash screen and then the screen would just go blank. the button lights remained lit (but not in the custom color i selected) and i could press menu or eject and it would work. The system also played CD's and such but would not show anything on the screen

Fix:

1. Cried like a baby

2. Came here to find out what the experts were saying.

3. took laptop out to Jetta

4. Pressed reset & Eject at the same time. system rebooted but did not get past spash screen

5. cycled car power

6. system then booted up properly, and i set the backup camera to off

Now my system seems to be working properly....and i owe it all to this forum and matt1212 & tia

Thanks to another gsxr for the f700bt files, unfortunately It appears the flash drive has been corrupted with 200+ un-deletable files that are using up the space necessary to install the new files. So off to pioneer it goes, and they better have a good fix because my warranty is up next month and I dont want to do this again.

Anyone by chance able to post a link to these F700 files, maybe a torrent by chance?

I assume once you have these you need to simply delete all existing files and replace with the backup, or is there some special boot procedure to install a backup.

I apologize, I am not hijacking the thread

Something went wrong with my mod, and now it keeps rebooting with "Application MainMenu.exe has performed an illegal operation..." message.

Testmode doesn't seem to work completely - it boots, but then fails with similar message, I can't get to Explorer, to delete/restore files.

I read quite a bit, but didn't see a solution, this is F500BT, is there a way to uBoot it and how? Or, some other suggestion maybe?

Will appreciate any help,

Gino

I just experienced the same exact problem tonight.

After finally getting the menus on by pressing randomly MAP and MENU, i turned my car off and on again and now it wouldn't show me empty screen but: "CAUTION: SCREEN IMAGE MAY APPEAR REVERSED". After reviewing a lot of threads on this forum and seeing that so many people have this problem I decided to try some of the easier options that people posted.

Advice for everybody. Start with the easiest and effective things you can do.

Try the reset + Eject button for 5 seconds this rebooted my unit and finally started up past the black screen.

Realizing that it gave me that message that has to do with a Camera obviously, I tried the turning off camera option... and guess what? VOILA!!! It worked.

So yeah one more time...

Start with the easiest and most practical things that you can do. Don't rush into reinstalling the Firmware because even though it fixes the problem, it might not be necessary.

My unit works fine now. Knock on wood three times for me now..

I have been fighting this got several weeks since I downloarded the unziptosdcard.7z file. I had to reload the software everyday. Once I was able to get into it and turn off the backup camera it has been working flawlessly fot 3 days. i love hacks.

I think we need 2 files on the FTP site. one for those with a backup camera and one for those who do not.

Thanks for all your hard work guys. This is way over my abilities but due to your generosity many of us can share in the fun.

The backup camera is unrelated to any hack. NO hack out there can turn it on or off as this is simply a saved setting on the unit. All the F series use the same files except for the F500 and the hacks will still work fine on those once you change one line in sys.txt. Same goes for worldwide versions.

Most reboot problems can be fixed by deleting the 4 gpsparaxx.bin files and the user\userdata folder then doing a hard reset. Very few people ever really need to re-write the whole flash drive unless they delete it themselves. If the flash deletes itself, it's likely to again so repair is needed.

I too have this problem.

I tried updating to 2.006 but it kept giving an unknown error at either 20% or 92%

I went into test mode and put an original 2.0 AP1 in and now it works to get me to be able to use the radio.

I have now tried to delete all the weird random files in my "my flash disk" folder and it will not let me delete them.

If I try to install the original 2.0 software it gets to 9% and tells me error 18 disk is full thing.

Sooo how do I format the "my flash disk" so I can reinstall fresh???????????

i bought my f900bt 1 year and 2 days ago.

my unit started having the splash screen --> black screen problem 1 day ago.

called up my pioneer dealer, they said they are going to take care of it for me by sending it in for 2-3 weeks for "repair". im hoping they cant repair it and just end up sending me a new model :/

im heading out to the car now to try some of the fixes in this thread.

**update**

my unit works now, thanks so much for this post.

Also had the constant rebooting/black screen problem on my f90bt version 3.01...but thanks to this thread the problem is alleviated.

Props to funk101 for providing the key to actually getting into testmode.

My fix process:

1. Put testmode (ver. 2.3 for me because firmware is 3.01) and mitacap folders onto SD card. Insert into Avic.

2. Turn ignition on. Hold down eject and reset buttons. Release reset after a few seconds followed by eject in a few more seconds. Give the unit a bit to boot into test mode.

3. Go to my flashdisk, highlight gpspara0, gpspara1, gpspara2, and gpspara3. Go to File>delete

4. Turn off ignition, remove SD card and hope for the best while the system loads.

Hey guys