I bought a F900BT off of someone on a local forum, and the unit is running some hacked ebay firmware the guy got which ran a different set of maps local to where he was.

He swore up and down that the head unit "worked fine for him" however since I got the head unit the firmware has been anything but stable.

A few of the issues are as follows:

-Splash screen is only 1/2 the size of the actual screen. The image does not stretch out.

-Artwork from my Ipod does not display on the Ipod screen

-Voice recognition does not function. Pressing in the control stick causes the unit to freeze, and hard-restart.

And perhaps the biggest issue, the navigation won't function properly. If I try to pull up the map from the button on the unit, it will freeze and restart. I can pull up the map just fine from the Ipod screen, however I cannot enter an address or street number without the unit freezing and restarting.

Does anyone have an idea of what can be done? As much as I'd like to try just slapping a 3.0 firmware update on the unit, I don't want to risk bricking it right now.

Delete.

Is this forum really that dead or can nobody genuinely help with the above?

I think this forum really is that dead. I think you're gonna have to flash with new firmware as yours sounds like its corrupt or you've got a hardware problem. The links for the hacked hybrid 4 firmware are still active if you hunt around and I painlessly flashed my 910 last night. This firmware doesn't come with maps, buildings or poi's but again there is an active torrent for the 2012 Q4 Navteq maps with buildings and poi's. I have loaded these and they work well although I don't the buildings are showing up. If you can't find the links I'll try and dig them out and post.

I think this forum really is that dead. I think you're gonna have to flash with new firmware as yours sounds like its corrupt or you've got a hardware problem. The links for the hacked hybrid 4 firmware are still active if you hunt around and I painlessly flashed my 910 last night. This firmware doesn't come with maps, buildings or poi's but again there is an active torrent for the 2012 Q4 Navteq maps with buildings and poi's. I have loaded these and they work well although I don't the buildings are showing up. If you can't find the links I'll try and dig them out and post.

Thanks for the response. Sorry I'm a bit of a tech noob when it comes to this stuff. What would the difference be between the hybrid 4 and the 3.0 guide I see pinned in this section?

I don't believe it's a hardware problem.. it just seems like whatever firmware he received was incomplete/coded incorrectly and not everything has functionality.

I talked to the person who sold me the unit and of course he won't give me my money back. I have a 700BT collecting dust so what I may just do is attempt to re-flash a different firmware on the unit to get functionality back. If the unit bricks I'll just put the 700 back in my car and play DVD's off an SD card (only real reason I bought the 900 to begin with).

Maybe go all Office Space on the 900

First thing go to pioneer hompage and download the latest firmware for your device and flash it, after that go to this thread and follow the steps there.