Clarity Display Freeze

It just happened to me for the first time in 10 months/7,000milrs of ownership. I was pushing virtual buttons going rapidly as I could (boy is it slow) when the screen went black. It did not come back on until I stopped and restarted the car.
It’s only happened once to me and I wonder if I put in too many inputs too rapidly and overwhelmed the poor thing. Keeping a watch on this and will photograph with phone camera if it happened again as documentation since it’s a very intermittent kind of failure.

 

I sincerely doubt this has any other connection to the car, but for extra safety do this while stopped with car turned on-- i.e. in your driveway or safely parked on street:

The infotainment screen has a soft-power button top left. Press and hold. The infotainment system will reboot.

I think of the car as a phone or computer (the infotainment stuff is android). Rebooting periodically will not hurt anything and seems to keep things happy. i.e. Once every three months just reboot it briefly. It comes back automatically.

-Dan

PS: My infotainment system only went wonky on me once. Since I reboot it's been fine. I plan to periodically reboot (when not driving of course).

 

Agreed Geor99. And I don't mean to belittle the experience. Anything really weird happening with our brand new car is disturbing. It is helpful to know you're not the only person who has the issue, and especially if a simple routine exists to mitigate it.

I think one of the criticisms of the Clarity is the infotainment system (in reviews) and I agree that it feels sluggish to me-- like someone should of put a faster processor in the thing. As others have mentioned, I also miss a physical volume knob.

Overall I love the car. These end up being minor gripes.

 

I've certainly had that problem with my display, as posted elsewhere, and I know others have posted about the freezing problem too. It sure would make an autonomous car exciting and having the attitude that's it's ok for a car's system to be like a flaky computer OS doesn't fly with me. I don't use the OEM navigation, but if someone were using it at a critical point and it froze/blanked.......bummer. Anyway, the reboot does fix it for a while and it's not something Honda would replace without extensive documentation.

 

It happened to us today for the first time. Screen froze and became unresponsive. Karen took a photo:



(Forgive the greasy fingerprints!)

Turning the car off and on again - 3 times - had no effect. The time and temp settings were correct, but all the buttons on the left were unresponsive.

I wondered at the time if something was getting updated over the air. After 15 minutes or so, while parked, it just sprang back to life. Seems like quite a coincidence that it’s happened to a few of us at the same time, don’t you think?

 

Let me mention something that may be helpful to someone down the road...

I had a case where the display went black and nothing seemed able to bring it back (power cycling, waiting, whatever). During this unsettling time, I would sometimes get the Honda logo, but it would soon disappear into blackness again. I will admit that this did not just happen on it's own [I was doing something that I shouldn't ought to have been doing, I will choose to not elaborate right now].

Anyway, I feared that I had somehow managed to "brick" the car !! After spending some time trying to figure out how I was going to explain myself to the dealer, it occurred to me that I should try one last-ditch attempt at recovery - I disconnected the 12V battery for a few minutes, then re-connected it. I was pleasantly surprised that the system booted "normally"... Well, "normal" is relative. There were multiple system and calibration failures like TPMS, Traction Control, Power Steering, and maybe a few others. Luckily, all of these resolved just fine after driving for just a very short distance (maybe a mile) as the vehicle apparently went through the various self-calibrations. I manually initiated a TPMS calibration, but everything was just fine in very short order, and has been good ever since.

Keep this in mind if something really weird happens to your Infotainment system and you reach the end of your rope !!

 

Nope

 

It does seem odd that all of these reports seem to be coming in at the same time, after no history.

Is the system rebooting? I don't know how long this takes, but it would be consistent with nothing that you can do having any effect. Maybe it just discovered that it's 2019.

 

Nope, its not weird.
Ive documented a handful of times my system went blank, froze, lagged, its a rubbish system. Honda knows it and they alreasy trashed it in the newer models.
I understand that technology will be outdated quickly in this day and age but Honda is at fault for having the climate control and rear view camera rely on this slow system. It is a hazard. once i had my blind spot camera freeze on me as i was merging off the highway (death trap)
Another time in reverse (have gieco on speed dial)

Ive complained about this to the dealer and to the IHAS (or whatever the Highway Safety sites' name is) to ask for a recall or a fix for this problem.

If you all would join in ill post a link to the complaint and you can second my complaint. Maybe we can get Honda to add memory or a software update to fix this problem.

 

Yes, it would be cool but no. It is not a "screen capture" it is simply a screenshot of a 30 second video that i cant upload showing me driving in the woods whilst the frozen screen shows roadwork from a couple of blocks away.

 

I’d be interested in that link.

 

This would be consistent with the theory that the screen freezing is a symptom of the system rebooting.

 

On my recent long trip, I have had a variety of "manifestations" from the screen. Sometimes it goes blank for various reasons none of which I understand. Sometimes it just seems to be lagging. Other times freezing. Many eccentricities from Android Auto and associated apps. Sometimes Audible would not show up on the list of available audio apps. At one point AA threw an error message about Podcast Addict after a podcast ended and would not let me do anything on that or Audible. It would only allow some music on Google Play Music. I have decided to treat all these events as omens that it is time to stop for a bathroom break. Seems to work.

I think that the gadget can only do one thing at a time and then verrrry sloooowllllly. Any greater expectation just confuses it's little wit. I plan to humor it.