Rear Screen Control Change “The Service Is Not Currenlty Available…”

So I have an update in trying to troubleshoot or come up with a work around. It struck me odd that the display was working for about a day after I got the car from the dealership. The only two things that changed is I signed up for the ATT service and I used a thumb drive to pull up our own movies. It occurred to me that perhaps the issue was an Over the Air Update that was being downloaded to the rear screens once they connected to WiFi. So I did a factory reset on the right rear screen only thinking I would just not connect it to WiFi and live without the online content till our kids were older. Well, I had forgotten that after a factory reset, the first thing the screens ask is to connect to a WiFi connection to do the setup. I went ahead and connected it to the car WiFi and just briefly up popped a message "downloading updates" for a brief moment. I had to stay connected only long enough to go through the setup process and then I turned off the WiFi. I don't know for certain if that was enough time for an update to download.

Immediately after the factory reset and completed the setup process, the screen was accessible from the front again. Oddly enough, the left rear screen was ALSO accessible from the front screen even though I did NOT do a factory reset on it. We drove around for a couple of hours today with the system working just fine. Got back home and then an hour later went to head out for dinner. Climbed back into the car which by this point was completely off and when I turned the car back in, immediately the error message "service unavailable" popped up. So there is something going on when the screens are turned off completely that causes them to lose their ability to connect to the front screen. I don't know for certain but my suspicion is there is an update that the screens download while you go through the initial setup process and that doesn't activate until the car is turned off for a while and then turned on at which point the update is loaded which then causes the screens to no longer be able to connect. This is all speculation of course. If there was a way to block any updates or get around the initial setup screens that require a WiFi connection, maybe I could conclusively determine it is an update that causes the issue.

Phasma22 said:

Purchased my 2022 5 days ago, and since day one the rear screens haven’t turned on. I get the same message as above. So much for the user friendly uconnect 5, should’ve kept the 2020 we had 😩

Click to expand...

There was an update pushed to our car a few days ago and that did make a difference. I signed up for the ATT service so it could download over the air. If you didn't sign up, you will need to connect the car to your home WiFi and hopefully it will download overnight. There is a way to check for updates in the settings menu if you want to hunt around.

That being said, the update only solves one of the MANY problems, namely the screens not being able to be seen or controlled from the front. The message "service not available" still pops up when you first turn on the car but it will go away after a few minutes. You can then control the screens as intended. However... We still have the following issues:

1. Screens turn off randomly on their own while driving. Usually it is the mirrored screen (we play videos on the USB Thumb Drive with audio piped through speakers and mirror Right Screen to show the left Screen). Almost like a screensaver comes up and turns the screen off or something.

2. Audio cuts out... This happens while playing a video from thumb drive with screens mirrored in the back. We use the "Listen" button on the front screen so the audio plays in the whole car (our twins are too young to use headphones plus we didn't even get headphones with the car). From time to time, the audio will stop playing on the car speakers. We have to then "uncheck" and "check" the listen button and it will start playing again.

3. Screens will turn off and stay off when going from remote start to run. This is annoying... I use to use the remote start all the time to get the car cooled down prior to getting the kids in the car. When I started to load the kids, I would open the drivers door and press the on button. Since I didn't press the brake peddle, the car turns to "accessories" mode and the rear screens would turn on. I finish loading the kids then get in and turn the car to "run" at which point the system would briefly reset but the rear screens would then turn off and there was no way to get them to turn back on again without completely turning off the car.

4. Unable to select videos from USB Thumb Drive from front screen after first video. So the thing about us is we have twins that are two years old. They are too young to be able to control the screens themselves. We bought the car on the premise that we could select the content from the front screen for our kids. What we found out is that if you insert a USB thumb disc with videos loaded up (and assuming your screens are working) then you can select ONE video from the front menu screen. Once that video is over or you want to change to something else, the same process will NOT WORK. You can tap on a different video file all you want but it will not start playing on the rear screens. The work around for this is to put the car in park, then from the front screen, select one of the rear screens to enlarge to full screen then navigate the menus remotely. It is combersum and can't be done while moving but at least it can be done.

In short... The system when it works is great but most of the time I'm constantly apologizing to my frustrated wife and trying to figure out these problems and come up with workaround. The fact that there was a software update that fixed the service unavailable problem gives me hope that Chrysler is aware of these problems and hopefully we will see more bug fixes over time to solve all of these issues. If the system worked as advertised, it would be fantastic. As it stands now, it is the single greatest frustration of our daily routine when getting in the car to go somewhere.

The only way we have figured out to reliably play content on the back screens is to cue it from the back screens. We run a stereo headphone cable from the output on the left rear screen into the aux input on the front console. We then mirror the right screen to the left screen while loading the kids and then cue up a video for the trip. Thing is, you have to cue something longer than you trip because once the video ends, trying to cue something new from the front seat usually fails.

This is a very dangerous situation. We just did a road trip and my wife ended up unbuckling and half climbed into the back to cue up something for the girls to watch. Not the smartest of moves but when you are on the I5 Grapevine with no real place to pull over and kids crying it is what happens.

We also now have a new issue that has cropped up. We get a warning saying the remote couldn't be found. We have to wait for this to popup while loading the kids and remember to clear it to before we climb into the front seat as starting any content from the front seat will not cause this message to go away.

I like the car, it really is great for our family but this "entertainment" system is a pathetic joke. It's like Chrysler engineers didn't have anyone with little kids to do their testing on. It's not like these are small bugs that would be difficult to find. These are major freaking bugs that make the system unusable for their target market.

Check to see if your car has the latest update. One got pushed to my car a couple of weeks ago and at least now the front screen will eventually connect to the rear screens. I cannot confirm the update had anything to do with fixing connecting to the rear screens but since that got pushed, it definitely seems to be more consistent. Whereas before it wouldn't connect at all, now it will connect within a minute or two of starting the car but sometimes longer.

Also, avoid using the remote start or accessory mode with the car as cycling from either of those modes to "run" seems to power cycle the rear screens and causes issues connecting again. Best thing to do is to just turn the car to "run", load the kids and then by the time they are buckled in, the front screen should have connected to the rear screens.

All the other bugs and annoyances still persist but at least there is the ability to do some control from the front in this manner.