I recently updated my Ford Transit Connect MY20 from Sync 3.3.19052 to 3.4.23188 via the official Ford website. I was hoping to get a feature unlocked at a car shop (update was a pre-requisite) that disables the car from lighting up every time you open the doors, which is a bit of a drag while camping. However since the update I have issues with music stutters via USB connection. This seems to be a common issue on v3.4. Since listening to music is a big part of camping trips, when you’re on the read, I’d rather live with my car lighting up like a christmas tree every time I open it and hoping the battery doesn’t drain too much.
With the Syn3 Updater I get the option to “update” to v 3.3.19052 and there’s also the MY20 protection. When I pick “Keep existing maps” or any other maps option, it says “no format required”, which is good. I also read on another thread (Is there any way to downgrade from Sync 3.4 to 3.3?) that you can downgrade from 3.4 to 3.3 with the Syn3 Updater, however in that thread the car MY was unknown.
TLDR: Will I be able to revert to 3.3.19052 without bricking anything using Syn3 Updater 2.14.2.0?
@bill32399 I’m not sure, if I was a bit confusing with my backstory. The car was always lighting up like a Christmas tree, even before the update. I think Ford calls it a feature. There is a service called Conversmod here in Germany, where I’m based, who offer programming in that dark mode. The pre-requisite for them however is, that you have the latest Sync 3 version installed or else you have to pay for them doing the update as well. Since updating Sync is an easy task, I did that system update myself. I know that there are different ways of unlocking dark mode in your car, if you know what you’re doing, but I don’t and am scared of doing that myself.
My actual problem now is: Because of the Sync 3 update I’m experiencing audio stutters (1-5 per 30 minute drive on average) and I’m not certain that I want to live with that, in order to get dark mode for the car. From what I found in several forums, Sync 3.4 seems to have this issue, especially with this kind of car. And I even found the suggestion with the master reset, but the people in that thread did not have a better audio experience after doing that.
I’ll try doing a master reset in the next couple of days and see, if the stutters go away. If not I’m assured, that I can safely install 3.3 again.
Probably because there is not a hard button control or menu control other than thru Sync. This is likely the case. You would need at least Sync 3.4.19xxx for the menu activation. For example, F-150 trucks (F-Series) have a hard button control for Dark Mode, whereas other models do not.
As far as the music stuttering, this is mainly attributed to the processing load by Sync, especially while using onboard navigation. This is documented on several threads and actually addressed by FMods with a processor clock adjustment which pretty much resolves the issue. However this requires the Sync system to be jailbroken to apply the adjustment.
Another cause for this is the USB or hard drive formatting, which should be NTFS as specified by FORD, not FAT or FAT 32 as some of the forums are rumoring. Additionally, the generation of APIM has a lot to do with this as the clock frequency was increased for the MY18.5+ units compared to previous.
I use a 120GBB SSD in my F-150 running the latest Sync version with nav on a K-series APIM and rarely have any skipping or lag.
If you run the Interrogator Utility in the Syn3 Updater and post the xml file here we could determine if there is something amiss with the APIM causing your issues.