Need help downgrading: 3.4.x to 3.0.x

Ford SYNC 3 Support
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I have a 2016 Ford Edge, with the older USB hub (GC3Z-19A387-C). To deal with a few stability and performance issues, I tried upgrading from 3.0.19052 (with Nav) to 3.4.20196 today; the upgrade was successful, but then I started receiving a “USB hubs are not recognized” error, even after a master reset. Further reading indicates the hub would need to be replaced to be compatible with 3.4.x.

I’m on a tight budget, so instead want to downgrade to the newest Sync 3 software compatible with the hub. 3.3.19052 is the oldest option SYN3 Updater lists; that downgrade was successful tonight, and the USB hub error has disappeared.

However, I’d like to further downgrade to 3.0.20092, because it’s actually newer than 3.3.19052 (by more than a year!). But SYN3 Updater doesn’t list any 3.0.x options, even when I enable the “show old/test versions” option. So, a few questions:

  1. I assume that an April 2020 3.0.x is better than a February 2019 3.3.x. Am I wrong? What’s the difference between 3.0.x and 3.3.x?
  2. To proceed, do I need to reformat, like I did to upgrade to 3.4.x? Is that why SYN3 Updater isn’t listing anything older than 3.3.19052 as an option even with “show old versions” enabled?
  3. If I have to do the downgrade manually, what versions of Gracenotes etc. do I need to install along with the 3.0.20092 app software? It’s unclear from the IVSU database.

Thanks!

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To answer a few of your questions:

  1. A newer build number within a major revision is usually only for bug fixes and small updates to performance. SYNC 3.3 uses a new partition layout and generally is faster than a pre 3.2 system even if its a year older in terms of builds.

  2. You cannot downgrade a car back to pre SYNC 3.2. The reformat tool that was leaked only supports reformatting a car for SYNC 3.2 and newer builds. There is no reformat tool that is publicly known to format the system back to a SYNC 3.0 partition layout.

  3. As mentioned above, you also cannot manually downgrade as the system is using an incompatible partition layout for SYNC 3.0 and the downgrade would fail to install.

All that being said, your car is now a SYNC 3.2+ system. You can choose which build you would like to stay on at this point (be it 3.3 or 3.4) but that is all you can do. SYNC 3.4 is actively being worked on by Ford so that is what I am personally staying on. You can likely purchase a new hub for less than $50 but it depends on region.

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Ah! Thank you for your answers. Seems like I stumbled upon the best build for my current situation (3.3.19052, the newest 3.3 build) then. I’ll stick with 3.3.x until I decide to invest in the hub replacement. Thanks!

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