Owners of a Mazda in the area around the US metropolis Seattle have been affected by an equally unusual and annoying problem for weeks. Listening to a certain radio station causes the radio and multimedia unit to fail, which henceforth only allows a certain radio station to be played.
Mazda: Problem with US radio station
Curious mistake or ingenious move? Drivers of a Mazda passenger car in the greater Seattle area have sometimes only been able to listen to the Kuow radio station since late January. After listening to the station, some cannot change the FM frequency in Mazda radios and multimedia units.
Other owners report a failure of other functions such as Bluetooth or navigation, while infotainment systems are also sometimes stuck in an endless boot loop. That’s according to the Seattle Times, citing people affected, while on Reddit the issue is also picking up steam mightily.
Kuow is part of public radio NPR and has spoken out about the issues in a statement. They say they are aware of an “apparent problem between the signal and some Mazda infotainment systems”. On Twitter, they also take the problem with humor under the hashtatg #stuckonKUOW and hold out the prospect of a special car sticker.
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The problem results in the FM frequency being fixed at 94.9, on which Kuow broadcasts. It is not possible to change the frequency after listening to affected Mazda models. They are now working with Mazda infotainment system manufacturer Xperi to locate and eradicate the error, he said.
Transmission in corrupted format
Xperi and Mazda, meanwhile, believe that the error was caused by a transmission in a possibly corrupted format on the part of Radio Kuow. In doing so, the station apparently transmitted image files without extensions (i.e., with a missing .jpg or .gif format), which caused problems for some Mazda passenger cars.
Affected are apparently models of the car manufacturer from the model years 2014 to 2017, which are equipped with an older software and which had set the U.S. radio station between January 24, 2022 and January 31.
A simple software update that could be installed privately or at a repair shop is not currently on the horizon. Instead, Mazda recommends a complete replacement of the infotainment system, which would cost around $1,500.
Although a goodwill solution for all affected vehicles is promised, the corresponding systems are behind schedule due to the worldwide chip shortage and are hardly available.
