Recovering From Botched Strategy Change

[CCS86]

If anyone has some insight here, it would be appreciated.

A remote tuning customer was trying to begin a strategy change and missed that I specified he "write entire". He instead did a write calibration and says it wrote for a while, then stopped. I'm not sure if it "finished" or aborted though.

He now seems to be unable to read or write the vehicle (2011 Mustang GT). My guess is that only writing the calibration data, with mismatching strategies, created a PCM state which it no longer recognizes as the one that he licensed.

He says "read vehicle" has always been greyed out, even before the botched flash, and when trying to write, it says "unlicensed vehicle"

I'm having him attempt a "return to stock" with his old tuning device, or reflash his old tune with that device, to see if we can get the PCM back into a normal state.

Any other ideas?

[blackbolt22]

Make sure his battery is high enough voltage and have him wait for a bit and try again.

With the other device: Seems like returning to stock could work? If he flashes an aftermarket tune though that could be a problem because that device will pull in the 'stock' tune which is now the botched one lol - or will that even work. Some aftermarket tunes are locked to the stock tune strategy ID, no?

Do you know if tunes can be swapped between say an aftermarket tune from another device and then a custom HPT tune & vice versa - all without returning to stock?

[CCS86]

Make sure his battery is high enough voltage and have him wait for a bit and try again.

With the other device: Seems like returning to stock could work? If he flashes an aftermarket tune though that could be a problem because that device will pull in the 'stock' tune which is now the botched one lol - or will that even work. Some aftermarket tunes are locked to the stock tune strategy ID, no?

Do you know if tunes can be swapped between say an aftermarket tune from another device and then a custom HPT tune & vice versa - all without returning to stock?

Yup, I had him charge the battery overnight, which was a bit low.

I am having him backup the stock file on the other tuner before doing anything else.

[decipha]

if it wont communicate just have him disconnect the battery for 30 min or so and the pcm will then write fine. He will prob have to use other methods to do so though.

The good news with all 1996-2019 ford pcms is that they flash over hardware so it is impossible to brick them.

[CCS86]

if it wont communicate just have him disconnect the battery for 30 min or so and the pcm will then write fine. He will prob have to use other methods to do so though.

The good news with all 1996-2019 ford pcms is that they flash over hardware so it is impossible to brick them.

Thanks man, will give that a try.