medsaver

So I've had the VL2 installed for 3 days and we just got the black screen of death. In addition to the black screen, there is a quiet high-pitched beeping sound. Anyone else noticed that?

Everything seems to be back to normal after unplugging, but hopefully this doesn't happen every 3 days. Has anyone reached out to Grom about this?

jdpdata

Black screen of death happened twice for me since installation, just had one today. But it's very intermittent for me. I'll go weeks with perfectly normal operation, then bam it won't start. Hope they will fix this issue. ISF owners complaint of same thing. Never did see a definitive fix.
Haven't heard any high pitched beeping sound on mine. Mine is dead quiet. Did you adjust the system volume up a bit? It's quite low out of the box and there were some whiny alternator noises, but since adjusting the volume mine is fine. Anyways you should reach out to tech support to report your issues. They're pretty quick to response. They will probably give you new firmware to flash.

c2fordy5

I have not run into that problem for the few weeks I've had it. Not that I would like to experience it but it would be interesting to see what happens to my screen since I don't have the split like yours.

jdpdata

If you get this issue, you would probably only see a black screen. Got response back from Tech Support, they want me to take a video of the problem. Kind of a useless thing to do as this is an intermittent issue. I can't replicate it. Besides, what does a video show that the picture above don't? It's just a black screen, nothing to see. Wouldn't be so bad if they included a hard reset button on VL2. I hate to be yanking on the harness every time this happens. I may explore ways to add a hard reset toggle to wiring harness.

bob256k

I installed the VL2 last night and my OEM screen when goig to 3/4 size is glitching , see linked video
https://www.icloud.com/photos/#0VRNh...vrRfG3zaYcPEtA

I have contacted @gromaudio Support.

Any thoughts on what this could be? I haven't finished setting up the grom, but i dont think that should cause an issue with the OEM screen

medsaver

I get this but I'm never on the OEM screen so it doesn't bother me.

c2fordy5

Try unplugging the video cable and make sure it is plugged in tight. Might as well unplug the power one as well just to restart it. Make sure everything is tight fit. Something almost similar happened to me, though it was not that constant. Once I pushed the cables back in tightly, it went away.

jdpdata

I get that flashing too on OEM screen, never use it so don't bother me. Seems to settle down after VL2 finish completely booting up.
@c2fordy5 now that you mentioned it, I may pull the nav screen back out to check if the harness is sitting tight. Might be what's causing my intermittent black screen at boot up .Pretty sure I put it on there tightly at installation time. But I was yanking on that cable alot during routing of the harness, maybe something came loose.

c2fordy5

This only happened to me once and by making sure everything was sitting tightly, I never saw it again. Let me know that took care of it.

bob256k

welp, talked with GROM Support and did some more research as to what GVIF is; it is Gigabit Video Interface over either STP ( Coaxial cable) or optical. Welp, if anyone here works with Coxial Cable, you know something called maximum bend radius, which tells you how much you can kink or bend a cable and it still perform under specs. The GVIF cable came FOLDED , as opposed to rolled in a loop, like a ethernet cable you buy new. This could cause the blinking issue, as the cable may have been compromised when flexed past the maximum bend radius. I have contacted GROM and expect them to provide a new cable, I will check the connections but I am almost SURE that the issue is from mishandling the cable during packing, or that fact that it's just a low quality cable. Any bending of coax can change the impedance, and affect signal quality for a high speed cable. ( GVIF is a serial 2.0 GBPS interface)

@gromaudio
:/

jdpdata

hmm interesting theory. If this is true meaning a cable issue, would you not see the blinking/flashing in VL2 interface as well? I only get this in the Lexus OE interface. The flashing is more prevalent during VL2 booting up (if I switch over to OE interface during VL2 booting). After it's done booting, flashing still occurs, but at much less frequency. Again, this only happens in Lexus OE interface, which I never use anymore so I doesn't matter much to me. When I'm in VL2 interface, no flashing/blinking at all. Seems more likely the culprit is a software or video driver issue. I experience similar display blinking/flashing on my Lenovo laptop when I'm running on battery power. But I think that issue is because the battery is old and not providing enough voltage. Once I plugin AC cord, all is normal. Whatever it is, I hope all of us reporting this problem to GROM will lead them to investigate and fix this issue.

bob256k

I bet the reason why you don't see it on the Grom display, if it is a cabling problem, is the length of the run for the video. For the Grom OEM GUI it is GROM -> Multi Display ECU, while for the Lexus OEM GUI is Nav unit -> Run #1( GVIF Female socket into GROM) ->GROM -> Multi Display ECU. The run from the Lexus nav is technically twice as long.

If it is not a cabling issue i would suspect their unit is not driving the display correctly. Resolution in video is merely one aspect of a display, driving a display correct takes several parameters that must be taken into account, and must be correct for the display to sync to the video. OR it could be the GVIF chipset Grom is using is having problems deserializing the NAV GVIF video and then serializing it to go back to the Multi ECU display.


Regardless this issue needs to be resolved. this box cost $600, a no-name android tablet of similar specs doesn't cost nearly that much and there is no battery display, mic speaker, or lte rf section. This thing probably cost $80 to make, shipped.

c2fordy5

By the way @jdpdata , what do you do for phone calls if you don’t use the OEM side at all? I know you don’t use CarPlay? Just curious...

jdpdata

Fair enough, your assessment is reasonable. I didn't realize the harnesses were different for each OEM vs GROM. While I agree procurement costs for VL2 hardware is probably dirt cheap, it's the development costs and support of a US based company that interested me most. GROM is actively releasing patches to fix various issues. I get updates almost every other day. Though none so far has fixed my black screen issue, if indeed it's a software issue. I'd rather pay more for a US based product then gamble with some no-name Chinese brand. You're at their mercy for support, if any are given plus the language barrier is too scary.

When I get a phone call in the car, the right 1/3 side pop up with OE call screen. I can answer calls as I normally do in OE interface. If/when Android Auto is supported, I'd imagine AA will handle the calls if my phone is plug into VL2 via USB. If not plug in, OE interface will handle calls. Not sure how it all works yet as I haven't try AA on GROM yet. I rarely make or receive calls in my GS as I only drive it on weekends so haven't have much time to test it all.

c2fordy5

i can help you answer this one. As I connect to my OE Bluetooth for phone calls, the entire interface switches over to the OE upon incoming calls. When the call ends, it goes back to VL2. I, sometime, wish I had that screen split so I didn’t have to deal with that. For CarPlay, if the phone is connected to USB, the incoming call shows up on CP first, then, OE Bluetooth takes over. You can’t go back to GROM until the call ends; you’re locked into the OE Bluetooth call. That part is really annoying. So what I ended up doing was completely forgot the Lexus Bluetooth and deal with the VL2 only. On CP calls, the volume seems really low, so I have to crank it up in order to hear it well. Hopefully that’s something GROM can eventually fix along with the Apple Maps being dull and not changing to night mode at night.

One thing I forgot to mention, if you’re playing music via an installed music app (Spotify, Pandora etc...) and the phone is connected and CarPlay is active in the background, you do get the incoming call but the music doesn’t stop when CP window takes over. So that leaves you to circle back to that app and stop the music in order to hear the caller. Just thought I’d share that with you guys.