Re-enabling bluetooth, car-play and SatNav in a Golf Mk7 with a MIB2 HIGH infotainment unit

 

One day for no apparent reason (although switching off bluetooth may have caused it) certain features such as bluetooth for the phone connection, car-play (android and apple) and SatNav all stopped working in my VW Golf Mk7 GTE.  Basic attempts to resolve such as resetting to factory defaults did not solve the problem.  Somehow a software glitch seems to have removed the SoftWare as a Product (SWaP) / Feature Enablement Codes (FEC).  Taking it to the dealer to fix would have likely cost a minimum of over £200 for diagnostics only and that is without any additional charges.

It took a significant amount of time to research the problem and find the solution.  There are many helpful videos on YouTube which show how software updates can be applied however, none of them showed the exact method I used.  They are still useful though to familiarize with updating.  Review some of these videos because the techniques you use will be similar.   These steps are only likely to work on a MIB2 HIGH (HARMAN) unit.  There are various types of infotainment units so it is important to firstly work out what hardware you have and how that particular hardware can be updated.  Note all the versions and model numbers in the service mode and investigate them to determine the type of unit you are working with.  This approach does NOT require ODB11 or VCDS tools which use dongles to connect to the car diagnostic port.  Lastly, be aware that these types of software operations can brick a unit if applied incorrectly - which basically means your infotainment unit could become as useful as a brick.  This could end up costing even more to resolve at a dealer.

These are the steps I used for a MIB2 HIGH HARMAN unit.

1. Hold the menu button until the service mode appears and note the Current (firmware) version.  In my case it was MHI2_ER_VWG11_S2103 (0317).  This firmware version also indicates the type of hardware that is in use because only certain firmware can be applied to particular hardware.  The firmware shown was very old.

2. Go to https://mib-helper.com/ and enter MHI2_ER_VWG11_S2103 (0317).  This will respond with the updates available however the links may not point directly to the firmware updates you require.

3. Go to https://mibsolution.one/ This is a download location for firmware and tools.  It is known to be sometimes slow and inaccessible possibly due to the number of connections already in use.

4. For the firmware in this case the correct folder was MQB_Solution\MHI2 -  HARMAN\Firmware\VW
This contains zip .7z files which can be unzipped using 7zip software.

Look for firmware which the mib-helper site indicates are suitable upgrades for your existing version.  Especially look for items with AIO in the name.  This stands for All In One and could potentially recover all functionality in one go.  Although the README_AIO.txt file claimed the SWaP features like SatNav would be enabled, in this case they did not become enabled.  Additional steps were required.

Download the firmware, unzip the file to a folder and copy the contents to an empty SD card.  Apply the software update to the unit as described in various youtube videos like this one 

At this point you will notice that the Service Mode now has several more items including Testmode.  This provides access to the Green Engineering Menu (GEM).  These next steps describe how to add the M.I.B menu to GEM to activate the missing features.

5.  Go here and download M.I.B More Incredible Bash.  You prepare the installation of this in a similar way to a firmware update i.e. Unzip, copy to an SD Card, use the Update process in the service menu to install it. Not yet though.  MAKE SURE YOU READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR M.I.B.  It is essential to preparing the M.I.B. installation, especially applying the necessary patch to this file set before you install it to the car.

6. Obtain the patches for M.I.B from the https://mibsolution.one/ in the folder M.I.B look for <date>_M.I.B_Patches.7z   Download this file, unzip, locate the relevant patches and copy this folder to the M.I.B software folder structure under the \patches folder.  In this case I had to rename the folder containing the patches from MHI2_ER_VWG11_K3342_MU1427_PATCH to MHI2_ER_VWG11_K3342_1_MU1427_PATCH in order for the patch to match the AIO firmware version I had previously installed.

7.  Install M.I.B to the car.  The m.i.b. menu will now appear in GEM.  Use the menus in M.I.B. to patch first and then activate car-play.  See this video.  In my case all required features returned; bluetooth, car-play (android and apple) and SatNav.