2016 242X connext "gateway comm error"

So today my connext screen started alarming immediately at start up. I was able to silence the alarm, but it would return in 5 minutes or so. It also resulted in the fuel gauge showing nothing and no speed info etc.

Both engines started and ran fine.

@tek4fun any thoughts on where to start with this? I checked the connections to the connext screen, GPS puck, and the SPU under the starboard side cabin seat on the back wall.

I tried shutting the system down, turning the batteries off and restarting but no difference.

#gateway

Bummer hope u get to the bottom of this problem

Is Yamaha canbus powered separately like nmea is? Maybe try and suck all the power out of that to reset?

Julian said:

So today my connext screen started alarming immediately at start up. I was able to silence the alarm, but it would return in 5 minutes or so. It also resulted in the fuel gauge showing nothing and no speed info etc.

Both engines started and ran fine.

@tek4fun any thoughts on where to start with this? I checked the connections to the connext screen, GPS puck, and the SPU under the starboard side cabin seat on the back wall.

I tried shutting the system down, turning the batteries off and restarting but no difference.

Click to expand...

Bummer! So, with the engines starting and running fine it should not be a low battery issue but the connext can be really weird there, maybe switching to “both” batteries on - just to check that scenario?
IDK.
Hopefully @tek4fun will chime in! @Mainah, any ideas?

—

Certainly be wary of low voltage and try combing the batteries. Given that both the fuel and speed route through the tachs my guess is the problem is with the tachs and they should be sent in for the firmware upgrade others have mentioned. Really sucks to have happen just hitting the prime of the season. You can always disconnect the warning buzzer (be wary of other warning like overheat low depth, etc., visually). The real issue will come in if it impacts those electronically controlled throttles or buckets.

Good Luck and of course update us as I know you will @Julian.

Batteries are fully charged.

At the end of last season I had the GPS speed stop once....but came back so i didn't look into it.

Busy moving 30 yards of mulch today....so boating is out. I will report back once resolved.

What does the actual warning message say? I find it interesting that the two things that you mention not working are on separate CAN buses. The GPS puck being the only thing on the NMEA 0183 CAN bus and the Fuel sender is on the CAN 4 bus. You already started checking the things that I would have checked. I am a little suspicious of the Port side tach., you might want to check the connectors to it. Are you having any issues with the radio? I will think about this some more and get back with you. Sorry this happened to you.

tek4fun said:

What does the actual warning message say? I find it interesting that the two things that you mention not working are on separate CAN buses. The GPS puck being the only thing on the NMEA 0183 CAN bus and the Fuel sender is on the CAN 4 bus. You already started checking the things that I would have checked. I am a little suspicious of the Port side tach., you might want to check the connectors to it. Are you having any issues with the radio? I will think about this some more and get back with you. Sorry this happened to you.

Click to expand...

I should have taken a photo of the error! I'll get out there this week and do that.

I didn't run the stereo, so can't say if it was impacted.

Would the connext screen diagnostics screen show any specific errors that would be helpful in running this down?
Where does the GPS puck connect to the system?

The fuel sender goes to the gateway and then to the port tach via the radio canbus (yes I know that does not make sense but it was carried over from previous model years). The gps puck goes to the port tach as well. The port tach then sends that data over the radio canbus to connext. The starboard tach handles radio canbus for the actual radio.

IMO the issue with the connext v1 242x boats was all of the crazy legacy 2 wire canbus piggybacks being overloaded. They swapped that for n2k in v2 and likely went with a better processor.

The only thing that I saw on the diagnostic screens that may help is under the gateway header on the main page. It will tell you, if you are getting any reading at all from the fuel sender, because it shows the resistance value unbuffered.

OK....looks like I need to investigate the tach connections! I didn't touch them....I'll do that next, and also see if there is any reading coming back from the fuel sender, and report back.

Julian...since it's the beginning of the season, could it be a loose battery connection from when you installed them after the winter?

That was the only other thing I thought of off hand to try...

Matt Phillips said:

Julian...since it's the beginning of the season, could it be a loose battery connection from when you installed them after the winter?

That was the only other thing I thought of off hand to try...

Click to expand...

I'll check....can't hurt!

@Julian your problem sounds similar to the problem I’m having. The error is “CAN4 loss - gauges/stereo/gps”. No fuel info, no speed, no stereo, no GPS. The tachs don’t work either. But the engines run fine. Batteries are fully charged and I double checked and cleaned the connections. No luck.

I called the nearest dealer (he’s been helpful) and he was in contact with Yamaha who said to make sure all connections were good and tight and then trying resetting the Connext screen. I tried this but no luck.

He then suggested I disconnect the power cable to the two tachs and see if there is voltage there. I did this and was able to see 12v to the port tach but zero to the starboard tach (should be 7.5v according to the service manual). Since the starboard tach gets its power from the port tach, this is likely a clue there is a problem with the port tach.

The dealer suspects that the port tach is bad and/or needs the firmware upgrade but he won’t know for sure until they can plug into the testing ports on the boat and they won’t be able to do this for a couple of weeks.

I suspect the port tach is bad as well since everything seems to go through it as @Mainah said and also because it doesn’t move when I turn the key on (not sure about yours but mine has a self test where it goes all the way past 8k and settles back to the actual engine RPM). Since the port tach is getting power, this is another clue that it’s the problem.

Lastly, in my case, the two tachs have different rest points (port is at zero and starboard is below zero - see pic below). I seem to remember that both were below zero before I started having these problems. And the port tach had some condensation last year as well.

Not sure if any of this helps but my suggestion is check the port tach carefully, both visually and all the connections. If it wasn’t so dang expensive, I would order a new one just to test it but it would be a waste of about $400 if that’s not the problem.

My tachs were working fine. Both self tests and while the engines were running.....but good info....

Here are photos of the screens (1 engine not running 2 engine running, 3 diagnostics engine not running).

The actual error is "gateway comm error"

tek4fun said:

What does the actual warning message say? I find it interesting that the two things that you mention not working are on separate CAN buses. The GPS puck being the only thing on the NMEA 0183 CAN bus and the Fuel sender is on the CAN 4 bus. You already started checking the things that I would have checked. I am a little suspicious of the Port side tach., you might want to check the connectors to it. Are you having any issues with the radio? I will think about this some more and get back with you. Sorry this happened to you.

Click to expand...

Radio will not power on.

Both tachs work fine and I did the sys screen test on them and they came back ok (needles moved properly to each position).

Going to see what's up with the stereo next.....perhaps related?

Good luck @Julian. Can you tell me more about the sys screen test you did on the tachs? I’d like to run this check on my tachs. Thx

Press and hold the "sys ctrl" button for 5 seconds to get to the diagnostics screen. Then click "test" , then guage.