Seattle-area motorists driving Mazda-branded cars have been forced to constantly listen to public radio since a mysterious bug blocked their in-car multimedia system in late January.
According to the Seattle Times newspaper and other local media, this anomaly affects several dozen Mazda owners. Some can no longer change their radio frequency, blocked on 94.9 FM and the KUOW station, but others are completely deprived of their on-board display, which constantly resets and therefore prevents them from accessing the rearview camera, GPS, etc.
The bug only affects Mazda drivers over the age of four who were listening to KUOW radio, a representative of the national public broadcaster NPR in the state of Washington, in the far northwest of the United States.
“My media system has been constantly resetting since last week (…). I brought my car to the dealership this morning and they talked regarding regarding fifty customers currently in the same situation, all blocked on KUOW,” one of the affected motorists wrote on a discussion forum.
This anomaly was allegedly caused by the KUOW station itself, with the cars sending faulty computer data to digital radios that damaged the system.
“Between January 24 and 31, a Seattle-area radio station sent image files without an extension name, which caused problems on some 2014 to 2017 Mazda vehicles with older software,” the automaker said in a statement provided to the GeekWire website.
According to an expert interviewed by the Seattle Times, the multimedia system’s computer should not have tried to open a file whose format it did not recognize, but it did it anyway and was damaged in the operation.
The spare part costs $1,500 and is out of stock, the newspaper said.
Mazda, which had not responded on Wednesday to AFP requests regarding the bug, is expected to cover the cost of warranty repairs.
