COSTAR-Tech Forum

I believe wrecked my new Bluestar by installing one of the firmware sets, and I don't know how to recover it.

I received by new Bluestar unit last week. I installed it on my 2009 Cadillac CTS. My iPhone4 paired to it with no problems. I could initiate and answer calls using the steering wheel controls. Siri would come online over the car's audio to take my spoken request and it worked perfectly.

However, I wasn't able to stream music from my iPhone to the audio out, so I installed the Programming software and USB COM driver and downloaded the latest firmwarwe releases.

I checked off the A2DP in the config, and I installed the HFP-CVC-A2DP.dfw firmware. As soon as it finished installing the firmware, I lost contact with the unit. The programming software has not been able to connect to the Bluestar since then.

Now it is streaming audio from my iPhone, but I can not answer or initiate a phone call. The only effect holding the phone button on the car has is to mute the stereo.

Since I can no longer connect to the unit via USB, I can't even attempt to reinstall firmware. I tried pulling the onstar fuse in the car to force it to power up from scratch. I also powered down the phone and restarted it. Neither made any difference.

Is there a way to do a hardware reset?

Try pluging bluestar into your computer again. Make sure your car is running first. If I remember right there was 3 portfolios. Have them all check. Then have bluestar erase all pair device and then pair it to your phone again.

I have only done it with the car running. When I try the software it can not find the bluestar device anymore. It pops up the dialog that tells me it can't be found and provides the option to retry or select a specific COM port. None of them work.

The problem occurred as soon as that firmware finished installing. I suspect that it corrupted, or is not compatible with my device. (The docs say Bluestar 2010, but the unit is labelled "Bluestar II". I have not seen anything on the website about a Bluestar II )

I will try reinstalling the USB com driver, but I doubt that the bluestar firmware install would have done anything to the PC

I got the unit working. My thanks to Chris at Costar-Tech. very responsive and helpful.

Hello dbischoff,

Wondering if you could post how you were able to remedy your situation? I have an extremely similar situation, down to the same car model/year. Thanks for any help. I have an email in to tech support as well.

Yes, please tell us what you did.

It would be VERY VERY helpful if you would tell us what your solution was. I've been sitting here in my car for an hour trying to resolve the EXACT SAME ISSUE.

My device is no longer recognized. Someone please help.

I wanted to share my experiences with everyone in hopes that it might help you.
I have a 2006 Cadillac SRX. I watched this video that helped me get to the OnStar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIA5UnI2 ... e=youtu.be (PA15-VETTE Cadillac SRX - PART 1 of 2 Installation - YouTube)

I installed the Bluestar this past Saturday and after 3 days I started experiencing difficulty with the volume. I had thought that the unit was not working because it showed connected but I could not hear anything. Then I discovered that the volume was ALL THE WAY down. I don't know how that happened because I surely did not do it. (OR MAYBE someone hit the mute button on the steering wheel)

I contacted tech support and Chris recommended doing a firmware upgrade. I wish that there would have been a section on here that gave a complete list of possible things that might go wrong and then solutions..

FIRST OF ALL - turn off all of your phones bluetooth. I had mine turned off but my husbands was turned on and he was within distance and it never ocurred to me. Tech Support told me that things work better if the car is asleep. I didn't know what that means but I assume that means that the bluetooth is NOT IS USE.

I downloaded and installed the program and the current software. I connect my computer and followed the instructions on forcing the VCP driver to install. I chose "Program" then chose the current firmware. Everything appeared to go fine until the end and then I got a pop up window with a list of Errors. After this I could not get the computer to recognize the bluestar. I tried everything (I thought) I restarted the computer, uninstalled the software and reinstalled. Removed drivers and reinstalled. I turned the car on and off. I tried turning the bluetooth on my phone on and off. Then I even tried crying. .LOL that didn't work either.

I sent tech support an email asing for help. Here was the response. . . . . . . . .
When the BlueSTAR is functioning normally, it puts out a beacon symbol so the CPU application can “locate” it on the proper COM port. If you can no longer discover the device automatically, it means that the unit is not operating normally. You still might be able to recover the unit, since it is possible that the unit is in “bootloader” mode.

This is the mode it goes into when first powered up, for about 5 seconds, before going into normal operating mode. IT is also the mode that the CPU puts it in right before starting an upgrade. So if the unit is stuck I bootloader mode, it should be able to be reprogrammed with the CPU programmer.

Now, for some reason, it appears to be best to program the device with the car turned off and asleep. This means that there is little to no activity on the vehicle data bus. This will happen automatically with the key off, and the door open after a few seconds all lights go out. The car is effectively shut down. This seems the best time to program the BlueSTAR as there is no vehicle data bus activity to interfere with it. I JUST DISCONNECTED MY BATTERY - MY ONSTAR FUSE IS UNDER A SEAT

Another piece of information is that the unit can be powered off of USB power. So should you locate the onstar fuse, you can actually leave it out during programming. This too should prove helpful, as it will also allow you to control the powering of the BlueSTAR via the USB cable. Should it be that the main code got corrupted somehow, you can unplug the USB cable and plug it back in to get into bootloader mode. At which time, you will have about 5 seconds to program the device before it goes into corrupted code.

So should the earlier steps not work, you can try this. Locate the proper COM port, select the firmware file and have everything ready to go, then unplug the USB connector, plug it back in, and hit program. This usually works to bring back a unit that has corrupted main code.

If you can get this far, and successfully reprogram the code I will want to make sure that your EEPROM values have not been corrupted as well. This stores the configuration of your device including what hardware revision you have, and also stores your Volume, which seems to have been a root issue to begin with. When you set volume, did you do it with the mirror controls or the phone? Mirror controls will set the default volume of the unit and should only need to be set once.

Lastly, the BlueSTAR is capable of A2DP streaming with version 12-0718 and up and the latest DSP. (You should have this already installed as unit is relatively new).

You do however, need to enable the A2DP and AVRCP profiles in the Configuration menu of the CPU. And since the onstar audio path used for calls is only MONO, you must connect the output headphone jack on the bluestar to an aux input on your radio to hear stereo music.
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My OnStar fuse is under the seat somewhere. I just disconnected the battery.

After this I was able to sucessfully connect. I did already have the current firmware. I entered the CONFIGURE option of the software and changed the volume to the default of 9 and hit apply.

I will let you know if I have any other problems.

Oh and if your MIC volume is muted or appears to not be working. . .try the red + button on the mirror. This is the mic mute button.