Indexing

I've been plagued recently with the "Indexing" problem on my Ford Sync. That's the one where no matter what you do, the screen says it's indexing and won't talk to you. Well, you can talk to her but all she says is "Indexing" like she's channeling Eve from WALL-E.

I thought there must be a way around it. I tried the MASTER RESET. I tried the FACTORY DEFAULT RESET. Neither worked. Why do they even have that reset? (Why do they have two resets?)

I thought "This is a Microsoft Product. There must be some super-secret key-combination like VOLUME-BAND-REPEAT to restart the computer." Couldn't find one.

Pulled the fuse. (Siri was also no help.) Didn't help.

Tried another iPod. Oddly enough, the iPod was five years older than the car but as soon as I plugged it in, a Ford logo appeared on the screen. Cute trick. No luck. I thought about making a USB key with only a single song on it but that was a level of effort I didn't want to make.

Finally, I gave in. Finally I did what everyone else said you had to do. I disconnected the black lead from the battery for the entire car and waited a minute or so. Then reconnected, bolted it back in place, got back in the car and viola, problem solved.

So now I know. Like everyone else on the internet already figured out, the only way to successfully solve the Indexing problem with a Ford Sync is to disconnect the battery. Sad.

True story.