ISTA+ wont connect to car (cant find car ip) ENET
Hi everyone,
I’m having a strange ENET connection issue with ISTA 4.39.20 on my BMW F22 and after several hours of troubleshooting I’m running out of ideas.
Problem:
ISTA does not detect the vehicle via ENET. The Connection Manager stays completely empty, KL15/KL30 are not displayed, and when I try vehicle identification I get:
“The vehicle could not be successfully identified. Check vehicle interface and ‘PAD active’.”
The strange part is that the exact same ENET cable connected to the exact same OBD port works immediately with BimmerLink on my iPhone using a USB/Ethernet adapter. BimmerLink connects successfully and can communicate with the ECUs.
So the vehicle, OBD port and ENET cable are at least fundamentally working.
What I have already tested:
ISTA 4.39.20 Standalone
Interface set to ICOM/ENET local area network
IPv4 automatic/APIPA
Several static IPv4 configurations as a test
Windows correctly gets a link-local address on the ENET interface, for example 169.254.73.84 / 255.255.0.0
Windows Firewall completely disabled for testing – no difference
Integrated Intel Ethernet interface
Realtek USB Gigabit Ethernet adapter
Two different Windows laptops
Different ignition/wake-up procedures
Same result every time
EDIABAS configuration has also been checked:
Interface = ENET
[XEthernet]
RemoteHost = Autodetect
HeaderFormat = 0
TesterAddress = F4,F5
ControlPort = 6811
DiagnosticPort = 6801
TimeoutConnect = 20000
I also tested ZGW Search with ISTA and other EDIABAS processes closed. ZGW Search remains completely empty and does not detect the vehicle.
arp -a also never shows another 169.254.x.x host belonging to the vehicle/ZGW. I only see the PC itself and broadcast/multicast entries.
The most interesting test so far was a packet capture during ISTA vehicle discovery using Windows PktMon.
The capture clearly shows that ISTA repeatedly sends BMW ENET/HSFZ discovery traffic:
169.254.73.84:<source-port> > 169.254.255.255:6811 UDP, length 6
So as far as I can tell, the Windows PC is correctly sending the ENET discovery request to 169.254.255.255 on UDP port 6811.
However, I cannot see any corresponding reply from another 169.254.x.x address / the vehicle ZGW. There is consequently no following diagnostic connection over TCP port 6801.
So the situation currently looks like this:
Windows/ISTA → ENET discovery broadcast on UDP 6811 works
ZGW → discovery response back to the Windows PC appears to be missing
What makes this especially confusing is that I can disconnect the exact same ENET cable from the Windows laptop, connect it to my iPhone via Ethernet adapter, open BimmerLink and successfully connect to the same car.
I have already spent several hours testing firewall settings, automatic/static IP configurations, EDIABAS settings, different Ethernet adapters and two separate Windows laptops, so I’m reluctant to keep changing random settings.
Questions:
Has anyone experienced an F-series ZGW working through ENET with BimmerLink but not being discovered by ISTA or ZGW Search under Windows?
Does an F22 require any additional Windows driver/interface configuration for ENET that I might be missing?
Is there any known reason why the ZGW would not respond to the standard 169.254.255.255:6811 discovery request from a Windows PC?
Is there another reliable way to determine the ZGW IP address and test HSFZ/TCP 6801 directly without relying on ZGW Search?
Would testing another ENET cable or an ICOM be the next sensible step, even though the current cable works with BimmerLink?