I am seeing, perhaps once every other flight, a stereotypical five second fault warning on my IFD, and simultaneously on my ASPEN panel, indicating that there is a problem with the traffic data.

I have only a TAS605A supplying traffic data.

The fault occurs, and then clears, without doing anything else. I've never seen it more than once in a flight. It seems to happen more often on takeoff, only once seen at cruise.

Any ideas as to what is happening? Should I be concerned?

BTW, are there any firmware updates, since the original release 605A version?

* Orest

OK, will do.

Is the only way to discern the firmware level, by logging in on the serial port with a laptop?

* Orest

Disregard, we are not at 2.0.3, and looks like it fixes exactly this problem ...

" ... fix for a bug, that may result in no traffic, if using the RS-232 interface."

Will report back.

* Orest

AviSteve wrote: The current software is 2.0.3 for the TAS605A.  If you're not at that version, we recommend that you upgrade to that and then report back if the faults are still present.

Now updated to the latest firmware.

The same issue still continues, an intermittent (perhaps once an hour) of TAS fault, traffic not available, simultaneously on the ASPEN & IFD. Lasts about 5 sec on the ASPEN, fault message persists for 11 sec on the IFD. Suspect that just reflects the programmed error message latency on each device. Always exactly the same cadence.

* Orest

That's too bad, I really thought updating the software would clear it up.  I'll have our surveillance group look into it further.  Stand by...

Issue still remains.

I pushed the "status" button during one of these faults, and it said "Ground Mode", instead of "No Advisories".

Is that a clue?

* Orest

However, there is good news.  The surveillance team has been looking into it and they did find an issue in the TAS-A that can cause unexpected resets of the TAS system.  It takes about 10 seconds from initiating the reset to return to full operational status.  Once the display detects the lost connection it will flag a failure, and then recover when the reset is complete and the link is restored.  They have implemented a fix for this issue and hope to have the fix released within the next two weeks.

Does that mean sending back?

Would there be any other improvements included in new software?

Thanks

Yes, that is precisely the timing on the recovery time. Sounds encouraging. Awaiting the potential solution with bated breath.

As always, thanks much!

* Orest

AviSteve wrote: Posted: 04 Oct 2019 ....They have implemented a fix for this issue and hope to have the fix released within the next two weeks.

Any further word? It has been a couple of months.

Yes it has been released.  I'm working on getting further details on how you would get the update, but I didn't want this post to linger any longer.  I'll post again when I get those details.

Thanks.

* Orest