Troubleshooting and FAQ

Troubleshooting & FAQ

Onboarding fails with "access denied"

BMW's device-authorization backend can return access_denied ("The user has declined authorization") even though you never saw a consent page and the login clearly worked. This is flakiness on BMW's side, not the integration — BMW support has confirmed (in response to a ticket) that the device-code flow is handled by an internal partner system with "sync problems." There is nothing the integration can do to fix it.

It can take a few attempts. This sequence has worked reliably (multiple times) for others:

1. Open a fresh incognito/private browser window.
2. Go to the My BMW / CarData portal manually — do not use the pre-filled complete link, and strip any ?user_code=… from the URL.
3. Sign in, open Authenticate device ("Gerät authentifizieren"), then type the user code by hand (make sure no "incorrect code" banner appears) and approve. You'll typically land on a "Login successful" / "continue in the car" screen — you don't need to do anything in the car; that screen is just confirmation. Go straight back to Home Assistant and press Submit.
4. If the code timed out meanwhile, press Submit in Home Assistant for a fresh code and repeat.
5. Still failing after several tries? Delete the client in the BMW portal, create a new one (tick both subscriptions), and redo auth with the new client ID.

If none of that helps, stop retrying and wait. This is genuinely a lottery on BMW's side. Many users only got through after leaving it alone for several hours to a couple of days (sometimes it starts working overnight with no further action); rapid retries don't seem to speed it up. There's no single trick that works for everyone. For the hardest cases the only lever left is BMW support: bmwcardata-b2c-support@bmwgroup.com (include your reference ID from the error, if BMW showed one).

No data arriving

1. Make sure you completed step 4 — descriptors must be ticked and saved in the portal's Data Selection.
2. Trigger a lock/unlock in the MyBMW app to prompt the car to send an update.
3. Run bavariandata.get_coverage_report (Services) — it tells you exactly which expected descriptors haven't arrived, so you can tell a selection problem from a car-doesn't-send-it problem.

Only one stream per account

BMW allows a single concurrent streaming client per account (GCID), so no other tool can be connected at the same time. If another CarData client is running, disconnect it.

The car can't be controlled

Read-only. CarData cannot send commands, so this integration can't lock, precondition, or otherwise control the car. Automations act on external devices in response to the car's data — see Events & blueprints.

Debug logging

Off by default. Turn it on in Configure → Debug logging and reload. It's verbose and can include vehicle data such as GPS and VIN, so leave it off unless you're chasing a problem. (Separate from Home Assistant's generic per-integration log level.)

The card doesn't show up after an update

Hard-refresh the browser — the bundled card is cached aggressively.

Quota exhausted

If you've spent all 50 REST requests in 24 h, a repair issue appears under Settings → Repairs telling you when it resets. Streaming keeps flowing throughout — only fetch_* calls pause.

Where to get help

• Bugs in the integration → Issues.
• BMW-side registration trouble, setup help, or general questions → Discussions.