The tuner definitely knows when the ignition is on. I've messed with it enough times to know that. It knows when the engine is running and when the key is out of the ignition...But no matter what I've tried, it still gives me an ignition error message telling me to verify that the ignition is on. I even went to the lengths of pulling out the SP205 splice pack and jumping just the DLC and PCM terminals together to make sure that no other accessories were interfering with the tuner and same deal. I sent it back to superchips to see if they can identify anything wrong with it.