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Carpark damage, Sentry Mode playing up.

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Got back to the car today with a nice note on the windscreen...at least they admitted it. Big foot long scrape on both cars, don't have much affection for Zoe drivers right now.

Sentry mode said "5 Events" so did the usual press the red dot and all it did was turn sentry mode off, no viewer?

So removed the flash drive and put it in my laptop, the only clips were from yesterday at 11:30 pm when I was asleep.

Any ideas??

Also they want me to get a quote as their excess is £450, so want the chance to pay outside insurance, I'm sure the damage will be more but sounds like a can of worms to me, what if they change their mind and refuse to pay etc.

Any advice greatly received, feeling a bit sad.
 

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The viewer is not the red dot, it is next to that and then you select launch viewer from the drop down.
Check the other folders on your flash drive. Recents and SentryClips.

Don't entertain the crazy idea someone can fix your scraped up Tesla for less than £450/$593 as the person is hoping. Maybe 10 times that. Call their insurance company right now file a claim and start the process.
 
The viewer is not the red dot, it is next to that and then you select launch viewer from the drop down.
Check the other folders on your flash drive. Recents and SentryClips.

Don't entertain the crazy idea someone can fix your scraped up Tesla for less than £450/$593 as the person is hoping. Maybe 10 times that. Call their insurance company right now file a claim and start the process.

Thanks for the tips, something definitely wrong with sentry mode / viewer. The small camera Dashcam Icon had disappeared completely when is said 5 sentry events. After removing the SD putting it in my pc, then replacing back in the car it seems to be working again,

Looking at the viewer nothing since 1st Sept. Even though I have been driving it all week. Wonder if recent updates have caused a problem?

Same feeling as you on the scratches. Two panels need paint, not going to be cheap. Just driven to the local spay shop for a quote, interesting to see what comes back tomorrow. Shame Sentry mode failed, bit frustrating.
 
Thanks for the tips, something definitely wrong with sentry mode / viewer. The small camera Dashcam Icon had disappeared completely when is said 5 sentry events. After removing the SD putting it in my pc, then replacing back in the car it seems to be working again,

Looking at the viewer nothing since 1st Sept. Even though I have been driving it all week. Wonder if recent updates have caused a problem?

Same feeling as you on the scratches. Two panels need paint, not going to be cheap. Just driven to the local spay shop for a quote, interesting to see what comes back tomorrow. Shame Sentry mode failed, bit frustrating.

Check the "Recent" folder specifically on the drive. If there's still nothing actually recent there, not much you can do.

SentryMode/DashCam is pretty unreliable. Hopefully this is a free-to-you (minus stress and dealing with repairs) example of that. Would recommend getting a real dashcam in the future (with an internal battery).
 
If there's no dashcam icon with red dot, it's not recording.

Sentry doesn't record anything... ever.

It just moves existing dashcam recordings to the saved folder if they exist. You can use sentry mode without even having a recording device in the car, it'll still do all the other stuff (flash the lights, put up the YOU ARE BEING RECORDED warning, etc).
 
make sure you have a proper storage device... an extreme micro SD or a SSD drive.
Standard USB flash drives fail with the constant use. Those that use standard drives often find out only when they need film
 
make sure you have a proper storage device... an extreme micro SD or a SSD drive.
Standard USB flash drives fail with the constant use. Those that use standard drives often find out only when they need film


None of the above being accurate of course.

The car is only recording 2MB/sec- even a "standard" USB key should be good for many years or recording at that data rate.

My 'standard' Samsung 128GB key has been in use since the feature was launched almost 2 years ago, still works flawlessly.

In fact the owners manual only lists 2 specific approved recording devices- both standard USB keys.



You can do the math yourself (and many have in previous threads), running dashcam/sentry a typical (pre covid) 8-10 hours a day it'd be near a decade before you wore out a 128GB USB key using average quality flash memory...

But by all means if your intent is to pass down dashcam footage to your grandkids, grab whatever pricier ultra endurance flash you can find :)

arguably an SSD is the worst choice, since it's physically larger, uses more power, and usually has specs with a narrower operating temp range than USB keys or SDcards do.
 
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Thanks for the tips. My USB was one recommended by others on the forums, seems to be working fine now at 8 months old, sentry switched off at home I don't think it has heavy use.

Nothing in the recents folder for the previous week of driving so I suspect the update I did about a week ago could be culprit. Interesting to note the Sentry viewer icon was missing but when I got back to the car it said 5 events. So I need to look out for the Viewer icon in future I assume to check its working. Think I'll go and creep up on my car and do some testing.
 
you can run "recuva" software to try to see erased videos.
If you had events it should be recorded on the drive, of course thats not always the case as I recently found out.


Again- sentry does not record anything

It only copies already recorded video from the recent to the saved folder.

If dashcam wasn't recording things in recent, and he indicates it was not, there's nothing to "recover"
 
Also they want me to get a quote as their excess is £450, so want the chance to pay outside insurance, I'm sure the damage will be more but sounds like a can of worms to me, what if they change their mind and refuse to pay etc.
Some advice about the other party wanting to "pay outside of insurance" - I thought I was being nice doing with one of my previous claims, what a complete waste of time that was. Just treat it like an insurance claim and get a real quote - there is zero chance it will be less than 500 quid.
 
what the... that's a crazy long scrape!
I'm not the crying type, but a good way to make a man cry is a 2 foot scrape on an 8 month old Tesla!

Went to a local spray shop, £530 inc Vat. Didn't think that was too bad but decided I didn't want the risk
of the other party not paying etc and logged a proper claim with my insurance. I now get a hire car and the job done properly at a Tesla recommended spray shop.

Thanks for the advice, shame Sentry mode didn't pick it up, doubt a front and rear cam would have seen anything either.