Corrupt video files in Sentry Mode

[Knightshade]

I wish I was confusing it with the dashcam feature. All three cameras record all the time whether it is awake or asleep, even if sentry mode is off.

But you are confusing it with the dashcam feature.

Because that's the one that is "always" recording if the car is awake regardless of what Sentry mode is doing.

All Sentry mode is really doing is "saving" the last 10 minutes of buffered footage any time it alerts (plus the extra stuff it does when the alarm goes off).

If the car is asleep then it's not recording (sentry mode or not) because it can't be.


if your cameras never turn off then your car is never going to sleep and you might want to talk to the service center about that because it's not how it's supposed to work.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

I have a new theory. The green/pixelation or no recording is because there is no motion being detected by the cameras when operated in Sentry Mode.

I have this theory because on multiple instances of reviewing sentry mode videos, the 0kb recording is mostly a static field with little to no motions, but when there is recording, there is usually enough motion. For the pixilation, the pixilated portion of the recording has no motion but as soon as there is motion in the area of the pixilation, the pixelation disappears. For example, I had one video where the bottom part is pixilated, but as soon as someone walked into to pixelated area, the full video was recorded.

I believe this was implemented to save file size and not record a static image.

Nope, I have videos of me triggering the Sentry mode recording and the cameras where I should be in never records. I walked around the car multiple times and the left or right or both would be 0kbs.

 

[joh01652]

I just used sentry for the first time a couple days ago and have noticed my right repeater files being corrupt as well. Works fine when driving and sentry mode in low light(night) Otherwise I get files that shows zero kB. I was also getting random issues with left repeater too though today as well. Not confidence inspiring that it would work when I need it to.

yeah I got the same problem. Brand new Model 3 in May with newest FSD chip. Got a bad ding on the door today, caught the persons face and body with Sentry Mode clearly, but intermittent total pixelation/distortion made it impossible to get license plate. Really irritating, hope Tesla can help.

 

[joh01652]

Nope, I have videos of me triggering the Sentry mode recording and the cameras where I should be in never records. I walked around the car multiple times and the left or right or both would be 0kbs.

Same with me, intermittent total corruption occurs whether or not there is motion.

 

[bb4srv]

This is my theory on the motion. I trimmed it to 5 secs but the footage prior was all jitters with no motion.

 

[cyril94440]

Hey guys,

I have kind of similar issues with my car.
This is what I get from the Micro SD Car which btw is 40MB/s write - 90MB/s read (is it enough?)

Any thoughts on that?

 

[AlexLau]

Same here, updated to the latest firmware 2019.20.4.2. Only happened on the right repeater during sentry mode. At first used an USB 2.0 stick and 90% of the right repeater files are zero byte. No I am using SanDIsk USB 3.0 Ultra Fast flash drive, still got 10% of the files with zero byte and 20% of file corrupted for the first 5-10 secs, green strips and pixelized.

 

[ZapZap]

My less than 1 month old M3 v 2019.20.4.2 isn't producing functioning sentry cam files. I opened a service call for my sentry cam creating mp4 files with expected file sizes however they won't play with any mp4 player. Here is what the virtual diagnostic team sent me : "The most common issue we have been seeing with the Sentry Mode files is that the USB stick is either corrupted or not partitioned correctly, not an issue with the vehicle itself. Additionally, please make sure it is a 32GB USB stick. Please try reformatting your USB stick, and we can go from there."

I've ordered a 32GB 2.0 USB Flash Drive and will update on if this fixes the issue.

 

[Knightshade]

My less than 1 month old M3 v 2019.20.4.2 isn't producing functioning sentry cam files. I opened a service call for my sentry cam creating mp4 files with expected file sizes however they won't play with any mp4 player. Here is what the virtual diagnostic team sent me : "The most common issue we have been seeing with the Sentry Mode files is that the USB stick is either corrupted or not partitioned correctly, not an issue with the vehicle itself. Additionally, please make sure it is a 32GB USB stick. Please try reformatting your USB stick, and we can go from there."

I've ordered a 32GB 2.0 USB Flash Drive and will update on if this fixes the issue.

Sounds like they're too lazy to try and explain how to format a larger USB stick in FAT32 since most users are on windows.

32GB will function, but it's probably too small to use for this purpose for very long.

Some folks who park for 8 hours in busy lots have entirely filled a 32GB stick in a single day... and you're going to be burning through write cycles on a drive that small once every ~6 hours of use

 

[ZapZap]

Sounds like they're too lazy to try and explain how to format a larger USB stick in FAT32 since most users are on windows.

32GB will function, but it's probably too small to use for this purpose for very long.

Some folks who park for 8 hours in busy lots have entirely filled a 32GB stick in a single day... and you're going to be burning through write cycles on a drive that small once every ~6 hours of use

When the mobile tech was out, he formatted my 256GB for me and claimed that it was working on his computer. When I plugged it into both windows computers that I use, neither could open the files.

 

[McFlurri]

still having issues here too with my 128GB SSD

 

[Accentcreate]

I have a new 128 GB drive that was working well with Sentry and DashCam modes.
After a long recharge (17 hours) at a hotel in Spain with plenty of tyre kickers it was completely filled up and now impossible to erase. Each time I try (with Mac Disk Utility) I get the dreaded "Unable to write to the last block of the device” message.
I'm now reluctant to try another USB until I figure out what the issue is.
If older data was written over once the disk become full that would surely be a solution.

 

[Knightshade]

I have a new 128 GB drive that was working well with Sentry and DashCam modes.
After a long recharge (17 hours) at a hotel in Spain with plenty of tyre kickers it was completely filled up and now impossible to erase. Each time I try (with Mac Disk Utility) I get the dreaded "Unable to write to the last block of the device” message.
I'm now reluctant to try another USB until I figure out what the issue is.
If older data was written over once the disk become full that would surely be a solution.

Since the system has no way to know what sentry videos are important, it can't overwrite them automatically.

With the dashcam it DOES know which are important since it only saves clips you specifically told it to.



That said- the drive must already have had a lot of used up space...

Even if it was recording 100% of the time in alert sentry mode (incredibly unlikely- that would require over 100 sentry alerts in those 17 hours) it would still only use 5.4GB per hour....5.4 times 17 is 91.8 GB...leaving over 1/4 of the drive free unless you already had over 30GB of saved files (over 5 hours of saved recordings) taking up space

 

[Accentcreate]

Since the system has no way to know what sentry videos are important, it can't overwrite them automatically.

With the dashcam it DOES know which are important since it only saves clips you specifically told it to.



That said- the drive must already have had a lot of used up space...

Even if it was recording 100% of the time in alert sentry mode (incredibly unlikely- that would require over 100 sentry alerts in those 17 hours) it would still only use 5.4GB per hour....5.4 times 17 is 91.8 GB...leaving over 1/4 of the drive free unless you already had over 30GB of saved files (over 5 hours of saved recordings) taking up space

It was a new drive and empty when we started our trip. We did have two weeks of touring in the bag before that 17 hour day as we didn't take a computer with us. Still a pain to lose the whole drive and any 'security' footage it contained.

 

[EVnut]

Yesterday, I enabled Sentry mode and after going to the store, I watched the video on my PC. The Right Repeater image was often saturated and moving objects (car door, person, cars) would jump back forth as they moved through the scene.

I am almost certain that you've entered the Matrix.

Seriously though.... I'm seeing the same thing. Plus totally blank files, plus corrupt files, plus files with colored bands. I'm not aware of anybody who's got perfect recordings, but maybe they exist.

 

[Accentcreate]

Since the system has no way to know what sentry videos are important, it can't overwrite them automatically.

With the dashcam it DOES know which are important since it only saves clips you specifically told it to.



That said- the drive must already have had a lot of used up space...

Even if it was recording 100% of the time in alert sentry mode (incredibly unlikely- that would require over 100 sentry alerts in those 17 hours) it would still only use 5.4GB per hour....5.4 times 17 is 91.8 GB...leaving over 1/4 of the drive free unless you already had over 30GB of saved files (over 5 hours of saved recordings) taking up space

Thanks Knightshade, but my Sentry mode seems to record almost constantly. A leaf moving in the wind, a shadow of cloud passing overhead or someone walking past on the other side of the road, all seem to trigger a recording on all three cameras. If I don't have a USB installed or Sentry switched on the alarm goes into overdrive. I park and walk away and you can guarantee that the alarm will go off within minutes, for zero apparent reason. I've talked to Tesla and the best they can offer is that I'm not alone and they hope a software update will reduce the sensitivity, one day!