Dashcam failure when needed!

[G4WFT]

This afternoon, I was on the sharp end of some halfwit's incredibly dangerous driving (I was overtaking two lorries on a dual carriageway, driving at the speed limit, and he undertook me and squeezed, and I mean squeezed, between the lorries and me to get in front). I sounded the horn and then watched as he braked hard to stop at a roundabout, couldn't manage it and pulled out in front of another vehicle, narrowly avoiding another accident. Back at home I went to inspect the dashcam footage, only to find that it had recorded nothing! I'm using a Samsung FIT Plus, 128GB USB drive. Normally it records fine, though I do see occasional alerts saying that it is too slow. At the time I bought it, back in September last year, I think it was one of the devices recommended by Tesla.

I hasten to add, by the way, that "Save clip on honk" is enabled of course, and it has worked fine before. Do you think drive write speed is an issue?

 

[Irata]

Not sure if you meant inspected the recordings in car, or otherwise.

It might be too late if it's been overwritten, but worth quickly removing the stick and checking the directory using a computer to see if the recent recoding is still there.

 

[boogle]

I've got a Samsung SSD in mine, and it still occasionally fails to work right. I also hit a deer on the motorway and the impact was between 2 separate files so while it did record, the most important bit was missing. Fortunately there was enough footage to show how some damage occurred on the side of the car that the insurer didn't fancy covering. Also top tip, the camera can see deer in the dark before you can, but Autopilot doesn't care.

I think if you want something reliable you need to get a proper dashcam and use the Tesla one as a 'nice to have' should it be working at the time.

 

[Tigermad]

That’s the one thing I don’t like about the cameras. When you honk it only saves when you honk and the 10 mins prior. While it is saving the camera stops recording for a while. This means you miss anything that happens immediately after the honk. I’ve decided to turn off the record on honk and save the footage manually so I capture before and after. Other proper dashcams can save the footage before and after as standard if you press the save button.

 

[Jason71]

The amount of writes that take place on a Tesla dash cam means that even endurance media could wear out in a year or so. At a min you need to reformat periodically to avoid the slowdown. I would recommend replacing with one of the new SanDisk Max Endurance SD cards. The bigger the better. Based on the specs that should last many years

 

[Silicon Desert]

That’s the one thing I don’t like about the cameras. When you honk it only saves when you honk and the 10 mins prior. While it is saving the camera stops recording for a while. This means you miss anything that happens immediately after the honk.

hmmm, I haven't noticed that. I am going to try it, but take your word for it. If that is happening then it would be good for Tesla to make a simple software change to wait several seconds after honking the horn to save the video.

 

[gdallas]

I've noticed my dashcam has been absolutely pants recently. Seldom recording. Sentry seems to do its thing and record OK. But dashcam over the last few weeks is crap for me. I'm using a SanDisk 1TB portable ssd.

 

[Durzel]

I hit the horn after someone overtook me in a 20mph just before a blind bend, narrowly missing a van coming the other way.

When I rewatched the footage (in car) there was actually a jump in it at the point of the overtake. You could still see what happened, but didn’t look continuous anymore.

Was going to report the guy to Operation Snap but decided it probably wasn’t serious enough (the van didn’t have to take obvious corrective action), certainly not as bad as what the OP describes.

(I’m using a Samsung T5 SSD, never had any issues with slowness warnings or disconnections)

 

[Mrklaw]

That’s odd - the honk should be functionally identical to pressing the tiny icon on the screen so shouldn’t affect the video? If it does it sounds like a bug?

 

[nxsynjs]

The dashcam function needs a re-work. It shouldn't be reliant on the state of mind of the driver after an accident to remember to honk the horn, press the icon or remove the drive to save the info

I did think of putting a proper dashcam in my M3, but I remember reading it can have adverse effects on the 12vbattery or main battery as the signals that tell the cam to go to sleep arent sent due to power always being on. Dunno how true that is though

 

[Jason71]

Hw long have you guys had these devices? you may be starting to suffer degradation. The use case of continuously writing video to Flash memory is an extreme one. My original plan for reliability was to use Sandisk Endurance SD cards and replace once a year pre-emptively. Once the Max Endurance came out I switched to that so hope it will now outlast my ownership of the car.

 

[nxsynjs]

Hw long have you guys had these devices? you may be starting to suffer degradation. The use case of continuously writing video to Flash memory is an extreme one. My original plan for reliability was to use Sandisk Endurance SD cards and replace once a year pre-emptively. Once the Max Endurance came out I switched to that so hope it will now outlast my ownership of the car.

Do you think the above would last longer than a USB SSD?

 

[Wol747]

It might be worthwhile running a recovery program such as Recuva - it's often possible to recover many overwritten files even after a reformat. I've been able to recover multiple files this way.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

Do you think the above would last longer than a USB SSD?

I suspect by stated warranty periods that its likely to be the same/similar memory technology.

I recon by our usage pattern, we are going to get around 4 years out of each of our (original) Endurance cards (we have 2 that were rotated in old days of no on board viewer), but the Max Endurance cards would mean that a single card should easily cover the lifespan of the car and they are the same price point that the original Endurance cards were.

 

[G4WFT]

Thanks for all the posts chaps. I'm going to replace the flash drive I've been using with a SanDisk Max Endurance card and see how things go.

 

[Tigermad]

I hit the horn after someone overtook me in a 20mph just before a blind bend, narrowly missing a van coming the other way.

When I rewatched the footage (in car) there was actually a jump in it at the point of the overtake. You could still see what happened, but didn’t look continuous anymore.

Was going to report the guy to Operation Snap but decided it probably wasn’t serious enough (the van didn’t have to take obvious corrective action), certainly not as bad as what the OP describes.

(I’m using a Samsung T5 SSD, never had any issues with slowness warnings or disconnections)

That’s what happens with my honks too. It jumps. It’s because it records the 10 mins prior and stops recording at the exact point of the honk, which is silly because that’s what footage you need the most. I’ve turned off honk recording now and intend to record stuff manually a few minutes after it has happened if it’s worth doing so. I just wish it was easier to press the camera while recording to save footage. I keep pressing the profiles instead because it seems a very small area.

 

[Durzel]

Thanks.. yeah that seems silly.

In my case I honked about 10 seconds after it happened, past the incident, yet the pause was right as the car overtook.. weird. And on top of that weirdness you've got an idiot (me) who appears to be honking for no reason.

 

[Mrklaw]

That is silly. You’re also likely to instinctively honk at a situation so that’ll mess that up

I’ll turn honk off just in case

 

[Turntable666]

Why can’t we just have an option for it to over write when drive is full like normal dash cams

 

[NewbieT]

Mmm, I think the honk really just copies the footage from a temporary location to the USB folder. I dont think it affects where one file ends and the next starts, that cycle is already in play. I.E nothing you can do about it. Best thing is to wait 10 mins so the block has finished recording (but not over- written) and then pull the USB stick. I could be wrong, I have been before.