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Dashcam implementation is idiotic
- Thread starter ChopinBlues
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At this point I can only presume that you are technically incapable of addressing the technical issues I have raised
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OK, I've been a professional software developer for longer than you, so I'll pick up here.
What technical issues do you have at the moment? I've read through the thread, and there's a lot of sturm und drang but a distinct lack of clear questions. This is unusual; one of the best insights into the mind of a programmer I've ever seen is XKCD 1494, which you'll likely agree with. You've also rejected a lot of helpful suggestions from other Model 3 owners.
Are you still unable to get recordings to work? Due to the underlying UNIX-based OS, file (and folder) names are case-sensitive (one of the things that UNIX got wrong, IMHO); getting things named correctly is absolutely necessary. The easiest way to do this is as DrWags noted on the first page of this thread; format the drive IN THE CAR. It will automagically create the correct (and correctly named/capitalized) folders to make TeslaCam work correctly. If it doesn't work after that, file a service request because it really is just that simple.
In my experience, and ignoring the manual completely, the TeslaCam "Recent" directory has the last hours worth of recordings - not the recordings made in the last hour, but the last hours worth of recordings that have been made. It DOES NOT, IME, delete recordings simply because they're more than an hour old; rather it deletes one because there are 60 (actually, 240 IIRC) seperate one-minute recordings already in the folder and it needs to add a 61st. I believe it works exactly the way you think it should.
There are plenty of things to b*tch about on the DashCam software - e.g. the timing bug that means that in an accident or Sentry event, occasionally the event is not recorded. (Actually, it is recorded, but the entry is not updated in the directory, so the 1-minute file that contains the video doesn't show up. Gotta do some unerase action to find the video). What you're complaining about here, as far as I can tell, isn't one of those things.
If you have questions about problems you're having, you'll have far better success here simply asking the question along with the background that help us understand where you're coming from. Complain if it makes you feel better, rant if you need, but ask the question - a rant without a question isn't actionable and likely won't get you the response you're looking for.
What technical issues do you have at the moment? I've read through the thread, and there's a lot of sturm und drang but a distinct lack of clear questions. This is unusual; one of the best insights into the mind of a programmer I've ever seen is XKCD 1494, which you'll likely agree with. You've also rejected a lot of helpful suggestions from other Model 3 owners.
Are you still unable to get recordings to work? Due to the underlying UNIX-based OS, file (and folder) names are case-sensitive (one of the things that UNIX got wrong, IMHO); getting things named correctly is absolutely necessary. The easiest way to do this is as DrWags noted on the first page of this thread; format the drive IN THE CAR. It will automagically create the correct (and correctly named/capitalized) folders to make TeslaCam work correctly. If it doesn't work after that, file a service request because it really is just that simple.
In my experience, and ignoring the manual completely, the TeslaCam "Recent" directory has the last hours worth of recordings - not the recordings made in the last hour, but the last hours worth of recordings that have been made. It DOES NOT, IME, delete recordings simply because they're more than an hour old; rather it deletes one because there are 60 (actually, 240 IIRC) seperate one-minute recordings already in the folder and it needs to add a 61st. I believe it works exactly the way you think it should.
There are plenty of things to b*tch about on the DashCam software - e.g. the timing bug that means that in an accident or Sentry event, occasionally the event is not recorded. (Actually, it is recorded, but the entry is not updated in the directory, so the 1-minute file that contains the video doesn't show up. Gotta do some unerase action to find the video). What you're complaining about here, as far as I can tell, isn't one of those things.
If you have questions about problems you're having, you'll have far better success here simply asking the question along with the background that help us understand where you're coming from. Complain if it makes you feel better, rant if you need, but ask the question - a rant without a question isn't actionable and likely won't get you the response you're looking for.
I was programming in Fortran on punch cards and 300 baud timeshare terminals in 1973. First exposure to Unix in 1980. And Mac OS, which I have been heavily involved in since the early days, is largely Unix based, as I’m sure you know. I think I know a thing or two about Unix and s/w development.
But that’s neither here nor there, as I don’t have access to Tesla’s code. My issue is with Tesla’s implementation of the dashcam feature, which is either extremely buggy, or simply doesn’t work like any of the 4 or 5 that I have previously owned. And yes, I’m aware of the fact that the manual says it’s only a Beta version. But Beta, in my considerable experience, has usually meant that something is largely feature-complete, but may still be buggy.
So, yes, the dashcam did finally start recording video after a few days. Perhaps this is related to the other features that apparently require some “training” period, such as the cruise and lanekeeping, as well as s/w updates. Doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever.
In any case, I just now pulled the flash from the car. Right before that, I tried to view the footage in the car — there wasn’t any. Sure enough, when I looked at the drive, both the RecentClips and the SavedClips folder were empty. So, not only did it erase the RecentClips, which I believe you said it doesn’t do, but it even erased my SavedClips, which I know I had a few of from earlier. BTW, I have Sentry Mode turned off, in case that matters. And can you explain why someone insisted earlier, either in this thread or another one, that Sentry Mode NEVER records video? It clearly does.
So, aside from what seems to be mysterious and unpredictable operation of Tesla’s Dashcam implementation, I have two basic issues:
1). Why limit the recordings to one hour? There seems to be no good reason that anyone has presented. Someone tried to make the argument that it’s because flash has limited write cycles. That is true. But I quickly did a brief computation, which showed that the flash, even with heavy driving, would still last a few years, and probably in most cases longer than the car. And besides, if you’re going to record while driving anyway, it still doesn’t buy you anything to start erasing the previous hour, rather than just wait until it starts getting full.
2). It appears to be erasing the existing hour while parked. I haven’t had the time to do a thorough investigation of this behavior, but as I pointed out above, the drive is completely empty right now, and I have almost 500 miles on the car. This is just plain wrong.
I’m also pretty sure that both Trekker_ and WhiteWi will shortly be marking this post with a Thumbs Down, as they have with every single post of mine to date, no matter how innocuous — perhaps you can explain that one too, as that makes no sense to me either.
I do appreciate your taking the time to respond to me in a calm and professional manner, and trying to address my issues, which I believe is the main purpose of this forum. I really don’t understand why I’ve been taking so much abuse, other than I probably chose a poor title for this thread. At the same time, I still believe that the title is not too far off the mark if my 2 main issues described above truly are the way it works. Others may disagree, but the bottom line is, no other dashcam that I’m aware of works this way. Anyway, thanx for your help
I would say that there’s something wrong in your setup, because nobody reports the struggles that you’re having.
How do you know that dashcam is recording video if Recent Clips and Saved Clips are empty?
>>> And can you explain why someone insisted earlier, either in this thread or another one, that Sentry Mode NEVER records video? It clearly does.
Someone trying to be pedantic and failing. Video is recorded while Sentry is active. Previous video is moved/copied (don't remember which) when Sentry alerts.
>>> Why limit the recordings to one hour?
There's no good reason, it's just the way they defined the feature. Having been involved in more than a few feature definition efforts, you can never get everyone to agree on everything. The same amount of writing occurs to the flash drive regardless of whether you overwrite after an hour, or after a day, so it doesn't have any effect on write cycles. And, by the way, NO USB Flash Drive manufacturers specify the number of write cycles their product can withstand, so there is no way to calculate the lifetime of a USB drive in this application. In my experience with a SanDisk, a Samsung, and third one that I don't remember, a 32GB drive lasts a few months and that's about it. Using a 256GB might last a year. SD cards designed for surveillance cameras often have specified write cycle lifetimes, as do SSDs, so they may be a better long-term choice.
>>> t appears to be erasing the existing hour while parked.
That's not behavior that I, or others, have seen. My usb stick has the last hours worth of recorded video in Recent Clips. Other people’s sticks have the last hour of recorded video. If yours does not, there is something mysterious going on.
>>> really don’t understand why I’ve been taking so much abuse, other than I probably chose a poor title for this thread.
Because your attitude has been crochety. You've thrown around all kinds of invective about "idiocy" and "wrong" and "stupid", with an attitude of "I'm smarter and more technically savvy than you", and not done much more than abuse the people who tried to help you.
How do you know that dashcam is recording video if Recent Clips and Saved Clips are empty?
>>> And can you explain why someone insisted earlier, either in this thread or another one, that Sentry Mode NEVER records video? It clearly does.
Someone trying to be pedantic and failing. Video is recorded while Sentry is active. Previous video is moved/copied (don't remember which) when Sentry alerts.
>>> Why limit the recordings to one hour?
There's no good reason, it's just the way they defined the feature. Having been involved in more than a few feature definition efforts, you can never get everyone to agree on everything. The same amount of writing occurs to the flash drive regardless of whether you overwrite after an hour, or after a day, so it doesn't have any effect on write cycles. And, by the way, NO USB Flash Drive manufacturers specify the number of write cycles their product can withstand, so there is no way to calculate the lifetime of a USB drive in this application. In my experience with a SanDisk, a Samsung, and third one that I don't remember, a 32GB drive lasts a few months and that's about it. Using a 256GB might last a year. SD cards designed for surveillance cameras often have specified write cycle lifetimes, as do SSDs, so they may be a better long-term choice.
>>> t appears to be erasing the existing hour while parked.
That's not behavior that I, or others, have seen. My usb stick has the last hours worth of recorded video in Recent Clips. Other people’s sticks have the last hour of recorded video. If yours does not, there is something mysterious going on.
>>> really don’t understand why I’ve been taking so much abuse, other than I probably chose a poor title for this thread.
Because your attitude has been crochety. You've thrown around all kinds of invective about "idiocy" and "wrong" and "stupid", with an attitude of "I'm smarter and more technically savvy than you", and not done much more than abuse the people who tried to help you.
I did enable the “save on honk” feature, and briefly played with sentry mode. I have also pulled the flash drive a couple times in the past few days and verified that it contained video clips in both the recent and saved folders. I also just now did a drive reformat to see if that helps.
On screen status reports that I have s/w version 2021.11.103 and that it’s up to date as of Sep 25. However, I just updated my iPhone app, and it said I needed version 2021.36+ to take advantage of some of the new features. I am not using “advanced” mode for s/w updates. Should I?
If you can deal with bugs, it’s kind of exciting to get the new software when others do. As an example, several people have reported that the 2021.32.22 release that came out this morning disabled their usb flash drives for no obvious reason, so no usb music and no Sentry/Teslacam for them. Most people didn’t have that issue. It’ll get fixed in a day or two in a new point release.
In my experience, yes.
You have to remember that the computer that runs the display is completely and totally seperate from the computers that run the accelerator, brakes, etc. Tesla has completely different criteria for releasing software for the display compared with safety critical software.
In my experience, bugs in the display will sometimes cause it to reboot - even when you're driving - which has zero impacts on your ability to drive other than you lose your speedometer and navigation display for a minute or two. Bugs in the display will sometimes cause issues with things like music playback (especially with USB MP3 playback, but occasionally streaming services also), or automatic wipers, or similar. These kinds of bugs (except for USB MP3 playback) seldom last longer than a week or two before the next release fixes them. And, in my experience, most of these bugs don't show up in my car, I only know of them because I read the forums and a dozen people will start discussing a bug.
You have to remember that the computer that runs the display is completely and totally seperate from the computers that run the accelerator, brakes, etc. Tesla has completely different criteria for releasing software for the display compared with safety critical software.
In my experience, bugs in the display will sometimes cause it to reboot - even when you're driving - which has zero impacts on your ability to drive other than you lose your speedometer and navigation display for a minute or two. Bugs in the display will sometimes cause issues with things like music playback (especially with USB MP3 playback, but occasionally streaming services also), or automatic wipers, or similar. These kinds of bugs (except for USB MP3 playback) seldom last longer than a week or two before the next release fixes them. And, in my experience, most of these bugs don't show up in my car, I only know of them because I read the forums and a dozen people will start discussing a bug.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Saved clips are never erased other than by formatting the drive, or the user manually deleting them.
SENTRY clips get over-written if the drive is nearly full.
Recent clips are over-written if older than 1 hour.
No, it clearly does not.
Turn on sentry. But turn off dashcam.
Nothing will ever get recorded.
Because dashcam is what actually records.
The only thing Sentry does, if on AND going to alert or alarm mode, is copy the previous 10 minutes of dashcam footage to the sentry folder.
Flash memory slows down as it fills up BTW so there is a reason not to perpetually run near full if if does not have to.
And remember the car was never designed to have a dashcam feature in the first place... it, and then sentry mode, was added for security and safety reasons after a highly publicized series of break-ins in the bay area (where Teslas are very popular) - not to document 6 hour drives through national parks.
If the footage didn't cause an alert or alarm, and you didn't need it enough to manually save it after an hour, they expect you likely don't need it. If you do there's plenty of aftermarket dashcams available to do nature documentaries with.
I think some folks have mentioned if you start a new drive and the recent footage is more than an hour old it'll clear that. I've never had reason to confirm this because as I mention, if I didn't care enough after an hour to save something it's not that important.
But even if true- It does not erase saved footage no matter the time, and only erases sentry folder footage if it's nearly out of space.
Well, it looks IIke I already need a service appointment then, as currently, the “dashcam” is not recording anything while I’m drivIng. And Yes, I have it turned on, the red dot appears on the on-screen icon. And yes, I even tried a re-format
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Any chance you're seeing the sentry red dot and not the dashcam red dot (one is a circle icon with a red dot in the middle, the other is a rectangle with a red dot in the corner)?
No chance — in fact, I have to keep turning sentry mode off, as it constantly turns itself on, and I don’t want it on to preserve battery life. It continues to strike me that this whole dashcam business is extremely buggy.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Since you keep describing behaviors directly counter to almost anyone elses experiences, it seems more likely you have a hardware issue with your car than this being, somehow, so many (different) software bugs that you have numerous, different, issues that others on the same software do not.
Just 3 recent examples from your posts:
You can normally turn sentry off entirely and it stays that way, but you claim yours keeps turning back on.
For another if you get the red dot on the dashcam (not sentry) icon it means it's recording yet you claim it hasn't recorded anything.
If you have video in the saved (not sentry or recent) folders, it does not get deleted by the car, yet you claimed this happened (despite also somehow dashcam not recording in the first place apparently...).
So your earlier notion of a service appointment definitely seems the way to go.
Works fine here
maybe you have a hardware issue if everyone else is saying it’s fine but you can’t figure it out , doesn’t matter what your profession is
Book a apt and maybe get the tech to show you and if it still doesn’t work, then you know
if it works after, swallow your pride and chalk it up to a ID 10 T error, we all learn as we live…
maybe you have a hardware issue if everyone else is saying it’s fine but you can’t figure it out , doesn’t matter what your profession is
Book a apt and maybe get the tech to show you and if it still doesn’t work, then you know
if it works after, swallow your pride and chalk it up to a ID 10 T error, we all learn as we live…
orntar
Member
a modern programming joke and nicer way to say something else but I kid
but seriously I read your post and you come off all high and mighty as a SW engineer and rubbed people the wrong way
some folks want to help out and yes you responded to attitude with attitude which I get and could be justified, but if you do some searches yourself to debug, it really isn’t hard to analyze that you either have a true hardware issue or really didn’t understand how this function works
I had an issue too when I swapped from USB key to ssd enclosure for the dashcam but I diagnosed that I had a faulty cable and also had to format in car to get it working
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