Dashcam in Auto

[eugenes.mobile]

I got 2021.32.21 update. It has the "auto" mode for dashcam option which I thought is a good choice. I had an USB stick plugged into a usb slot of my Tesla 3 before, and it did record a lot of footage - so the car clearly didn't have a problem using the stick.

Today I got in an accident when someone decided to change a lane suddenly. I didn't even have time to react.

Now my insurance is saying I am at fault. Just because damage to my car is in the front. I was hoping the dashcam footage would help me. But no. The USB stick is empty....

A pretty high price to pay... I'm sad.

 

[eugenes.mobile]

I got 2021.32.21 update. It has the "auto" mode for dashcam option which I thought is a good choice. I had an USB stick plugged into a usb slot of my Tesla 3 before, and it did record a lot of footage - so the car clearly didn't have a problem using the stick.

Today I got in an accident when someone decided to change a lane suddenly. I didn't even have time to react.

Now my insurance is saying I am at fault. Just because damage to my car is in the front. I was hoping the dashcam footage would help me. But no. The USB stick is empty....

A pretty high price to pay... I'm sad.

 

[Rice&Curry]

Did you honk to save the footage in case it was not recording and saving?

 

[talkingevs]

I wasn't aware there is an auto mode. I thought it constantly records and overwrites, but if you honk it saves that clip? Am I wrong?

 

[eugenes.mobile]

I wasn't aware there is an auto mode. I thought it constantly records and overwrites, but if you honk it saves that clip? Am I wrong?

There's apparently a new option. And honking doesn't seem to work no matter what

 

[eugenes.mobile]

Did you honk to save the footage in case it was not recording and saving?

I did No footage. And I clearly have the "save on honk" checkbox checked off

 

[jjrandorin]

OP, not sure if this is how you ment this to sound, but the way it reads is this:

"I just joined TMC today, to complain about dashcam because my insurance says an accident is my fault. There is nothing that can be done about this, because the footage isnt there, but I joined today so that I can tell everyone my dashcam failed".

Im probably going to catch some flack for saying it sounds like that, and I am not saying it because I want to moderate it away or something (or I would have done that). People join all the time to complain about stuff, but I am not sure what you are going for, here, other than "railing at the moon on a website you just joined today to do that".

 

[eugenes.mobile]

Did you honk to save the footage in case it was not recording and saving

OP, not sure if this is how you ment this to sound, but the way it reads is this:

"I just joined TMC today, to complain about dashcam because my insurance says an accident is my fault. There is nothing that can be done about this, because the footage isnt there, but I joined today so that I can tell everyone my dashcam failed".

How does the fact that I joined today affect the fact that clearly dashcam feature failed?
I wanted to make people aware this can happen. I did observe this myself. Any problem with that?

 

[Tam]

How does the fact that I joined today affect the fact that clearly dashcam feature failed?

It might be a lack of knowledge of how the Tesla Dash Cam works.

It autosaves in an airbag deployed event but otherwise, the owner needs to manually save it like honk the horn, click on the icon and choose "save" not "view"...

It's also important to read the manual that says it's beta. There are many consumer-quality products in the market so it might be a good idea to buy them in case something goes wrong with the beta.

I wanted to make people aware this can happen. I did observe this myself. Any problem with that?

Finger-pointing and blaming the "the fact that clearly dashcam feature failed" seems to come from the lack of following the manual's instruction.

 

[Taxvictim]

My dashcam and Sentry mode have not worked properly at all since I got the car (two weeks ago). This thread describes the exact reason I want it. I'm scheduled for service in a few weeks, but I'm hoping Tesla can fix it remotely before then. The built in dashcam was a big selling point for me. I had paid to have dashcams installed front and rear in my Lexus. When I was at the Tesla dealership, I asked many questions about the dashcam and was assured it was very easy to record everything while driving.

 

[Tam]

...was assured it was very easy to record everything while driving.

"Easy" as in keep on honking the horn and clicking on the camera icon to save.

 

[stopcrazypp]

There's apparently a new option. And honking doesn't seem to work no matter what

Did it save an hour's footage in Recent Clips? Did you check the USB stick on a computer (note you should pause recording before removing the stick)? Note some file recovery tools may be able to recover deleted footage. I would pull the stick ASAP and try that if money was on the line. This post suggested Recuva can recover up to a week's footage:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam

If there is zero footage, something else is wrong with your dashcam or you didn't activate it (the icon must show a red dot for it to be recording).

See page 70 in manual.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf

 

[Knightshade]

Yeah, was just about to say same as above.

If the stick has NO footage your problem is dashcam wasn't even on/recording at all. So honking wouldn't have helped you.

FWIW save on honk works fine for me- saw this just today when an idiot on the highway tried to merge into a lane I was already in- honked and actually caught the saving message on the screen out of the corner of my eye.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Did it save an hour's footage in Recent Clips? Did you check the USB stick on a computer (note you should pause recording before removing the stick)? Note some file recovery tools may be able to recover deleted footage. I would pull the stick ASAP and try that if money was on the line. This post suggested Recuva can recover up to a week's footage:
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam

If there is zero footage, something else is wrong with your dashcam or you didn't activate it (the icon must show a red dot for it to be recording).

See page 70 in manual.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf

For what it's worth I just tried using Recuva to look back at older footage and the deep scan setting works like a charm. It basically is able to recover all the files in my 128GB microSD (gives 3300+ deleted mp4 files which is about 13 hours of footage, which is what the card can roughly store as full). Given I don't have sentry on, and I'm not driving my car much, the oldest footage it recovered is from 2 weeks back.

Note that it is not able to recover the file name for the already deleted files, but the files of the same period is bunched together (Recuva gives a list of mp4 files numbered by order it is found). So you can recover for example every 500th mp4 (then narrow to 200th etc) and use this method to narrow down which time period each bunch is from (without having to spend the time/disk space to recover entire card). Keep in mind it does loop back (meaning the oldest file may not be the first one it finds nor is the newest file the last one). In Windows Explorer, in the "Details" view, you can right click on the top bar, and add the "Media created" field and it'll give you the actual day/time the file was recorded. Given the dashcam doesn't have a time stamp in the footage, you'll need to refer to this field to make sure you are looking at the right time.

 

[mattnis]

I did No footage. And I clearly have the "save on honk" checkbox checked off

that's the problem

 

[ochompsky]

OP, not sure if this is how you ment this to sound, but the way it reads is this:

"I just joined TMC today, to complain about dashcam because my insurance says an accident is my fault. There is nothing that can be done about this, because the footage isnt there, but I joined today so that I can tell everyone my dashcam failed".

Im probably going to catch some flack for saying it sounds like that, and I am not saying it because I want to moderate it away or something (or I would have done that). People join all the time to complain about stuff, but I am not sure what you are going for, here, other than "railing at the moon on a website you just joined today to do that".

why did you even bother to respond with such an unhelpful post? you would think mods would know better. this kind of response makes me embarrassed to be a tesla owner. you are part of the problem in the toxic community. i'll probably get banned for this post but even you admitted that you expected a response like this.

anyhow, OP is far from the only person to have this problem, sentry/dashcam is notoriously unreliable.

 

[Taxvictim]

I got my dashcam serviced today, and now it's working correctly. The funny part is my invoice (for $0) says the car was in only to check tire pressures and rotation. I wonder if the dealer is hiding something from HQ, like that they didn't set the car up correctly on delivery?

 

[jjrandorin]

I got my dashcam serviced today, and now it's working correctly. The funny part is my invoice (for $0) says the car was in only to check tire pressures and rotation. I wonder if the dealer is hiding something from HQ, like that they didn't set the car up correctly on delivery?

There have definitely been reports of peoples dashcam not working properly on new cars when it is not "delivered" electronically. I remember a thread here a couple pages on that, I think. The end result was that there was something related to dashcam that didnt work properly until tesla delivered the vehicle in some back end system that perhaps a delivery specialist forgot or something.

I can try to find it if you are interested, but it sounds like you are all set already.

 

[Taxvictim]

There have definitely been reports of peoples dashcam not working properly on new cars when it is not "delivered" electronically. I remember a thread here a couple pages on that, I think. The end result was that there was something related to dashcam that didnt work properly until tesla delivered the vehicle in some back end system that perhaps a delivery specialist forgot or something.

I can try to find it if you are interested, but it sounds like you are all set already.

Thank you. I saw that thread and put all of that info in my service request. Some folks had said Tesla could fix this issue remotely, but they didn't do it until my scheduled service date. The two items that do not work until the car is "fully delivered" on both the new and old Tesla computers are the dashcam and the cabin overheat protection. It makes sense. Tesla wouldn't want all of their inventory burning up battery power on cabin cooling and Sentry mode while the cars were in transport. Every car would arrive with a dead battery.

 

[Whip Lash]

For what it's worth I just tried using Recuva to look back at older footage and the deep scan setting works like a charm. It basically is able to recover all the files in my 128GB microSD (gives 3300+ deleted mp4 files which is about 13 hours of footage, which is what the card can roughly store as full). Given I don't have sentry on, and I'm not driving my car much, the oldest footage it recovered is from 2 weeks back.

Note that it is not able to recover the file name for the already deleted files, but the files of the same period is bunched together (Recuva gives a list of mp4 files numbered by order it is found). So you can recover for example every 500th mp4 (then narrow to 200th etc) and use this method to narrow down which time period each bunch is from (without having to spend the time/disk space to recover entire card). Keep in mind it does loop back (meaning the oldest file may not be the first one it finds nor is the newest file the last one). In Windows Explorer, in the "Details" view, you can right click on the top bar, and add the "Media created" field and it'll give you the actual day/time the file was recorded. Given the dashcam doesn't have a time stamp in the footage, you'll need to refer to this field to make sure you are looking at the right time.

I will definitely have to look into this. I’m using the same size card. Thanks