How to use USB-C in Model Y

[flai54]

And doing that reduces the Dashcam/sentry storage. So them my only other option is buying a larger drive. It wouldn't have cost Tesla much to make all the ports data and power, which ultimately would cost them nothing when they raise the car prices by what...$10. We pay a premium price for their cars and should have premium features.

That was what I was implying in that if you have a ton of music then you don't want to use the stock Tesla 128GB USB stick. Instead you would buy a 512GB USB stick and you can let the Tesla screen preformat the USB stick to the correct folder structure for Dashcam/sentry storage. It just depends on how much you use of mostly Sentry mode because that is what eats up the storage.

I don't understand why for HW4, they decided to remove the USB port to be incompatible with the USB data module retrofit. Its one thing if they wanted to be cheap and not provide a data capable module and prewire the center console ports to be able to have data but to remove the mini USB plug on the MCU is something else.

 

[flai54]

I cant answer that, because I have no idea. What I CAN tell you however, is that it was common enough for people to have a full USB sentry drive start to cause main screen reboots / black screens etc, that when someone reported anything at all with "My screen is doing XXXX on a model 3 or Y, the first thing any veteran of these forums would recommend was "did you try taking out / Re formatting your sentry drive?

I am guessing they do something strange with partitions, etc as it relates to how the car OS sees it, but I dont work there, and I am not interested in digging into it.

I also doubt its "all" hubs, even if there is a problem. It probably depends on the hub, its power draw, what you have plugged into it, etc etc. Tesla itself though, would make a blanket statement of " dont use a hub " because its simpler from a support perspective, and otherwise they are then making recommendations for some third party hubs and not others.

Fair, I mean I guess that would strike out the glovebox hub option to have multiple USB devices plugged in and powered by the single USB port that could overload it but couldn't one still put their music on the same USB as the dashcam/sentry mode so that they can utilize this function? I gotta think those that had the screen issues were probably taking full advantage of the full 4 USB ports on the hub which wouldn't be wise anyways. At most 2 USB ports should be used to power something and not using all 4 USB ports at one time.

When you mean by a "full USB sentry drive" are you talking about storage memory is full? I don't have experience in this since I don't use sentry mode all that often but I think for dashcam when the drive is full, doesn't it start rewriting over the oldest set of videos? I don't remember reading about USB maintenance about having to every so often take the USB drive to our computer and dump out all the old videos that were not an issue.

 

[jjrandorin]

Fair, I mean I guess that would strike out the glovebox hub option to have multiple USB devices plugged in and powered by the single USB port that could overload it but couldn't one still put their music on the same USB as the dashcam/sentry mode so that they can utilize this function?

My personal opinion is that you could do either of those (use a quality hub, or partition a a USB drive into multiple partitions).

When you mean by a "full USB sentry drive" are you talking about storage memory is full? I don't have experience in this since I don't use sentry mode all that often but I think for dashcam when the drive is full, doesn't it start rewriting over the oldest set of videos? I don't remember reading about USB maintenance about having to every so often take the USB drive to our computer and dump out all the old videos that were not an issue

Dashcam overwrites, but sentry recorded videos dont (to summarize).

TL ; DR = one should either re format the drive periodically or take it out of the car, connect to a computer, copy desired files somewhere then delete them.

============================================

Here is a linked thread I asked one of our members to put together explaining it, since it always came up.

Dashcam / Sentry: How they work and what they do (and dont) do

(moderator note) Special thanks to @Knightshade , for taking the time to write up a description of how Sentry and Dashcam interact together. There is a lot of confusion about these two features, and how they interact together. I asked @Knightshade who has a good understanding of how these...

teslamotorsclub.com

Its possible for sentry videos to fill up a thumb drive. Back when I got my car (2018) and even a couple years after that (2019-2020), Tesla Sentry drives only worked properly with fat32 formatted drives. It was also common for people to use fairly small drives (32GB in some cases) due to the fact that it took some gyrations to format something larger than that in Fat32, in windows.

Tesla didnt support more advanced filesystem structures, and the drives would fill up fast.

Even when people swapped to larger drives (64GB / 128GB), many people dont understand that they still need to either re format the drive in the car (which will erase it, but should likely only be done if the drive is partitioned properly or only used for Sentry mode), or take it out of the car and delete the files they dont want to keep off it.

If you "never" use sentry mode, you likely dont need to worry. If you have a very large drive as a sentry drive, you might not run into this often. If you use sentry "sometimes", and dont use a large drive, you might need to eventually do one of the above.

 

[flai54]

My personal opinion is that you could do either of those (use a quality hub, or partition a a USB drive into multiple partitions).



Dashcam overwrites, but sentry recorded videos dont (to summarize).

TL ; DR = one should either re format the drive periodically or take it out of the car, connect to a computer, copy desired files somewhere then delete them.

============================================

Here is a linked thread I asked one of our members to put together explaining it, since it always came up.

Dashcam / Sentry: How they work and what they do (and dont) do

(moderator note) Special thanks to @Knightshade , for taking the time to write up a description of how Sentry and Dashcam interact together. There is a lot of confusion about these two features, and how they interact together. I asked @Knightshade who has a good understanding of how these...

teslamotorsclub.com

Its possible for sentry videos to fill up a thumb drive. Back when I got my car (2018) and even a couple years after that (2019-2020), Tesla Sentry drives only worked properly with fat32 formatted drives. It was also common for people to use fairly small drives (32GB in some cases) due to the fact that it took some gyrations to format something larger than that in Fat32, in windows.

Tesla didnt support more advanced filesystem structures, and the drives would fill up fast.

Even when people swapped to larger drives (64GB / 128GB), many people dont understand that they still need to either re format the drive in the car (which will erase it, but should likely only be done if the drive is partitioned properly or only used for Sentry mode), or take it out of the car and delete the files they dont want to keep off it.

If you "never" use sentry mode, you likely dont need to worry. If you have a very large drive as a sentry drive, you might not run into this often. If you use sentry "sometimes", and dont use a large drive, you might need to eventually do one of the above.

I mean that makes sense. I guess I am talking about in the now which is that the Tesla system now uses the modern exFAT file system (for largest filesizes) and not the old FAT32 file system and the USB storage stick is at least 128 GB. I agree that normal maintenance of your USB drive is needed especially if you use sentry mode all the time then yeah, I am not surprised if they ran into issues where the drive was causing errors when it filled up. I am assuming the Tesla notifications icon will tell you if your dashcam/sentry drive is full.

I guess what I am trying to figure out is whether the issues people have been observing normally are really due to a USB hub or just using a crappy quality USB drive, lack of maintenance to format their USB drives periodically that causes issues or just using too small of USB storage drive.

 

[jjrandorin]

I guess what I am trying to figure out is whether the issues people have been observing normally are really due to a USB hub or just using a crappy quality USB drive, lack of maintenance to format their USB drives periodically that causes issues or just using too small of USB storage drive.

I can only give my opinion here, but my opinion as to the answer to this question is "yes" (to issues likely being related to USB hubs, crappy quality USB drives, lack of maintenance to format their USB, or using too small of a USB storage drive, or USB Drives overheating). All of those are possible and even likely.

I have had a 256GB SD card (in an adapter) in my 2018 Model 3 performance since mid 2019, and its in the console (since 2018 cars dont have USBs in glove compartment) and it still works, with no issues.

I can also remember threads about screens rebooting, etc that get remedied by people taking out their USB drives.

 

[kon21]

I do not have have lighshow in my current car. In readings, people create different folders for each lightshow they have. Then, when they want to use a particular show they copy the contents of the show into the folder named lightshow. You cannot do this in the car, however.

If I misstated this I am sure others will correct me.

My understanding is after 2023.44.30 update, you could have multiple lightshows, just name the .wav/mpe and .fseq the same name. EG Sandstorm.fseq and Sandstorm.mp3

 

[ATPMSD]

My understanding is after 2023.44.30 update, you could have multiple lightshows, just name the .wav/mpe and .fseq the same name. EG Sandstorm.fseq and Sandstorm.mp3

Correct!