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"Legacy" Model S and v11 Dashcam?

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I've got a "Legacy" Model S (2014 P85) with AP1 hardware but I've upgraded to MCU2.

Over the last year or so, support for my 1 TB USB drive which I've been using to play FLACs for the last 7 years has eroded to the point where now, with V11, the USB drive won't even get recognized anymore. The manual now says only flash drives are supported. (Taking away functionality on a forced update is not cool, Tesla).

With the V11 update, I notice that now there is an option in the "Safety" menu for formatting a USB drive for a dashcam (I've never seen this before). I tried using a 32GB SanDisk Cruzer flash drive, but the car gave me a "USB Format Failed" error when I attempted to format it in the car.

I successfully formatted it in my computer (to exFAT), but then when I put the USB drive in the car it still didn't want to format it.

Anyone with an older S have any luck getting the dashcam to work with a flash drive?
 
The car really likes FAT. Newer computers and third party software can format your flash drive as FAT. Usually, though, it is a slow format, and not the quick format. Make sure you add the folder "Dashcam", and under that add 3 folders: SentryClips, RecentClips, and SavedClips. You need a USB 2.0 capable drive that is fast to record 8 cameras. I don't think the Cruzer is going to do it. Once you determine the car can recognize the drive you have and its format, get an "endurance" USB 3.0 drive that is capable of dashcam recording. It is designed for hot and cold and continuous rewriting, and the speeds necessary for dashcam. That said, your car should recognize the format on your Cruzer USB anyway, even though it likely won't work well.
 
I've got a "Legacy" Model S (2014 P85) with AP1 hardware
Anyone with an older S have any luck getting the dashcam to work

Unfortunately the Dashcam feature is not available on your car, since your Tesla has AP1 hardware.

The Dashcam (and Sentry that records to a USB drive) feature only works with vehicles that have AP2.5 and up, as the actual Autopilot computer is the one that manages most of the video feeds except for the rearview camera, which is the only feed managed by the MCU.

The option you see to format the USB drive in the Safety menu is a bug introduced with the Holiday Update. Software engineers probably forgot to add the flag that removes this option on vehicles that don't have the 8 camera suite, but most importantly, that don't have the AP2.5/FSD computer installed.

Make sure you add the folder "Dashcam"

Just curious @Todd Burch, did your Cruzer flash drive had the "TeslaCam" folder after the car failed to format it? 🤔
 
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Reactions: Todd Burch
Unfortunately the Dashcam feature is not available on your car, since your Tesla has AP1 hardware.

The Dashcam (and Sentry that records to a USB drive) feature only works with vehicles that have AP2.5 and up, as the actual Autopilot computer is the one that manages most of the video feeds except for the rearview camera, which is the only feed managed by the MCU.

The option you see to format the USB drive in the Safety menu is a bug introduced with the Holiday Update. Software engineers probably forgot to add the flag that removes this option on vehicles that don't have the 8 camera suite, but most importantly, that don't have the AP2.5/FSD computer installed.



Just curious @Todd Burch, did your Cruzer flash drive had the "TeslaCam" folder after the car failed to format it? 🤔
Thanks, I was clinging to hope that it was a new feature that they forgot to document. I'll have to check to see if the folder is there.
 
The car really likes FAT. Newer computers and third party software can format your flash drive as FAT. Usually, though, it is a slow format, and not the quick format. Make sure you add the folder "Dashcam", and under that add 3 folders: SentryClips, RecentClips, and SavedClips. You need a USB 2.0 capable drive that is fast to record 8 cameras. I don't think the Cruzer is going to do it. Once you determine the car can recognize the drive you have and its format, get an "endurance" USB 3.0 drive that is capable of dashcam recording. It is designed for hot and cold and continuous rewriting, and the speeds necessary for dashcam. That said, your car should recognize the format on your Cruzer USB anyway, even though it likely won't work well.
This is wrong info. The question was: "Does dashcam work on older S's," not "How do you format the flash drives that do support Dashcam?" At the moment, it does not appear that dashcam works on AP1 vehicles, and the fact that the option is there in settings is a bug.