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MASTER THREAD: Rear view camera image goes black [2019-2020]

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I'm 30 miles from the closest one, but there is a much closer one that is supposed to open in November.
Lucky duck. I am over 2 hrs each way and most of my miles have been up and back for various issues.

Maybe they could re-push the latest software release to your car and see if that helps.

Or do a settings reset through the menu, or let it 'sleep'.
 
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3 weeks old / 581 miles
Firmware Version: 2019.32.12.2 58f3b76

I've seen other people post these issues separately off-and-on over the last few months, but several of them hit my car last Friday:

  1. My backup camera no longer works, the screen turns black. No amount of shifting / waiting solves it.
  2. The GPS location of the car no longer updates, it thinks it's sitting in my driveway. Because of this, the street speed limit / cruise control / AutoPilot are not functioning.
  3. The day/night auto screen brightness no longer works automatically. I have to manually switch it between day and night, after setting it correctly for a specific driving session I set it back to Auto.

I've tried the soft reboot (brake/buttons) and the hard reboot (power off 3+ mins) process several times, neither one fixed it. However, with a soft reboot the car correctly detects which day/night mode the screen should be in immediately after the reboot.

The two things I did to the car on the Friday that this started happening:

  • I inserted a FAT32 formatted 64GB USB 3.0 stick to enable dash cam. I had a USB 2.0 stick before that, the car complained about write speed (even though the actual dash / sentry functionality worked fine) so I upgraded.
  • I installed my front/rear license plates from the DMV.
I'm a 20+ year software engineer / IT project manager, so the idea of driving a fast computer with a few quirks isn't a big problem. But at some point these types of problems on a new, expensive car will switch from amusing to embarrassing.

I have a service appointment scheduled for next Tuesday.

Sharing all of this ^^^ in case anyone else is experiencing the same issue.

Have you tried removing the USB stick completely, reboot, and then waiting for the car to sleep? Then try the camera again. There of been some sporadic reports about USB drives causing weird issues.
 
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Yeah, I have suspicions about your USB drive. I keep on preaching using SSDs in this forum, but technologically illiterate people always disagree. Samsung T5 or nothing. I use one with zero issues. I'm dismayed that you used a USB 2.0 drive and work in IT, by the way.
 
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I had the same problem today with my backup camera showing a black screen. Tried a warm reboot but no difference. Didnt have time for a hard reboot. I then left the car in a car park and on returning a few hours later and starting up, the backup screen was back to normal. Is this the Tesla equivalent of a computer restart (maybe as opposed to a hard reboot)? Might be a totally different problem to yours but I thought I would share my experience with you
 
My GPS froze after a firmware update when I had it early on. Steering wheel reset did nothing. I happened to have a service center appointment for other issues the same morning it happened and showed the tech. He put it on the list of things to fix. There was a long backlog and my car just sat in the service center's parking lot over the weekend before they got around to it. I checked on it from the app after a couple of days and the GPS had randomly started working again--before they ever had it in the shop. When I got it back, the report said GPS was functioning normally, so the tech who worked on it never saw it frozen. Just sitting there for a couple of days must have put it in sleep mode and waking it up reset it and fixed it. Hasn't happened again in over 1.5 years.
 
Any time there are black backup camera issues, it's always to do with sentry mode, whether it's on or off. The sure fire way to fix it is to unplug everything from the USB and let the car idle. Sometimes I've had it work again within a short drive.

To mitigate this blank backup camera or GPS issue, I'll unplug everything from the USB once a week so it sits overnight with nothing plugged in.
 
I'm normally pretty positive and love my Tesla, BUT I am truly sick and tired of the BLACK empty backup camera bug. We've had this bug for well over a YEAR and it is safety related. Last night I was trying to back up and was waiting and waiting and waiting for the image to finally show.. . never did and I backed up blind. How can it take more than a year to track this bug down?
 
I'm normally pretty positive and love my Tesla, BUT I am truly sick and tired of the BLACK empty backup camera bug. We've had this bug for well over a YEAR and it is safety related. Last night I was trying to back up and was waiting and waiting and waiting for the image to finally show.. . never did and I backed up blind. How can it take more than a year to track this bug down?

I could not agree more. It is honestly embarrassing that it still delays upwards of 10 seconds, with a black screen, before turning on. I haven't had it NOT turn on for quite awhile though. It just takes its sweet little time.. lol.

Can't get a backup camera to display on the screen consistently under a second, but yeah, FSD is right around the corner!

I think I'll keep that $7,000 until they can get basic things working that have worked across the industry for years now.
 
Totally agree. I was demonstrating to a colleague the autopark (which didn't work), autopilot (which barely worked on streets with parked cars (literally came to an abrupt stop on a slight turn almost hitting a parked car), and a blacked out backup camera (for nearly 10-12 seconds). He was impressed with everything else though but still embarrassing.
 
My MS even show the image from past/different location while backing up. When using smart summon car don't see the pedestrians, instead see some other image with clear path. If car mow down somebody, I will be still liable.
 
What's the law in relation to a "lemon" car in the US ? Return in 6 months if it cannot be fixed for a full refund ???

Varies by state, and usually need to be a serious problem you've taken in for service/repair and they've tried and failed to fix on your specific car multiple times (or vehicle entirely out of service for a certain amount of time)

Unlikely "my backup camera takes too long to display" would qualify though.

In virginia where you say you are it's not enforceable by any government agency, you'd have to settle it yourself privately with Tesla- see here:

Lemon Law