Model 3 DashCam last minute of accident missing

[Kain]

So I just got into an accident a few hours ago. Driver and witness claimed I was going into his lane but he side swiped me and cause my car to lose control and almost hit the car to the left of me and while trying to regain control of the vehicle, I swerved right an we collided a second time. The witness only saw the 2nd part because the street was a curve and said he saw me hitting his car twice.

I remembered right after the accident, I pulled over and immediately hit the dashcam icon to stop recording but did not see the download icon to download the video clip to usb. As I got home, I pulled the usb drive out to get the evidence but to my surprise, the dashcam only recorded up to the minute before the accident when we were both at the red light. Does anyone know where that last footage would be? I scanned my drive with recovery tool and got a bunch of .REC files but my vlc player could not play most of them.

I called Tesla in hopes that they know and they said unfortunately they don't know what to do and just apologized which is of no help. At this point, I only have footage of him a few minutes prior cutting off people and that obviously would not be of use as evidence. Any suggestions on how to find the lost footage would be great.

 

[brkaus]

Here is the manual. Did you save and then pause before removing?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

So I just got into an accident a few hours ago. Driver and witness claimed I was going into his lane but he side swiped me and cause my car to lose control and almost hit the car to the left of me and while trying to regain control of the vehicle, I swerved right an we collided a second time. The witness only saw the 2nd part because the street was a curve and said he saw me hitting his car twice.

I remembered right after the accident, I pulled over and immediately hit the dashcam icon to stop recording but did not see the download icon to download the video clip to usb. As I got home, I pulled the usb drive out to get the evidence but to my surprise, the dashcam only recorded up to the minute before the accident when we were both at the red light. Does anyone know where that last footage would be? I scanned my drive with recovery tool and got a bunch of .REC files but my vlc player could not play most of them.

I called Tesla in hopes that they know and they said unfortunately they don't know what to do and just apologized which is of no help. At this point, I only have footage of him a few minutes prior cutting off people and that obviously would not be of use as evidence. Any suggestions on how to find the lost footage would be great.

Sorry to hear about the accident.

I recall someone here saying that you actually have to wait one minute before pressing save, otherwise the thing you actually want to save will be lost (or at least will not be transferred to the list of playable files, and will be difficult to get back).

Easy enough to experiment with and see whether it is true. But use a different ISB drive if you are doing that...

However, what you really want is the footage, not experiments. I have no idea whether the files you want are on the USB or saveable in any way. I would not put the drive back into the car until you determine some way to get the missing footage (there may not be a way...)

 

[Leeclanual]

Sorry to hear about the accident... definitely some shady drivers who will lie about responsibility.

I believe It stores the last hour of video doesn’t it in a loop? So no reason to stop recording immediately and remove the drive. I agree with comments above... think you would have been better off waiting for a few minutes before stopping the recording to ensure video was not at end of recording period.

 

[Nebuchadn3zzar]

I've never found any useful information in the .REC files. If those are the only ones you've been able to retrieve, I would try a different data recovery utility, because you should be finding .mp4 files as well.

I have been able to recover a good number of recent-front-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM.mp4 video files that the car automatically deletes past the 1-hour rolling window, though some of them are truncated or empty (0 bytes).

I don't know whether the car writes directly to the USB drive on the fly, or first to internal memory and then copies it over; if it's the former, then it's possible that you could recover a portion of the last incomplete file before you paused recording. As others have mentioned, at this point, do not plug the drive into anything other than a computer for data recovery purposes.

Depending on the value of this footage, it may be worth sending the drive to a professional data recovery service.

 

[Kain]

Here is the manual. Did you save and then pause before removing?

View attachment 372220

I tapped the icon and the red dot disappeared from the cam but did not see the checkbox. At the moment I was in shock and immediate reaction was to stop the recording after I pulled over to make sure nothing gets overwritten. My initial thought was the clip must be missing because Tesla must have stored the file somewhere to protect it but after using a disk recovery tool on the entire drive, I found nothing. Most of the .REC files that were found were corrupted. The only thing I can hope for now is the Tesla Black Box to have stored some info during the accident. Unfortunately all the Tesla Service Centers near me are booked until feb when I called Customer Support.

 

[Kain]

I've never found any useful information in the .REC files. If those are the only ones you've been able to retrieve, I would try a different data recovery utility, because you should be finding .mp4 files as well.

I have been able to recover a good number of recent-front-YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM.mp4 video files that the car automatically deletes past the 1-hour rolling window, though some of them are truncated or empty (0 bytes).

I don't know whether the car writes directly to the USB drive on the fly, or first to internal memory and then copies it over; if it's the former, then it's possible that you could recover a portion of the last incomplete file before you paused recording. As others have mentioned, at this point, do not plug the drive into anything other than a computer for data recovery purposes.

Depending on the value of this footage, it may be worth sending the drive to a professional data recovery service.

I did indeed find the .MP4 files but they were the same ones that were recorded on my TeslaCam. It all recorded up until the accident. I saw a file named "recent-front-" with the date of today. However, when I attempted to play it with VLC media player, It turns out to be a clip from the beginning of the drive

 

[OPRCE]

I have recently noticed that sometimes 1 minute is for no apparent reason missing from the middle of saved dashcam recordings and suspect it may be due to hitting a pothole, being hit by phone sliding about during acceleration or other physical shock, e.g. collision, shifting my fairly large USB key enough to temporarily break data connection in the port not designed with such robust mobile applications in mind.

If this is what happened then the critical <current minute> may never have been stored on the USB at all, in which case ...

 

[e-FTW]

Am very sorry to hear that, and I do not have a solution for you. Others might.

What I do know is that from my understanding of how the dashcam feature works:

• It records one minute segments
• It will keep recording one minute segments for up to an hour
• Afte that, it is said to delete older segments and only keeps the last 60 segments
• Taping the icon is supposed to mark the last 10 one-minute segments for archival, preventing them from being erased. This is what you want to do after an incident.
• Pressing and holding the icon will stop the dashcam feature, allowing you to safely remove the USB drive from the car (you know, like you must do on a computer). This is not what you want to do after an incident.

Here is my hypothesis: you might have pressed and held the icon right after the incident, causing Dashcam to shut down while the feature was still recording the one minute segment that contained the incident, and that caused that critical segment to be deleted instead of stopped and saved.
If this is what happened, it definitely feels like a bug, and should be reported to Tesla for fixing.

This could be tested easily: anyone with Tesla Dashcam can try this out and see if when you press and hold, the exact moment you did it is recorded, or if you only see up to a point in the past. This time difference will vary of course, based on where the feature was in its 1 minute segment. I would do it, but I am 3000 miles away from my car at the moment.

It seems like you are ok and healthy. And that is the best outcome of this. I know that damage to your car sucks, but in the grand scheme of things is somewhat less important.

 

[Stellavator]

Am very sorry to hear that, and I do not have a solution for you. Others might.

What I do know is that from my understanding of how the dashcam feature works:

• It records one minute segments
• It will keep recording one minute segments for up to an hour
• Afte that, it is said to delete older segments and only keeps the last 60 segments
• Taping the icon is supposed to mark the last 10 one-minute segments for archival, preventing them from being erased. This is what you want to do after an incident.
• Pressing and holding the icon will stop the dashcam feature, allowing you to safely remove the USB drive from the car (you know, like you must do on a computer). This is not what you want to do after an incident.

Here is my hypothesis: you might have pressed and held the icon right after the incident, causing Dashcam to shut down while the feature was still recording the one minute segment that contained the incident, and that caused that critical segment to be deleted instead of stopped and saved.
If this is what happened, it definitely feels like a bug, and should be reported to Tesla for fixing.

This could be tested easily: anyone with Tesla Dashcam can try this out and see if when you press and hold, the exact moment you did it is recorded, or if you only see up to a point in the past. This time difference will vary of course, based on where the feature was in its 1 minute segment. I would do it, but I am 3000 miles away from my car at the moment.

It seems like you are ok and healthy. And that is the best outcome of this. I know that damage to your car sucks, but in the grand scheme of things is somewhat less important.

Agree with this. It's my understanding that when you hit save, it will save the previous 10 completed 1 minute segments. However, it will not save the 1 minute segment that it is currently recording. And that segment may get overwritten. So, if needed, you should wait a couple minutes after an event to hit the save button, to be sure the minute of recording that you want to keep has been completed and saved. Also, of course, be sure to pause the dash cam recording before removing it from the usb outlet.

 

[Kain]

Agree with this. It's my understanding that when you hit save, it will save the previous 10 completed 1 minute segments. However, it will not save the 1 minute segment that it is currently recording. And that segment may get overwritten. So, if needed, you should wait a couple minutes after an event to hit the save button, to be sure the minute of recording that you want to keep has been completed and saved. Also, of course, be sure to pause the dash cam recording before removing it from the usb outlet.

I wasn't aware of pressing and holding it to turn off. I only tapped it thinking it will stop the recording. Afterwards I immediately removed the usb. I think tapping it before it finished recording the 1 minute loop must've somehow corrupted the last minute of footage. I will try and bring the drive to a professional recovery place monday and see if they can recover anything. I see a bunch of .REC files but most of them would not play using VLC. The .MP4 files that I recovered using the recovery tool were the same clips that the dashcam recorded up until before the accident.

 

[Az_Rael]

Agree with this. It's my understanding that when you hit save, it will save the previous 10 completed 1 minute segments. However, it will not save the 1 minute segment that it is currently recording. And that segment may get overwritten. So, if needed, you should wait a couple minutes after an event to hit the save button, to be sure the minute of recording that you want to keep has been completed and saved. Also, of course, be sure to pause the dash cam recording before removing it from the usb outlet.

Man, I sure hope Tesla eventually fixes all this. That is terrible behavior in a dash cam. The first thing I am going to do after any event is push “save” that would be the normal reaction.

I am glad I kept my BlackVue in addition to the TeslaCam. It at least auto-saves anything where it gets a hit on the g-force sensor.

 

[sreams]

I experienced this after an accident and posted my thoughts on it in a Facebook post a couple days ago. It does appear that the last minute of recording is lost if that last minute is interrupted for any reason. In my case, it was because I exited the car and closed the door before the minute of video containing the accident footage was complete. Something Tesla should fix.

 

[brkaus]

@Kain Thanks for the update. I hope all works out and glad no one was hurt.

When I attached the manual page above, it was the first time I had read it. I also assumed I was to push the button to save the last 10 minutes and I never realized there was an option to "hold" the camera icon.

Are all your other clips on the USB drive for the last hour? Or is the drive just corrupted?

BTW - somewhere I saw a project that someone was using a Raspberry Pi in USB emulation mode. It was plugged into the car and the Pi could archive data real time. I'll have to look for it.

I do have a regular blackvue dash cam on my S. Purchased it after I was hit and then blamed for an accident. I was counting on the built in for the 3, but may reconsider.

One bit of advice - write down everything that happened in as much detail as possible. I was asked by various insurance companies about the accident and they really went over every word.

 

[gsxr]

@Kain This happened to me as well. Got into an accident, pulled over, hit the save button. It must have been over 5 minutes after I hit save and ejected the USB drive however, I have everything recorded however the 2 minutes of the accident went missing. If you managed to figure something out, let me know

 

[e-FTW]

Currently:
- Tap the icon/button -> archives the last 10 completed one-minute segments. This may not include the last 59 seconds of your life. Also, the TeslaCam is still running (red dot should show that), and you should not remove the drive.
- Tap and hold the icon/button -> turns off TeslaCam so you can remove the thumb drive. This may remove the last 59 seconds of your life.

It seems there is a slight redesign in order, as when you just got in a crash, controls need to be simple and obvious.

I think tapping the TeslaCam icon should stop the current minute loop, process it and save or archive it, depending it the user taps or taps and holds. Meanwhile, it would show the user a spinning/wait icon to confirm it is doing something. That way, less of a chance of lost incident footage.
Additionaly, a tap should show a message about it archiving the last 10 minutes.

 

[Kain]

@Kain This happened to me as well. Got into an accident, pulled over, hit the save button. It must have been over 5 minutes after I hit save and ejected the USB drive however, I have everything recorded however the 2 minutes of the accident went missing. If you managed to figure something out, let me know

Will do. This will be a nightmare for my insurance as the witness said he saw my car hitting his a second time and that it was just a weird situation as we hit twice and looks like I was trying to get in his lane (I was going straight and my destination was on my left side). I tried to explain that he side swiped me initially by coming into my lane and causing my car to lose control and the 2nd impact was a result of me trying to regain control of my vehicle.

After that, my reaction was to pull over to the right so avoid further crashes and assess the situation while stopping the dashcam. That might be what made him think I was trying to get into his lane. The only thing I captured was the last 3 minutes of footage showing when his car first appeared on my cam and cutting off 2 people without signaling and switching lanes multiple times(again without signaling) up until we were at the red light. I doubt that any of that can be used as evidence as the witness did not seem to see anything up until the accident.

 

[SMAlset]

Interesting that only the last 3 and not 10 or even 9 minutes were saved. Someone commented that the initial impact might have caused a jot that momentarily messed up the USB drive connection. Your description makes me wonder if that isn’t what happened then in your case.

Out of curiosity what USB drive (and capacity) were you using, and was it dedicated to TeslaCam? I haven’t picked up a drive yet to try out. Are there drives that kind of lock into place so they can’t easily be removed from your laptop or in this case car? When the beta testing starts soon for the Sentry Mode, I’m wondering what capacity drive they will recommend.

 

[Nebuchadn3zzar]

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that the immediately-preceding evidence of him making unsafe lane changes endangering other drivers, and you (presumably) driving safely and defensively, could provide some valuable credence to your word against his and that of the witness, though you would need to convincingly explain why your dashcam conveniently missed precisely the most crucial moment. Perhaps explaining that technicality is one thing that Tesla could help you with at this point.

If you can recall the exact location of the initial collision, you could also enlist the help of nearby businesses that may have had surveillance cameras pointed in the right direction.

 

[Kain]

Interesting that only the last 3 and not 10 or even 9 minutes were saved. Someone commented that the initial impact might have caused a jot that momentarily messed up the USB drive connection. Your description makes me wonder if that isn’t what happened then in your case.

Out of curiosity what USB drive (and capacity) were you using, and was it dedicated to TeslaCam? I haven’t picked up a drive yet to try out. Are there drives that kind of lock into place so they can’t easily be removed from your laptop or in this case car? When the beta testing starts soon for the Sentry Mode, I’m wondering what capacity drive they will recommend.

No, it wasn't just 3 minutes saved. It was a total of 15 minutes. The last 3 minutes of the drive is when his car came into the picture. The entire drive literally shows me staying in a single lane going speed limit.

Within the last 3 minutes, his car came into the picture and immedaitely cut between 2 cars with barely any room by switching from middle to left lane. Then cut off the 2nd car by switching back to middle lane.

After my car was approaching the red light, he was ahead but suddenly decides to switch from the middle lane to the right lane allowing me to take the middle lane at the red light. At the time of impact, the light turned green, I was going forward and his car suddenly starts coming into my lane causing me to honk and move left to avoid and he hit me anyway causing me to lose control and almost hit the car to the left of me. As I tried to steer back right to regain control and avoid the car to my left, we hit again.

The usb drive I used was a formatted 32gb HP drive that I use only for the dashcam