Scary near crash with a big truck today. Disappointed that teslacam did not record the event 😕

[holmgang]

When you click on the dash am button in the controls section, it beeps, and tells you the clip was saved. that’s exactly what we did.

That might be what you did. But that's not what you said: "[2-3 seconds after the near-miss] I ask my daughter to download the teslacam footage". 98/100 people interpret that as extracting something from the card, not SAVING the footage from memory TO the card. That's why another person had to ask you what exactly you meant.

In this case, it missed the exact event, and saved all the clips prior to the event, going back 30 minutes or so.
It also saved 15 seconds AFTER the event. It’s almost diabolical how it missed the most critical section. so, it did not work as it’s supposed to. Get it?

My drive has 98% free space, and it’s a 128 GB drive. The fact that it saved many clips AFTER the event should tell you there is nothing wrong with the free space on the drive.

I hope you are happy with my answers, mr Tesla lawyer?

Then you said: "I do have clips starting about a half minute later". If you had just saved immediately after the near-miss, it would have saved the previous 10 minutes, but it (obviously) could not have saved something afterwards. Unless you initiated another save. But you did not say.

Perhaps you/your daughter jabbed the save immediately AGAIN and it interrupted the previous operation. Perhaps your drive was full (you did not originally say) and the 2nd save operation overwrote the previous one.

This is not a deposition - there is no personal incentive for anyone to grill you. But what you wrote was ambiguous, and if you want people to understand your rant, it's your prerogative to make it clear.

 

[stopcrazypp]

As a general expectation of any dashcam feature - it should record continuously and if it runs out of space it should automatically ( w/o any manual intervention) overwrite the oldest video clip. Simple surveillance systems do it. I am not sure why Tesla has to make things so complex to use the dashcam- if Tesla wants' to mass market the cars then such complex procedure of settings and enabling the features will not lead to good experience for some users. Technically the dashcam feature works- no questions , but you have to set and enable everything in the right manner. I can only hope that Tesla makes it easy for people to use it.

It does that already, but in a 1 hour loop (in Recent Clips) instead of to the full size of the card. The "saving" only moves 10 minutes of clips to a different folder (Saved Clips). (It also does some space management when you fill up the card with Sentry events).

As for why 1 hour, I believe this was likely done because Tesla Dashcam was designed mainly for use in consumer USB drives (starting at 8GB) and leaving more empty space works better for dynamic wear leveling that flash drives use (dynamic wear leveling only works on empty space).

Home surveillance systems tend to use HDDs which do not have anywhere near the same levels of wear concerns. Car dashcams tend to use high endurance microSD cards that can stand up to continuous writes better (as linked above, when you use other types they get flaky also).

Maybe I will make a more comprehensive guide (including exactly what settings I used) when I have the chance, but with Recuva I was able to recover all the deleted loop recording footage in my card (beyond the 1 hour), making Tesla dashcam function more like a traditional dashcam.

 

[Jo060]

You were going to report a truck merging in to your lane.... To law enforcement?

 

[Leeclanual]

I was driving to Santa Cruz to drop off my daughter today, and on the 880 south after passing 280 interchange, there was a big truck to the left of me.

I was doing 72 and just driving along normally. Suddenly, the truck starts entering my lane, no turn signal, nothing. I could see his mirror, so he should have been able to see me. Obviously, the a-hole wasn’t looking. I swerved hard, braked, the truck went back into his lane.
I honked, and slowed down, the truck AGAIN starts entering my lane, almost hitting me again! WTF. I swerved, and went to another lane.

After calming down in 2-3 seconds, I ask my daughter to download the teslacam footage. Just now I got back home, checked, and it has everything BUT the moment of the near-crash. What the hell?

I don’t have the clips saved on honk, so don’t post about how I should have done that. I don’t like to save every time I honk to gently nudge someone who is not paying attention when the light turns green.

I say, I have said Tesla software and UI engineers are very mediocre. This event just cements my belief that that is the case.

At the exact time of the near-crash, there is a 1KB file called event.json, which is a Java script, I am presuming. But no clips.

I do have clips starting about a half minute later, and they have the truck license captured. My daughter took a picture too. However, without proof, I cannot make a report to the Police, or the trucking company now.

Honk the horn… that will automatically save the last 10 mins…

 

[Jo060]

Honk the horn… that will automatically save the last 10 mins…

Not if that setting is disabled.

 

[_Redshift_]

That might be what you did. But that's not what you said: "[2-3 seconds after the near-miss] I ask my daughter to download the teslacam footage". 98/100 people interpret that as extracting something from the card, not SAVING the footage from memory TO the card. That's why another person had to ask you what exactly you meant.


Then you said: "I do have clips starting about a half minute later". If you had just saved immediately after the near-miss, it would have saved the previous 10 minutes, but it (obviously) could not have saved something afterwards. Unless you initiated another save. But you did not say.

Perhaps you/your daughter jabbed the save immediately AGAIN and it interrupted the previous operation. Perhaps your drive was full (you did not originally say) and the 2nd save operation overwrote the previous one.

This is not a deposition - there is no personal incentive for anyone to grill you. But what you wrote was ambiguous, and if you want people to understand your rant, it's your prerogative to make it clear.

No, the download button was pressed only once, I checked with my daughter after seeing this post.

The fact is it recorded mostly 23-25 MB (I think, I don’t recall, since the usb is back in my car and I’m too lazy to retrieve it) clips for the previous clips (all in the saved clips directory for the Feb 22), but only 4-5 MB clips for the clip immediately AFTER the event.

I see what you are saying, but like the other user stopcrazypp explained, the 10 minutes are MOVED to a different folder, an operation that should take less than a second, since the clips are already saved on the drive. Moving to another directory is not (or, shouldn’t be, at least) an operation that takes several seconds, in that if another save was initiated, should interrupt that operation. I am a EE and a Design Engineer by training, and not a software guy, but that’s what I think.

Unless, the software subroutine that’s executing is of lower priority than some others, which consume time.

 

[linkerc]

That's not entirely true. Touching the icon only moves footage from the Recent Clips to the Saved Clips folder. The dashcam still needed to be on (red dot) before you did that. If you didn't have it on (it was paused in a gray or icon wasn't active in first place), no clips would be saved. The buffering happens on the removable drive you plug in, it's not buffering on the car itself.

"Once enabled, you can save clips by touching the dashcam app in the App Launcher while the vehicle is in Drive (you can add the dashcam app to My Apps at the bottom of the touchscreen for easy access, see Customizing My Apps)."
Model S Owner's Manual | Tesla

hmmm. Maybe I misunderstood how it works. I was actually playing with it this morning before work. How do I get it to record always then? Is this not a good idea that's why we have this thread?
I thought it's always recording to the RAM and it'll save clips to flash based on the setting (manual, auto, honk, etc. excluding none of course). And touching the icon is a way to save the 10 min clip to flash regardless of the setting (assuming setting is not none).

 

[JackLuminous]

As a general expectation of any dashcam feature - it should record continuously and if it runs out of space it should automatically ( w/o any manual intervention) overwrite the oldest video clip. Simple surveillance systems do it. I am not sure why Tesla has to make things so complex to use the dashcam- if Tesla wants' to mass market the cars then such complex procedure of settings and enabling the features will not lead to good experience for some users. Technically the dashcam feature works- no questions , but you have to set and enable everything in the right manner. I can only hope that Tesla makes it easy for people to use it.

Tesla is more than happy working to tech a computer to drive like a pre-teen than having solid implementations of a good idea like built-in dashcam (or handling USB music )

 

[stopcrazypp]

hmmm. Maybe I misunderstood how it works. I was actually playing with it this morning before work. How do I get it to record always then? Is this not a good idea that's why we have this thread?
I thought it's always recording to the RAM and it'll save clips to flash based on the setting (manual, auto, honk, etc. excluding none of course). And touching the icon is a way to save the 10 min clip to flash regardless of the setting (assuming setting is not none).

If its shows this red dot on the icon, that means the 1 hour loop recording is active in the Recent Clips folder:

When you top the icon to save clips, it will show the green checkmark, which moves 10 minutes of footage from the Recent Clips folder to the Saved Clips folder:

You can also press and hold the red dot icon and it will pause recording (what you should do before removing the drive).

When it shows the following gray icon, the Dashcam recording is paused, and it is not recording:

Tapping it quickly will have it turn red again to resume recording.
More details in the manual:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-3C7A4D8B-2904-4093-9841-35596A110DE7.html

The other thing that appears to pause recording is when you open the dashcam viewer (although it's not safe to remove drive at time moment either given it's still accessing the drive).

 

[linkerc]

If its shows this red dot on the icon, that means the 1 hour loop recording is active in the Recent Clips folder:

When you top the icon to save clips, it will show the green checkmark, which moves 10 minutes of footage from the Recent Clips folder to the Saved Clips folder:

You can also press and hold the red dot icon and it will pause recording (what you should do before removing the drive).

When it shows the following gray icon, the Dashcam recording is paused, and it is not recording:

Tapping it quickly will have it turn red again to resume recording.
More details in the manual:
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/model3/en_us/GUID-3C7A4D8B-2904-4093-9841-35596A110DE7.html

The other thing that appears to pause recording is when you open the dashcam viewer (although it's not safe to remove drive at time moment either given it's still accessing the drive).

I'm sorry. But where am I supposed to see this icon? Which view? For me, if I go to live video, there's nothing like what you posted. Just 3 video live views. If I press the dashcam icon on bottom row while driving, I do see a message states clip saved. When parked, I only see the red circle on top for sentry mode where I can toggle on (red) and off (gray). I don't see the square icon with red dot, green check mark you shown above.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I'm sorry. But where am I supposed to see this icon? Which view? For me, if I go to live video, there's nothing like what you posted. Just 3 video live views. If I press the dashcam icon on bottom row while driving, I do see a message states clip saved. When parked, I only see the red circle on top for sentry mode where I can toggle on (red) and off (gray). I don't see the square icon with red dot, green check mark you shown above.

I assume you have the new version 11 UI from what you describe. The icon is in the controls screen (that shows up when you press the car icon on the bottom left).

It is on the left side in this picture (where it says "recording" next to it):

If you are still on the older UI, it is next to the LTE symbol. If no dashcam icon shows up, you need to go into the settings and check if you have the feature enabled, and if your USB drive is property setup.

 

[Leeclanual]

Not if that setting is disabled.

True dat… oh well.

 

[linkerc]

I assume you have the new version 11 UI from what you describe. The icon is in the controls screen (that shows up when you press the car icon on the bottom left).

It is on the left side in this picture (where it says "recording" next to it):

If you are still on the older UI, it is next to the LTE symbol. If no dashcam icon shows up, you need to go into the settings and check if you have the feature enabled, and if your USB drive is property setup.

Ok cool. I have the newer UI. It is inside different menu. I have it on all the time. Thanks.

 

[BigNick]

It does that already, but in a 1 hour loop (in Recent Clips) instead of to the full size of the card. The "saving" only moves 10 minutes of clips to a different folder (Saved Clips). (It also does some space management when you fill up the card with Sentry events).

As for why 1 hour, I believe this was likely done because Tesla Dashcam was designed mainly for use in consumer USB drives (starting at 8GB) and leaving more empty space works better for dynamic wear leveling that flash drives use (dynamic wear leveling only works on empty space).

Home surveillance systems tend to use HDDs which do not have anywhere near the same levels of wear concerns. Car dashcams tend to use high endurance microSD cards that can stand up to continuous writes better (as linked above, when you use other types they get flaky also).

Maybe I will make a more comprehensive guide (including exactly what settings I used) when I have the chance, but with Recuva I was able to recover all the deleted loop recording footage in my card (beyond the 1 hour), making Tesla dashcam function more like a traditional dashcam.

Recording only one hour before overwriting makes zero sense when Tesla provides a 128 GB flash drive.

What they should be doing, is providing a high-endurance microSDXC card like most dashcams use and either have a dedicated slot for the card, or provide/recommend a USB adapter for the card.

But they probably got a bulk purchase of the 128 GB rebranded Samsung drives for supercheap, and the high-endurance cards of the same size are at least double the price.

 

[JackLuminous]

Recording only one hour before overwriting makes zero sense when Tesla provides a 128 GB flash drive.

What they should be doing, is providing a high-endurance microSDXC card like most dashcams use and either have a dedicated slot for the card, or provide/recommend a USB adapter for the card.

But they probably got a bulk purchase of the 128 GB rebranded Samsung drives for supercheap, and the high-endurance cards of the same size are at least double the price.

Which ones would you recommend, especially for the usb A adapter? The rocketek one some have mentioned before gets really HOT.

 

[BigNick]

Which ones would you recommend, especially for the usb A adapter? The rocketek one some have mentioned before gets really HOT.

I have a SanDisk MobileMate adapter and a SanDisk Max Endurance microSDXC.

I have just tested writing 64GB to the card in under 15 minutes (80 MB/sec), and it’s barely warm. Keep in mind this is indoors, not in a 120F car interior or glove box.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07G5JV2B5

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B084CJ9T2R

 

[stopcrazypp]

Recording only one hour before overwriting makes zero sense when Tesla provides a 128 GB flash drive.

What they should be doing, is providing a high-endurance microSDXC card like most dashcams use and either have a dedicated slot for the card, or provide/recommend a USB adapter for the card.

But they probably got a bulk purchase of the 128 GB rebranded Samsung drives for supercheap, and the high-endurance cards of the same size are at least double the price.

Again the feature was designed from when 8GB flash drives were common and still supports those with the 1 hour loop. The free flash drive they throw in came later. I doubt they will ever add a card reader given they have even removed data ports due to part shortages.

They certainly can extend it longer (perhaps make it able to be toggled), but I'm guessing they are assuming if you have a clip you want to save, you would save it.