Sentry Does Not Record and Tesla Response

[CarlosFandango]

I have an October 2021 M3. Sometime in early-mid 2022 my vehicle stopped recording events despite saying it had.

*This is not the "x" in the camera icon problem, and while we appreciate your input, I see that problem hijacking the few threads with this problem*

I've been chasing Tesla for year to address this. I have a work car, so my M3 only gets driven on weekends. At first, I noticed it would record for three days, then two, one, and now it cuts out in as short of an hour.

After a year of ghosting and screaming matches with the Rocklin service center, I finally got them to admit there was an issue. They told me; that the atom processor has limitations and they make no guarantees of how long Sentry will record. The problem is the autopilot computer to sleep when it shouldn't. A security system that shuts off in an hour!!!!!!! And the autopilot computer is independent of the Atom controlled computer. As many of us know, Tesla service sucks, and I think with me they've sunk lower.

I've noticed a few other errors as well after learning to get into service mode. I believe they are very related. Mostly VCLeft, VCRight, and VCSec communication issues with the main CPU. I've also noticed one error telling me my collision avoidance system was offline....but did not alert me on the driver facing errors. I called Tesla out on this and I've been ghosted for about a month now. Driving around with no collision avoidance and no notification about it.

I've made it to the top person at the Service Center, a man named Chris. I've dealt with the two managers of the service center, Brandi and Justin. They all seemed like they were going to help until they ghosted because I refused to accept a faulty security system under warranty. Resolutions@ refuse to respond. I've tried Twitter but with 4 posts (all about this) and zero followers, not much happens.

I've asked for a new car. Ghosted. I've asked to just try changing the computer. Ghosted.

Who else is dealing with this issue? Anyone get an answer that isn't a giant middle finger? Anyone know how to get to service management above the location level? Calling doesn't work; I just have to wait a month to get a call from Rocklin management again, the very people who ghost.

I love the car so much but this has completely ruined the experience. Every repair, every problem, turns into a screaming match...its the only way they do anything.
*I will admit it was quite satisfying telling every customer, new and old, this story today when I walked in for battle round 112.

Welcome to our world, Tesla UK style. I have a Model 3 SR+ which has been faulty from new, picked up on 13th March 2021!
We have lost sentry, it has gone to sleep but then gone into hibernation and not woken up at all after it’s daily 10 minutes down time. Not only that it doesn’t record images to the memory, but says it has and on 3 separate occasions now it’s been hit by a car and 2 large vans while stationary and in sentry mode and done nothing.
It took until November 2022 for Tesla to recognise there was a problem and prior to that they kept telling us there was nothing wrong with the car and actually kept cancelling our service appointments.
It’s taken 23 months of arguing with them to tell us it’s a unique fault, not so unique if you have it too, for them to do anything but only after damage to the car. The second lot of damage happened 4 days after they fixed it the first time and they still won’t guarantee it fixed now!
They’ve replaced the manifold that cools the computer because that wasn’t keeping it cool enough in the first repair, apparently it had narrowed outlets.
The second repair involved replacing all the wiring loom behind the glovebox in case of a pinched wire. That was a possible maybe fix.
The car has even done an emergency stop move on one of the busiest traffic junctions near London while the traffic signals were green. Luckily it was very early in the morning and the road was quiet or I would have been hit by another vehicle.
Tesla management have been ghosting us for so long it’s like they don’t exist, and the service centre can’t get hold of anyone who will make a decision for us. Like you I love my car but the whole experience has been tarnished by lousy customer service, lies, rude staff and not being believed.
The service set up is worse than my local agricultural garage who can fix just about anything, and have.
I’m glad you haven’t got to the stage where your car has been damaged because that’s when they reject any liability for the broken car and leave you to pick up the bill!
The police and most insurance companies now expect you to provide film footage of the damage being done so they can claim against the faulty driver. However without the footage it makes it really hard.
I don’t see why I should have to pay out when the car didn’t do what it was supposed to, no alert, no alarm, no nothing.
I’m sure you’d feel the same.
Maybe we should chat some more about the specifics, it might just help us both to get our cars fixed and situations resolved.
Thanks for posting, I’m glad to find I’m not alone with this problem, it appears that they have been lying to their own technicians as well as us in the UK. Our techs have been arguing with there own people to try and get thing fixed.

 

[ewoodrick]

The service set up is worse than my local agricultural garage who can fix just about anything, and have.

Why not take it there?

 

[AndrewCAVT]

To clarify, dashcam always only does a loop recording of only the last hour into the Recent Clips folder (it automatically deletes footage older than 1 hour). The Recent Clips folder thus only would contain footage from the last hour (sometimes less if more than an hour passed since you last woke the car). The only time you would see footage older than one hour in the Recent clips folder is if you managed to pull the drive before the car had a chance to delete it. So if that is the folder you are checking, then it's totally expected functionality to see only the last hour of footage.

As a side note, it is possible to recover deleted footage beyond one hour, with a file recovery tool:
Dashcam in Auto

All Sentry does on top is move clips of events it detected from that folder into the Sentry Clips folder. That's it. Sentry doesn't do any recording on its own.

It should be fairly easy to test if Sentry is working beyond one hour. Leave the car parked for more than one hour (make sure you are charged well over 20%, Sentry disables under 20%). Disable bluetooth on your phone and don't bring any fobs close to the car. Try to open the door or move in front of the cameras. Sentry should flash a warning with headlights and the screen. Then wait at least couple of minutes before pressing and holding dashcam icon to stop the recording (it should turn gray) and safely remove the drive to check on your computer if any clips were moved to the Sentry Clips folder.

Note they introduced "Camera-Based Detection" recently, try to toggle that setting on and off to see if it changes things. Also check if you might have multiple profiles or Easy Entry that might have different settings.
Model 3 Owner's Manual | Tesla

This exercise has been done many times with the same results. I also park it in a rather high foot traffic area. It used record multiple an hour, even through the night.

 

[Knightshade]

This exercise has been done many times with the same results. I also park it in a rather high foot traffic area. It used record multiple an hour, even through the night.

If you mean it constantly recorded hours of footage... no, it didn't.

It has always overwritten the recent folders content after an hour.

None of this has anything to do with sentry though, as several folks have explained to you- since sentry does not record anything at all. It just keeps the car awake so that dashcam keeps that 1 hour buffer going. Then, if it goes to alert mode, it moves the last 10 minutes of dashcam recordings to the sentry folder.

 

[stopcrazypp]

This exercise has been done many times with the same results. I also park it in a rather high foot traffic area. It used record multiple an hour, even through the night.

You are saying you looked in Sentry Clips folder (NOT the Recent Clips folder) in your computer previously and it used to have multiple clips there in that folder through the night and now it doesn't? When you walk up to it past the hour does it not activate Sentry?

And you have tried "Camera-Based Detection" both on and off (in all profiles, including Easy Entry) with no changes?

 

[AndrewCAVT]

You are saying you looked in Sentry Clips folder (NOT the Recent Clips folder) in your computer previously and it used to have multiple clips there in that folder through the night and now it doesn't? When you walk up to it past the hour does it not activate Sentry?

And you have tried "Camera-Based Detection" both on and off (in all profiles, including Easy Entry) with no changes?

No. Once upon a time it recorded the requisite hour in the recent folder, and then through a day/night it would have many 10 minute clips in the sentry folder, along with what ever I recorded in the dashcam folder.

Now, assuming the car timed out as I describe. In the recent folder, I only have the few seconds after it unlocks, basically you see the door open. In the sentry folder I have anything that was recorded before the car timed out (usually the first hour give or take after I parked it) and nothing else. Dashcam functions as normal.

I've played quite a bit with the camera detection quite a bit, on, off etc. When it released I was hoping that this would somehow solve my problem. Same hope came with the various recent enhancements such as pulsing lights to no avail. With CD off, we still have the hour of recent video that isn't properly recorded.

With regard to all profiles, no I haven't. That's a good idea. I don't use easy entry, but there is also a second driver profile. I think it's definitely worth looking at the settings of those and seeing if somehow the profiles are conflicting with one another. I will try this over the weekend when I get back from my trip. It doesn't explain the periodic VC errors, but who knows with how complex these things are.

THANK YOU FOR AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT!

 

[AndrewCAVT]

If you mean it constantly recorded hours of footage... no, it didn't.

It has always overwritten the recent folders content after an hour.

None of this has anything to do with sentry though, as several folks have explained to you- since sentry does not record anything at all. It just keeps the car awake so that dashcam keeps that 1 hour buffer going. Then, if it goes to alert mode, it moves the last 10 minutes of dashcam recordings to the sentry folder.

That is not what I meant. See above explanation in previous reply.
Yes, several folks have explained things that are not what I'm talking about. Thank you for reminding me. I am quite aware how sentry vs recent vs dashcam works. We are talking about Sentry on a whole.

 

[AndrewCAVT]

Welcome to our world, Tesla UK style. I have a Model 3 SR+ which has been faulty from new, picked up on 13th March 2021!

You seem to have better luck with the SC being willing to at least try some things. See if you can get them to replace the MCU and/or AP Computer. I think the issue lies in them, specifically the MCU.

My next try would be VCSec and the harness that connects it to the MCU.

 

[CarlosFandango]

It will be going back in regardless, seems that work done recently has knocked a few things & we are now getting interference from the radio (according to the wife whose car it is) ..I cannot blame them for this, tight workspace & trying everything.

It's time for tesla to take this car back accept liability for non working damage that we cannot chase without great cost to ourselves
It's a complete dog, nightmare, lemon, & has cost us a large portion of sanity.

 

[AndrewCAVT]

It will be going back in regardless, seems that work done recently has knocked a few things & we are now getting interference from the radio (according to the wife whose car it is) ..I cannot blame them for this, tight workspace & trying everything.

It's time for tesla to take this car back accept liability for non working damage that we cannot chase without great cost to ourselves
It's a complete dog, nightmare, lemon, & has cost us a large portion of sanity.

Just FYI, I did get them to repair (replace) the nose of my car for free. It was relatively unrelated to this issue.

One of the techs, through this, behaved very badly. He threatened to charge me if I kept pushing this issue (at the time, there was no issue according to Tesla) but he refused to try to recreate the issue as per instructions. Would hook it up to the ODB (or what ever the Tesla equivalent is) and say nothing to see here.

I eventually got him to follow instructions to recreate and he called me to tell me he didn't recreate it. When I picked it up, I found he did recreate the issue, he just didn't look. Our conversation went like this....

Me: Did the car do A?
Tech: Uhhhh....no.

Me: Was it supposed to do A?
Tech: Uhhhh....yeah.

Me: Did the car do B?
Tech: Uhhh...yeah.

Me: Was the car supposed to do B?
Tech: Uhhhh...no.

We went quite a way down the alphabet....

Me: So there is something wrong with the car.
Tech: Oh yeah. I guess you're right.

A few hours later they contacted me to tell me they found the sleep issue and it will require a higher level engineer. When I asked for an apology for the threats to charge and overall behavior, the service advisor (someone I've never had a good experience with) told me "that I should be grateful they found such a difficult issue."

That I took to the district manager. I was asking for a re-start of my warranty (at the time, vehicle as 11 months old and had 6k on it) seeing the service I received was not a warranty. He said he couldn't do it, but we eventually settled on replacing the scratched nose which I already had a quote for.

My point is, you may be able to leverage your position to get them to replace body panels.

 

[CarlosFandango]

Your tesla personnel are it seems arrogant arseholes, never good "knowin" any conversation is going to be a fight to be heard with that degree of twattery to overcome.

I have stated, we do not consider "wait & see" (for another "bump") satisfactory that is akin to a willing game of sober russian roulette.

I did state from the outset that to get better knowledge of the problem, recreate it on an already damaged panel (there are plenty) to confirm an attempted fix is more prone to success, but obviously they are not keen to do that, which is plain dumb not to learn from. & likely cheaper in terms of overall time & energy spent getting no-where fast.

 

[MikeyC]

My 2021 has the Atom processor and has never had an issue with Sentry mode. There could be hardware issue with your car. Maybe force them to look into the specific errors you were getting as they could be related.

BTW, I often feel like it is pedantic semantics (a mental flex) to pick at the fact that sentry mode doesn't actually record any video but in this case I believe it to be relevant. If sentry is on and you don't see any video in the dashcam/recent folder until you open the door, something is forcibly putting the car to sleep (some sort of sleep override) when it shouldn't. Are you running any third party API stuff like TeslaFi?

Mike

 

[AndrewCAVT]

Ashley the service advisor is as arrogant as they come. For the whole time I've had the car, minor to major issues, shes one of the worst I've ever met. There are many other issues where I had to tell them what was wrong and she fought me right up to the day I was proven correct.

The tech in question, while they claim to be the best they have, is a complete imbecile. I usually get a few laughs in the SC when I do my impression of him because he talks like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Sounds like he's always high...I think he is.

 

[AndrewCAVT]

My 2021 has the Atom processor and has never had an issue with Sentry mode. There could be hardware issue with your car. Maybe force them to look into the specific errors you were getting as they could be related.

BTW, I often feel like it is pedantic semantics (a mental flex) to pick at the fact that sentry mode doesn't actually record any video but in this case I believe it to be relevant. If sentry is on and you don't see any video in the dashcam/recent folder until you open the door, something is forcibly putting the car to sleep (some sort of sleep override) when it shouldn't. Are you running any third party API stuff like TeslaFi?

Mike

Thank you for validation, lol. No third party anything unless you include the little organizer tray for the center console and the seat cover for the dog.
Part of the issue you're right was the semantics. The car spends most of its time parked at my west coast home, a busy apartment complex which is how I know its not recording, because when it is working, it records multiple incidents an hour. It still says it made a recording, there is just none there.

 

[CarlosFandango]

Mikey, thanks for the comment, part of keeping it standard fare from here in the uk is not to give tesla the opportunity to say on any level "non tesla approved kit being used & potentially interfering with its designed operational standards" ..& 1 year & 11 months is a hell of along time to get this far when they appear to be playing it dirty, you need to play it as clean as possible, because they have the legal muscle to throw an army at you & spin doubt into the mind of whoever presides over a case.

Likely you would be asked "are you a software engineer" In a disparaging manner to belittle you, the fact that the judge isn't but has final word if asked the same would not help their defence, which is why I haven't gone for anything that they could use beyond the "ah but BETA" defence BS.

 

[ELETRO]

My 2022MY does the same thing, does not record almost all the time in park. sentry mode hasn't been working since update as well.
everytime i get into my car either you will see event triggered but nothing recorded or you will see 'X' mark on the camera. I've tried many usb sticks and including Micro card and ssd, and NvMe ofc with all adapter to get it work, same thing happens and i've also been reporting those bugs but no improvement nor SC couldn't find the issue. all they tell me is to reset with scroll wheel which i've done more than 100times a year

 

[stopcrazypp]

No. Once upon a time it recorded the requisite hour in the recent folder, and then through a day/night it would have many 10 minute clips in the sentry folder, along with what ever I recorded in the dashcam folder.

Now, assuming the car timed out as I describe. In the recent folder, I only have the few seconds after it unlocks, basically you see the door open. In the sentry folder I have anything that was recorded before the car timed out (usually the first hour give or take after I parked it) and nothing else. Dashcam functions as normal.

I've played quite a bit with the camera detection quite a bit, on, off etc. When it released I was hoping that this would somehow solve my problem. Same hope came with the various recent enhancements such as pulsing lights to no avail. With CD off, we still have the hour of recent video that isn't properly recorded.

With regard to all profiles, no I haven't. That's a good idea. I don't use easy entry, but there is also a second driver profile. I think it's definitely worth looking at the settings of those and seeing if somehow the profiles are conflicting with one another. I will try this over the weekend when I get back from my trip. It doesn't explain the periodic VC errors, but who knows with how complex these things are.

THANK YOU FOR AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT!

You may also check if you have the home exclusion turned on. That feature is sometimes buggy and may activate or not activate because the GPS checking for home is sometimes not accurate.

 

[stopcrazypp]

My 2022MY does the same thing, does not record almost all the time in park. sentry mode hasn't been working since update as well.
everytime i get into my car either you will see event triggered but nothing recorded or you will see 'X' mark on the camera. I've tried many usb sticks and including Micro card and ssd, and NvMe ofc with all adapter to get it work, same thing happens and i've also been reporting those bugs but no improvement nor SC couldn't find the issue. all they tell me is to reset with scroll wheel which i've done more than 100times a year

If you see an X mark that is a different issue from OP. x mark means there is something wrong with your dashcam drive connection. This can sometimes be fixed by reformatting the drive, and there were software updates that fixed some previous bugs (there was one that affected a lot of people), but if it persists even with updates, it may be a problem with the port.

 

[AndrewCAVT]

You may also check if you have the home exclusion turned on. That feature is sometimes buggy and may activate or not activate because the GPS checking for home is sometimes not accurate.

I did recently turn exclusion on at home because Tesla at one point tried to say that the car needs to sleep sometimes. Anyone its been about a month with it on at home, and it still doesn't work right when I'm at my girlfriend's or something. So anyway, that isn't the problem.

 

[AndrewCAVT]

If you see an X mark that is a different issue from OP. x mark means there is something wrong with your dashcam drive connection. This can sometimes be fixed by reformatting the drive, and there were software updates that fixed some previous bugs (there was one that affected a lot of people), but if it persists even with updates, it may be a problem with the port.

I agree with this. I briefly had the "x" issue between all of this. It was eventually a software update but talking to some of the phone Tesla people (who are a lot better then the SC people) it seems that there is a batch with a bad harness which runs to the port.