Sentry Mode Again sleeping on the job

[Kevin Bohacz]

When I first got Sentry Mode in 2019.12.1.1 back in May 2019, I found a troubling problem. After some number of hours (1-5hrs), and the car appears to be sleeping and Sentry Mode stops working. You can walk up to the car, rap on the windows, make scary faces, and it detects nothing. I thought nothing could stop HAL, short of Dave pulling out his memory cards.

Sentry Mode sleeping on the job

A few software updates later, the problem of Sentry Mode sleeping on the job went away. Since that time, Sentry Mode has worked like a champ.

Sadly, with 2019.28.3.1, the problem is back!

I have tried every combination imaginable: leaving the iPhone app running and not running, car charging or not charging, in a dark garage or a lit space, wifi and no wifi, even though it records without problem to the USB stick, I have tried many different flavors, etc. etc. etc.

I bought an RF shield for the fob so I can test the car out in the wild as well as in my garage. No matter what I try, Sentry Mode falls asleep on the job after a variable number of hours and sometimes even minutes. To wake HAL back up, all I have to do is turn Sentry Mode off and then back on using the app. Sometimes this will keep HAL awake for a few hours and sometimes he’s back to sleeping on the job in a few minutes.

 

[Skipdd]

When I first got Sentry Mode in 2019.12.1.1 back in May 2019, I found a troubling problem. After some number of hours (1-5hrs), and the car appears to be sleeping and Sentry Mode stops working. You can walk up to the car, rap on the windows, make scary faces, and it detects nothing. I thought nothing could stop HAL, short of Dave pulling out his memory cards.

Sentry Mode sleeping on the job

A few software updates later, the problem of Sentry Mode sleeping on the job went away. Since that time, Sentry Mode has worked like champ.

Sadly, with 2019.28.3.1, the problem is back!

I have tried every combination imaginable: leaving the iPhone app running and not running, car charging or not charging, in a dark garage or a lit space, wifi and no wifi, even though it records without problem to the USB stick, I have tried many different flavors, etc. etc. etc.

I bought an RF shield for the fob so I can test the car out in the wild as well as in my garage. No matter what I try, Sentry Mode falls asleep on the job after a variable number of hours and sometimes even minutes. To wake HAL back up, all I have to do is turn Sentry Mode off and then back on using the app. Sometimes this will keep HAL awake for a few hours and sometimes he’s back to sleeping on the job in a few minutes.

Not good, thanks for sharing

 

[Kevin Bohacz]

Update: Sentry Mode has completely stopped working. The lights no longer flash and HAL no longer comes up on the screen.

 

[Simon21]

Sometimes mine stops working too

 

[Kevin Bohacz]

I just tried turning off bluetooth on my phone just in case the car got smarter with 2019.28.3.1 and will not trigger if it detects my phone. Sadly, this made no difference. Sentry Mode has stopped working for me with this s/w release. I have an unusual MCU/AP config. The car is AP2.5 and MCU1 (which Tesla records show as MCU2) but all the online tests show as MCU1. So I suspect my Sentry Mode problems are unique this this AP2.5 and MCU1 configuration.

 

[andras.hatvani]

Hi,

I’ve got the bug with the most recent version, too...
Both the app and the central console show that Sentry Mode is active, but neither alerts will be activated, nor will scenes be recorded.
Today, someone hit my rear bumper - at that time Sentry wasn’t working anymore...

I’ve restarted the system (with brake and the two wheel buttons pressed), but it still doesn’t notice or observe anything!

 

[Kevin Bohacz]

Here is an update that is the result of my working with my local Tesla Service Center and the Service Center working with their engineering contact. I have discovered something interesting which could be the cause of this problem. The theory is that: Sentry Mode is using a history of all past events that triggered Sentry Mode warnings to set the threshold for triggering future warnings. I have demonstrated that when this history is cleared, Sentry Mode becomes hypersensitive for hours.

RECAP:
Sentry Mode was working reliably before an upgrade to 2019.28.3.1. I am now on 2019.32.1 and the problem persists. This upgrade to 28.3.1 appears to be the cause of the failure. My car has an unusual combination of AP2.5 (with its camera suite) and MCU1. I suspect this combination is part of the problem I am experiencing.

Sentry mode no longer triggers the popup, flashes the headlights, or records an event (95% of the time). You could walk up to the car, rap on the windows, make scary faces, and it detects nothing. My Tesla SC in Jacksonville confirmed my car was detecting motions (events) properly, events that should have triggered a Sentry Mode warning, but oddly were not. This was a big clue.

It was recommended by Tesla engineering that a factory reset be tried. I did perform this reset (which was not fun because I lost all my settings including the Tesla password to Slacker – now Slacker does not work and I am waiting for a password fix).

(1) After the factory reset, Sentry Mode immediately started working better than I had ever experienced. It triggered on me when I was 6 feet from the side of the car! This excitement was short lived, but this was the second big clue.

(2) After approximately 8 hours I noticed Sentry Mode was not triggering with as much sensitivity. It was now working as it had before the trouble began with 2019.28.3.1. I now had to be a couple of feet from the car for it to trigger a warning.

(3) After approximately, 20 hours (overnight), Sentry Mode completely stopped triggering warnings. I was back to where I began before the factory reset.


CONCLUSIONS / THEORY:
(A) Since Sentry mode initially worked equal or better than before, this seems to eliminate the AP2.5 camera suite as a problem.

(B) Since triggering of Sentry Mode worsened over time, this seems like a software bug or an algorithm that is not working as intended. It could be a coding difference between MCU1 and MCU2. My wife's 8/2019 Model 3 LR has none of these problems.

(C) The factory reset appears to have cleared out data-history which Sentry Mode uses. The processing of this data-history is resulting in an inaccurate bias or bug in the algorithm that sets a threshold for triggering Sentry Mode warnings.

(D) As this data-history is rebuilt over time (some number of hours), the threshold for triggering gets higher and higher until it stops triggering at all.

(E) Since this problem started after update 2019.28.3.1, I suspect either a Sentry Mode algorithm changed or the code that builds the data-history that Sentry Mode uses has changed.


RECOMMENDATIONS TO TESLA:
(a) Add user settable sensitivity for triggering Sentry Mode.

(b) Add a user function that selectively clears Sentry Mode history and optionally other histories too without having to resort to a factory reset. This kind of thing would be useful for debugging all sorts of issues.

 

[zanary]

My car has an unusual combination of AP2.5 (with its camera suite) and MCU1.

Question: Why do you think this is unusual? Many Tesla have this combination.