Sentry Mode Appeared to be Recording But Wasn’t [Update: Sentry not the same as Dashcam]

[diezel_dave]

So I have been messing with my Sandisk Ultra Fit 128 GB USB drive trying to get the "some clips not recorded because your drive is too slow" message to go away and in the course of doing that, I ended up re-formatting the drive. Well obviously something with that process didn't go well (yes FAT32, 4 KB allocation size) and when I plugged in the drive, I got a message stating that dashcam would not be available because the drive was not formatted correctly. I didn't have time to go re-format it and try again so I just left home without dashcam functionality (I was stressed the entire drive haha) but when I parked, the little red sentry icon appeared and I thought oh that's weird must have just been a glitch with dashcam because sentry mode seems to be working. Fast forward a few hours later and as I walk up to my car to drive it back home, the lights flash and I can see the sentry mode recording graphic on the screen so I was pretty confident it was actually working properly. When I got in the car, it said 68 sentry events occurred over the previous few hours which is a ton but I guess the rain must have been setting it off. Anyways, I get home and pop the USB drive in my computer and there are precisely ZERO video saved to it.


TL;DR: Maybe it is common knowledge, but I always thought that if the Sentry Mode red dot was displayed, then that meant the car was recording sentry video to the USB drive but it turns out that is not necessarily the case.

Random thought: What are the chances that video was uploaded to the Tesla servers for 72 hour backup if there had been a reason I needed to get that video?

 

[lolder]

The sentry mode operates as you described even if no storage is present. Effect is the same as "Beware of Dog" sign. Six seconds of video is uploaded to Tesla and stored for 72 hours if alarm mode is triggered by a break-in but USB storage is required for that.

 

[boaterva]

Right. Sentry is the lights and sound. Dashcam is the *other^ icon. Really not connected. I took my USB out while Tesla was troubleshooting a locking problem and of course still had the Sentry icon all the time at non-exempt locations (I had don’t use Sentry at home).

This is more obvious for people that lived through the evolution of all of this because Sentry came first.

I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen anyone successfully ‘get video from Tesla’ on the whole uploaded deal. Video off the car from an accident, yep. Uploaded, love to learn/hear about it.

 

[Garlan Garner]

So I have been messing with my Sandisk Ultra Fit 128 GB USB drive trying to get the "some clips not recorded because your drive is too slow" message to go away and in the course of doing that, I ended up re-formatting the drive. Well obviously something with that process didn't go well (yes FAT32, 4 KB allocation size) and when I plugged in the drive, I got a message stating that dashcam would not be available because the drive was not formatted correctly. I didn't have time to go re-format it and try again so I just left home without dashcam functionality (I was stressed the entire drive haha) but when I parked, the little red sentry icon appeared and I thought oh that's weird must have just been a glitch with dashcam because sentry mode seems to be working. Fast forward a few hours later and as I walk up to my car to drive it back home, the lights flash and I can see the sentry mode recording graphic on the screen so I was pretty confident it was actually working properly. When I got in the car, it said 68 sentry events occurred over the previous few hours which is a ton but I guess the rain must have been setting it off. Anyways, I get home and pop the USB drive in my computer and there are precisely ZERO video saved to it.


TL;DR: Maybe it is common knowledge, but I always thought that if the Sentry Mode red dot was displayed, then that meant the car was recording sentry video to the USB drive but it turns out that is not necessarily the case.

Random thought: What are the chances that video was uploaded to the Tesla servers for 72 hour backup if there had been a reason I needed to get that video?

Sentry isn't the app that records.

Dashcam is the app that records.


Sentry will operate without recording. Sentry will operate without a USB stick. Sentry is part of the alarm system.

Lastly...get a Samsung T5. You won't have any more dashcam recording errors.

 

[diezel_dave]

Thanks for the info. I had no idea that sentry was something that would work without a USB drive. I thought the whole point of it was to record video of things going on around the car while it was parked and not that it was more of a motion activated alarm system. Hopefully anyone else that is confused by that will see this so they can know also.

I have a few spare crucial 250 GB drives laying around and I just ordered a SATA to USB enclosure for a few bucks. If that doesn't work out, I'll go the T5 route like everyone always recommends. I knew a large capacity USB thumb drive wouldn't be a great long-term solution but I sure thought it would last longer than a week before it got so slow at writing. I thought it was just the car but I put it in my computer and sure enough, it could write at ~30 MB/s for a few seconds then it would bog down to only a few KB/s.