Sentry mode grey flashing recording/worthless.

[WilliamG]

So my dash cam works fine - all repeaters fine. However, Sentry mode recordings are all garbage. Picture fine for a few seconds, then turning grey for several seconds, fine for a few seconds, grey again. From all three cameras.

Is this a common issue?

On the 2019.20.4.4 with HW3.

 

[Watts_Up]

What flash drive are you using?
Does your recording was fine before or do you just install a new flash drive?
If so, you might need a faster one?

 

[JulienW]

Sounds like the Flash is wearing out. This can be a problem with the constant writes and over writes, especially on smaller and/or cheeper USB drives.

 

[WilliamG]

What flash drive are you using?
Does your recording was fine before or do you just install a new flash drive?
If so, you might need a faster one?

I’m using a Kingston 512GB SSD. Recordings were fine before. Been a few updates since I last checked though.

Sounds like the Flash is wearing out. This can be a problem with the constant writes and over writes, especially on smaller and/or cheeper USB drives.

But the Tesla Dashcam files are just fine from all cameras. It’s just Sentry that is not fine.

 

[JulienW]

....But the Tesla Dashcam files are just fine from all cameras. It’s just Sentry that is not fine.

This seems odd since don't think there is any difference in the files. Pretty sure they are the same files, just Sentry files are saved and Dashcam can be overwritten unless you "force" save them.

Also if using an SSD you won't likely have the "wearing out" problem you can get with a USB flash drive.

 

[WilliamG]

This seems odd since don't think there is any difference in the files. Pretty sure they are the same files, just Sentry files are saved and Dashcam can be overwritten unless you "force" save them.

Also if using an SSD you won't likely have the "wearing out" problem you can get with a USB flash drive.

Right. So I’m chalking this up to a software bug. Means my Sentry files are pretty worthless right now, though.

 

[Knightshade]

At 500gb he wouldn't have a wearing out issue on any type of media for decades...

There's lots of threads on sentry (but not dashcam) recordings having issues, but it's usually just one or both of the repeater cameras having them to various extents...and that does indeed appear to be a software issue.... if you're getting bad video on all 3, well, it might well still be a software issue (maybe related to HW3, of which there's relatively few cars on the road so far) but it's a "different" enough one I'd probably open a ticket with service via the app and see what they say.

 

[WilliamG]

At 500gb he wouldn't have a wearing out issue on any type of media for decades...

There's lots of threads on sentry (but not dashcam) recordings having issues, but it's usually just one or both of the repeater cameras having them to various extents...and that does indeed appear to be a software issue.... if you're getting bad video on all 3, well, it might well still be a software issue (maybe related to HW3, of which there's relatively few cars on the road so far) but it's a "different" enough one I'd probably open a ticket with service via the app and see what they say.

I'll keep an eye on it through the next updates. I also had it not record an entire outing to a restaurant. The only thing it recorded was when my friend made it to the car first before me, and Sentry popped up on the screen as a warning. It recorded that, but NOTHING before it. Annoying...

 

[WilliamG]

I completely forgot I made this thread and made a new one (senility kicking in in my 30s).

Anyway, here’s the video of the issue. It’s not resolved itself yet on 2019.24.4.

 

[P99GUY]

I started having the same issue on 24.4
20.4.4 worked fine.

Hopefully the next update will resolve it.

April build. HW 3.

 

[Sep08]

I had the exact same issue with the grey flashing videos. I was using a 128GB sandisk USB stick which was supposed to have a fast write speed. I replaced it with a slim SSD drive today and no more issues.

Western Digital Blue SN500 NVMe SSD M.2 PCI-E, 250GB - M.2 Solid State Drives - Memory Express Inc.

 

[WilliamG]

I had the exact same issue with the grey flashing videos. I was using a 128GB sandisk USB stick which was supposed to have a fast write speed. I replaced it with a slim SSD drive today and no more issues.

Western Digital Blue SN500 NVMe SSD M.2 PCI-E, 250GB - M.2 Solid State Drives - Memory Express Inc.

I suspect you will still have issues. Please update in a few days if it continues? This problem is nothing to do with write speeds. A redditor figured out what’s going on.

After some testing for P3D the Dashcam issue for 2019.24.4 HW3, I came with conclusion when ever the picture still ( car not moving, no matter gear on P, D, R or plugged), there is picture distortion or grey, green, freeze with some shodows always. As soon as moving it will working normally. : teslamotors

 

[P99GUY]

Yes I actually already use 2 different 1TB SSD units and just recently added a samsung T5 SSD.

I rotate them every weekend to archive video.

I leave sentry enabled everywhere 24/7.

They never had any issues before 24.4

 

[WilliamG]

I got the latest update to 2019.28.3.1 last night.

Two things:

1.) The grey flashing has stopped. I was incorrect about one thing, though - it wasn't just Sentry Mode that had the issue. Dash Cam does, too, but the issue is related to the video frame having little/no movement in it. I never noticed before, but looked more deeply into it. Here's what I mean:

Look at this video from Sentry:

Dropbox - 2019-08-13_12-33-41-front.mp4 - Simplify your life

You'll note that any movement in the frame is trying to resolve (the man walking, the tree leaves blowing etc). Very odd.

Now look at this video from Dash Cam:

Dropbox - 2019-06-28_11-47-54-front.mp4 - Simplify your life

Everything looks fine UNTIL I stop at around 19 seconds. Then we're back to the same issue as above. This is a really, really weird issue, and I wonder if that's why...

2.) The codec has now changed on these videos. Whereas before 2019.28.x.x the files were HEVC/H265, they are now back to parity with HW2.5 - H264/AVC. I'm guessing Tesla has some issues they need to address, and HW3 owners will get bumped back to H265/HEVC at some point.

Either way, this problem is now solved.

So for the record: This problem was nothing to do with slow media, bad SSD, corrupt blocks, splitter cables etc. This was purely a software bug that appears to be addressed in 2019.28.x.x.

 

[P99GUY]

Thanks for the update. I received 28.3.1 on Tuesday. I will check the recordings this weekend.