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Sentry mode has slowly died on me, now won't work at all......

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J

JustUK

Member
Mar 3, 2020
17
6
Nottingham
#1
So I have had some huge issues with Sentry mode.

At first i thought it was down to the USB i had so i swapped it for the recommended one. But then it stopped recording at my home address even though there were no exclusions and bluetooth was off on my phone. I have tried everything reformatting the USB, soft reset of car, hard reset, power down. Everything!

I have contacted SC a few times but no response due to Covid i think and i already had an open appointment for the leak fix.

Also the car seems to go into sleep immediately, when i approach the car or open car when it is locked, car is unresponsive for quite some time.

I will be making a video as i recorded some really strange activity of the car worth sharing.

The strange thing is i actually made a sentry video a few days ago after the update which worked for a few days as normal (
), but started to fault again, to the point of failure now. I have purchased some arlo cameras to cover the car after last month someone did a hit and run job on the car. (
)

Any suggestions welcome.

Jordan
 
#3
Not recording Sentry or Dashcam now with the 500gb SSD, even thou it says there were 3 sentry mode events.

I think that 2020.12.1 or 12.5 killed it.

Going for a ride later and see if it works with the old 256gb thumb drive.

Anyone else having issues?

Fred
 
#8
Jordan,

Perhaps this is what you meant by switching USBs:

I also had issues using my “High Performance” micro sd card in a generic brand USB hub after the recent 2020.12.5 update. I then switched to an Anker brand USB hub and everything has worked great since.

...Not sure if this is an actual fix, but coincidently all Sentry and Dash Cam issues has vanished.

BTW - I previously viewed your car damage video online, prior to this post. Sorry about your troubles... Still baffles me to think what type of item or vehicle part caused such damage to your door.

Best to you with everything!


...Oh, and Bluetooth being off on your phone? Why is this?... I’ve actually found Bluetooth being enable quite helpful. It allows use of the TESLA app which gives another way to verify and turn off/on Sentry mode. I’ve actually ran into a couple scenarios thinking Sentry was on only to see it was off on the phone app. Simply switched it on and all was good.
 
#10
3 Life said:
Jordan,

Perhaps this is what you meant by switching USBs:

I also had issues using my “High Performance” micro sd card in a generic brand USB hub after the recent 2020.12.5 update. I then switched to an Anker brand USB hub and everything has worked great since.

...Not sure if this is an actual fix, but coincidently all Sentry and Dash Cam issues has vanished.

BTW - I previously viewed your car damage video online, prior to this post. Sorry about your troubles... Still baffles me to think what type of item or vehicle part caused such damage to your door.

Best to you with everything!


...Oh, and Bluetooth being off on your phone? Why is this?... I’ve actually found Bluetooth being enable quite helpful. It allows use of the TESLA app which gives another way to verify and turn off/on Sentry mode. I’ve actually ran into a couple scenarios thinking Sentry was on only to see it was off on the phone app. Simply switched it on and all was good.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, which USB are you using now?

I'm pretty sure i know what happened with the car, going to do a follow up very soon, just waiting on the last bits of information.

Thanks
 
#11
Technically it’s a USB portable card reader made by Anker (2-in-1 USB 3.0 Portable Card Reader for SDXC, SDHC, SD, MMC, RS-MMC, Micro SDXC, Micro SD, Micro SDHC Card and UHS-I Cards). *Can be found on Amazon.

...May be a bit overkill, but has worked flawlessly. There is a handy notification light on reader that assures you it’s working, and it fits inside the Taptes USB Hub made for Model 3 Sentry/Dashcam convenience (possibly Jeda’s Hub as well?)
 
#13
Not working for me. I just see this icon that looks like the sun with sunrays coming out. I click it and it turns red, I assume it’s recording but haven’t checked. Also, where’s the options to turn off.on sentry mode based on location ? That seems to have disappeared too - only have the options now to turn it on from the app . I’m not doing that every time tho!
 
#14
JustUK said:
So I have had some huge issues with Sentry mode.

At first i thought it was down to the USB i had so i swapped it for the recommended one. But then it stopped recording at my home address even though there were no exclusions and bluetooth was off on my phone. I have tried everything reformatting the USB, soft reset of car, hard reset, power down. Everything!

I have contacted SC a few times but no response due to Covid i think and i already had an open appointment for the leak fix.

Also the car seems to go into sleep immediately, when i approach the car or open car when it is locked, car is unresponsive for quite some time.

I will be making a video as i recorded some really strange activity of the car worth sharing.

The strange thing is i actually made a sentry video a few days ago after the update which worked for a few days as normal (
), but started to fault again, to the point of failure now. I have purchased some arlo cameras to cover the car after last month someone did a hit and run job on the car. (
)

Any suggestions welcome.

Jordan
Click to expand...

Hi Jordan, I had the same issue and I didn't get any response from tesla apart from the typical "is being investigated by the engineering team".

Anyway visit this thread in which I posted a solution that worked for me: Sentry mode not triggering
 
#16
TexanEV said:
Not working for me. I just see this icon that looks like the sun with sunrays coming out. I click it and it turns red, I assume it’s recording but haven’t checked. Also, where’s the options to turn off.on sentry mode based on location ? That seems to have disappeared too - only have the options now to turn it on from the app . I’m not doing that every time tho!
Click to expand...


The red dot on the sun icon means Sentry is on.

However Sentry can be on or off regardless of if any recording is happening..

Sentry does not, ever, record anything.

Only dashcam does that- which is the square camera-looking icon. THAT is the one that needs to show a red dot to be recording.


All sentry does is as relates to video is, if it goes into alert or alarm mode, move the last 10 minutes recorded by Dashcam into the sentry folder.
 
#19
Wennfred said:
I’m now recording fine when I switched back to the 256gb on Dashcam, haven’t tried Sentry mode yet.

The update doesn’t seem to like the SSD drives, could be that it take more power.

Fred
Click to expand...
Same for me. 12.5 seems to have stopped working with my T5 SSD. Dashcam icon gone and bad format error message. Nothing wrong with the T5 which has worked flawlessly and non-stop for 6 months. Reformatted it, rebooted car, etc. to no avail. Swapped out for 256gb FIT USB and now appears to be working but not using car so not certain.
 
#20
TexanEV said:
Ok thank you for the clarification. So why does it turn red when I press the sun button? What am I recording?
Click to expand...

You're not recording anything.

Again- sentry does not record video

Turning on sentry does the following:


1) Leaves the car 'awake' so that the DASHCAM feature (if it's recording in the first place) continues to record.

2) Keeps an eye on the live camera inputs to look for things that might trigger a sentry alert or alarm

3) If it detects such a thing- puts car in alert mode...flashing the lights, putting up the sentry message on the center screen, etc...(or if appropriate alarm mode where it blares the stereo, etc... and if it's going to alarm mode the car will also text you that happened)


At step 3, IF the dashcam feature has been recording, Sentry will ALSO move the last 10 minutes of dashcam recording from the recent folder to the sentry folder.

But steps 1-3 still work perfectly even if the car is recording nothing.





TexanEV said:
My dashcam icon disappeared completely. Any tips?
Click to expand...

Pull it out, put in a computer, see what you see.

As mentioned if the dashcam icon is entirely gone it means the car doesn't see a valid dashcam storage device attached.
 
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