Sentry Mode USB flash drive failure costing me thousands

[67King]

A few points:
1. Been pretty well covered, but get an SD card. Look for write speed, NOT for size - for some reason, I actually found out this before setting mine up, and got the proper stuff. Found something before I even bought the car. I had tried using a regular drive because I couldn't find the SD and adapter I had bought before I got the car, and occasionally would get this error.
2. It is not a collision claim. COmprehensive, maybe even uninsured motorist. But not collision.
3. CHeck to see if the post office has security cameras. If so, they might have caught the offending yahoo on camera.

I hate reading this, becasue I recently disabled Sentry after realizing that the car flashes lights and stuff any time it captures people walking by it. FOlks find that crap annoying, and I wouldn't put it past someone to key it out of spite. I saw a car when I was in college just get vandalized to no end because the fool of an owner had its alarm system (mid 90's, you know the whole "Protected by Viper Security, Stand Back" thing) set way too senstive, and somebody had just had enough.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Each major software version that's coming out, Tesla is adding additional camera(s) to the Sentry and Dashcam functions. At first, it was only the forward cam, then they added left/right repeater cams, now in v10 they've added the rear cam.

Each additional camera increases the sustained write rate that's necessary. Many people have a USB drive that was barely adequate in the previous software version, and it now becomes too slow in the new version with the additional camera(s) added.

This is going to continue to happen as cameras are added. While each camera is only writing about 0.5 MB/sec (fairly low rate), if the USB hiccups at all during writing it will cause the car to bring up the "too slow" error.

 

[SageBrush]

This is going to continue to happen as cameras are added. While each camera is only writing about 0.5 MB/sec (fairly low rate), if the USB hiccups at all during writing it will cause the car to bring up the "too slow" error.

0.5 * 4 = 2 MB/sec. Still way below nominal transfer rates. I'm a fan or wiping my SD card once a month.

 

[BlueBlazes]

A few points:
1. Been pretty well covered, but get an SD card. Look for write speed, NOT for size - for some reason, I actually found out this before setting mine up, and got the proper stuff. Found something before I even bought the car. I had tried using a regular drive because I couldn't find the SD and adapter I had bought before I got the car, and occasionally would get this error.
2. It is not a collision claim. COmprehensive, maybe even uninsured motorist. But not collision.
3. CHeck to see if the post office has security cameras. If so, they might have caught the offending yahoo on camera.

I hate reading this, becasue I recently disabled Sentry after realizing that the car flashes lights and stuff any time it captures people walking by it. FOlks find that crap annoying, and I wouldn't put it past someone to key it out of spite. I saw a car when I was in college just get vandalized to no end because the fool of an owner had its alarm system (mid 90's, you know the whole "Protected by Viper Security, Stand Back" thing) set way too senstive, and somebody had just had enough.

I've done a lot of Googling about comprehensive vs. collision coverage in this type of accident. Here's a typical explanation from an insurance company: "Hit-and-run accidents can involve cars, pedestrians, or other property. ... Comprehensive coverage pays for damages to your car because of fire, falling objects, wind, hail, earthquake, explosion, or vandalism. If your car is parked in a parking lot and is hit by another car, collision will provide coverage."

 

[SMAlset]

The USB drive is slow is NOT a software bug, rather its a defect related to the fact that USB drives are wearing out due to the continuous use and/or is full.

Hmm not really a defect as I understand it, just the nature of flash drives. I've never had "the drive is too slow" message but then I'm using a 128GB card in mine and switch off between two of them and so far haven't had to reformat either. I've seen a number of people here say they've had that message and all seem to have been using drives 64GB or less. Since flash drives slowly destroy their cells by writing over them a number of times (burning each layer as I understand) and then move on to the next cell that can be written to, I can see where when the available space starts to get limited it slows down the writing because it keeps looking for more space to write to but has trouble finding it. Would this be a good way to look at it? ...Having nothing to do with the media being capable of writing to at a fast enough speed?

BTW I'm also assuming that reformatting is different from taking files and putting them to the trash, which is what I'm sure some people do. Not everyone here will know the difference.

 

[jkdman123]

The USB drive is slow is NOT a software bug, rather its a defect related to the fact that USB drives are wearing out due to the continuous use and/or is full.

Wrong.

It appeared out of nowhere for many people simultaneously after a software update. That’s the textbook definition of a software bug.

Also, IIRC, someone confirmed it with Tesla that it’s actually a software bug. And just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s not a bug. There are many different configurations of the operating system floating around. The bug may not be in all of them.

 

[Vegas m3d]

Seems like having a 2500 deductible is also costing you thousands.

 

[BlueBlazes]

Seems like having a 2500 deductible is also costing you thousands.

Absolutely. But as I said in an earlier post, this will be our first claim in about 30 years. So the lower rates we've been paying over all those years due to having a high deductible has still paid off.

 

[jasazick]

Wrong.

It appeared out of nowhere for many people simultaneously after a software update. That’s the textbook definition of a software bug.

Also, IIRC, someone confirmed it with Tesla that it’s actually a software bug. And just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s not a bug. There are many different configurations of the operating system floating around. The bug may not be in all of them.

Bingo. And even inside the same configuration it can be intermittent.

 

[Krazaak]

Wrong.

It appeared out of nowhere for many people simultaneously after a software update. That’s the textbook definition of a software bug.

Also, IIRC, someone confirmed it with Tesla that it’s actually a software bug. And just because you don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s not a bug. There are many different configurations of the operating system floating around. The bug may not be in all of them.

The possibility of bugs is there, but so are changing requirements. At some point people’s drives just stopped working randomly and then Tesla added the drive too slow check. It wasn’t a bug that people started getting a message. Similarly, there’s a new camera being recorded now, meaning 33% more bandwidth being consumed. Drives that were operating at 80% are now too slow. Drives that are fast enough under 50% full might be too slow when over 50%.

 

[jkdman123]

The possibility of bugs is there, but so are changing requirements. At some point people’s drives just stopped working randomly and then Tesla added the drive too slow check. It wasn’t a bug that people started getting a message. Similarly, there’s a new camera being recorded now, meaning 33% more bandwidth being consumed. Drives that were operating at 80% are now too slow. Drives that are fast enough under 50% full might be too slow when over 50%.

Still wrong. The issue has happened simultaneously to people who had had no issues for months of using the drive and to others, like me, who had only been using a USB drive for several weeks.

If there was a sudden change in requirements for the drive to be used for TeslaCam (which is certainly possible) then they’ve been keeping that info secret. However, in the absence of such info, the behavior is best defined as a software bug.

In one of the other threads one user did an analysis of the possible amount of data being pushed, even considering the added camera view, and concluded that most name brand USB drives should have much higher write speed than is required.

And again, someone confirmed with support that it’s a bug.

 

[whatthe2]

Still wrong. The issue has happened simultaneously to people who had had no issues for months of using the drive and to others, like me, who had only been using a USB drive for several weeks.

If there was a sudden change in requirements for the drive to be used for TeslaCam (which is certainly possible) then they’ve been keeping that info secret. However, in the absence of such info, the behavior is best defined as a software bug.

In one of the other threads one user did an analysis of the possible amount of data being pushed, even considering the added camera view, and concluded that most name brand USB drives should have much higher write speed than is required.

And again, someone confirmed with support that it’s a bug.

Not disputing it could be a bug, but relying on “someone confirmed with support it’s a bug” doesn’t lend much evidence. We always get, multiple, conflicting statement from Tesla support on, well everything.

 

[Runt8]

One engineer's bug is another engineer's "changing requirements." I'm not really surprised that adding a fourth camera and a test for adequate drive speed will cause many people's drives to "stop working."

 

[jim0266]

Interesting read on the durability of SSD drives.
Endurance Test of Samsung 850 Pro Comes To an End after 9100TB of writes

 

[Krazaak]

Still wrong. The issue has happened simultaneously to people who had had no issues for months of using the drive and to others, like me, who had only been using a USB drive for several weeks.

If there was a sudden change in requirements for the drive to be used for TeslaCam (which is certainly possible) then they’ve been keeping that info secret. However, in the absence of such info, the behavior is best defined as a software bug.

In one of the other threads one user did an analysis of the possible amount of data being pushed, even considering the added camera view, and concluded that most name brand USB drives should have much higher write speed than is required.

And again, someone confirmed with support that it’s a bug.

Sorry, but you're confusing your assumption with fact. There has absolutely been a change in the requirements to TeslaCam, which is the addition of the 4th camera feed. Tesla doesn't publish their actual drive requirements and that obviously leads to confusion. There may also be plenty of bugs in the cam code or with how it determines "too slow", but there's no blanket bug that explains it all.

 

[Nuclear Fusion]

USBs are not meant for heavy read/write operations, most USBs will break in weeks/months. Please get a SD card or a SSD.

The best micro SD card on the market purpose made for dashcams up to 256GB is WD Purple

 

[Common_Loon]

My 5-month-old blue Model 3 was just scraped by a white pickup in the post office parking lot. My wife was inside at the time and I was home. When she came out 2 people shouted that a white pickup had scraped the side of my car and then took off. They didn't get the license # but she didn't despair. We have Sentry Mode! When she got in the car she saw the red exclamation mark in the upper right which, when you press it, says the USB speed is too slow so Sentry Mode had stopped working. When I checked the flash drive I found that it had recorded the first minute of her drive to the post office but nothing after that. The post office doesn't have video monitors in the parking lot so we're screwed. This is the third USB drive we've tried with Sentry Mode. The first was the 64 GB Sundisk, which is recommended in articles for this purpose. It worked fine for 2 months, then got the "too slow" message. I read all the forums about this problem and have since tried two others. The latest was a Sundisk USB 2 drive. It has worked for a month, has recorded many Sentry mode incidents with no problem (one from yesterday), and now failed 15 minutes before the accident. Both doors on the left side are dented and have a long white scrape mark. I have $2,500 collision deductible so that'll be out of pocket.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Tesla and expect to have "growing pain" problems from time to time but this is getting old. How do I fix this USB problem once and for all??

Stop using trashy thumb drives and get a Samsung T5 SSD. It's not hard.

 

[tvad]

Stop using trashy thumb drives and get a Samsung T5 SSD. It's not hard.

Courtesy of member "arcanexvi": Be careful with the temperature tolerances of the drives you use if you live in a market with seasons. I looked at another T5 but nyxed it when I saw it's only rated for 5-35 degrees C (41-95F). In Chicago we regularly get well above and below those temps in a car. Cabin overheat won't even kick in yet at 95.

These USB drives work fine (withstands -25°C to 85°C operating). (No, I am not receiving compensation for the sale of these drives. LOL).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D7Q41PM/?tag=tmc064-20

If you get the "too slow" warning, just erase and re-format.

 

[Mojito]

Remember many people here are selling a product thru Amazon so they can get a share I've tried 5 different USB and 4 have crashed and you can feel how hot they get I think I will go with a SSD after your story looks like it will be a good investment.

 

[tvad]

Remember many people here are selling a product thru Amazon so they can get a share...

Please identify these people and provide proof to substantiate your claim.