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Sentry works/Dashcam doesn't
- Thread starter casey3309
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Sentry has nothing to do with dashcam features really...other than if it goes to alert mode and dashcam happens to be running, it'll save the previous 10 minutes of dashcam footage to the sentry folder.
Sentry works fine either way though in all other regards, so it working is unrelated to your dashcam not working.
All that said-- is this a brand new car? Lots of folks have reported that Tesla failed to mark their car as delivered on the back end and this causes dashcam not to work.
Sentry works fine either way though in all other regards, so it working is unrelated to your dashcam not working.
All that said-- is this a brand new car? Lots of folks have reported that Tesla failed to mark their car as delivered on the back end and this causes dashcam not to work.
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Thanks for the quick response. I bought it with 4000 miles on it. From CARMAX. i had to wait for tesla to release the previous owner so i could "take ownership in the app. Sentry works great. But whenever i tap dashcam i get the error message. Tried resetting by holding down the steering wheel buttons. didn't help. I just think it's odd that the AUTOPILOT feature works great and Sentry but the dash cam won't function. I have it set to auto so i figured it began filming on "take off" in a loop?
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It still may not be marked as delivered properly (see @Knightshade 's response). As he said sentry has nothing to do with dashcam (sentry mode will "work" without a USB at all).
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Do you have a portable ssd hard drive or high endurance usb stick plugged in under the center console so that the dash cam viewer has something to playback? Some of the non high endurance usb sticks get fried quite quickly and car doesn’t recognize them. Can you remove your usb drive and plug it in to computer to view recordings?
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
There are no recordings- you can see from his first picture the car does not show the car sees any usable recording media present- dashcam isn't even ON (unavailable instead of "recording")
Not marked delivered would be my first check as mentioned- also does it give you the option to format the stick from inside the car? (it should if it sees it at all, though I haven't checked where in the interface they moved that to in V11)
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CarlThompson
Member
How do you know sentry works great if you can't see the footage in the dashcam viewer?
This may be a silly question, but how did you format the USB drive? If you didn't format it using the car's menus are you sure you used a format the car can understand and are you sure you created the TeslaCam folder?
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Again- Sentry does not record anything. It works regardless of if dashcam is working or not, it's a separate feature. The two often get confused though (and Teslas own descriptions often don't help). Thus you can easily tell Sentry is on (and working) without any recording happening.
If dashcam DOES happen to be recording when you ALSO have sentry mode on, then a sentry alert will move the last 10 minutes of dashcam footage to the sentry folder- but no footage is required at all for sentry to do all the other stuff it does.
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So i had sentry mode on a couple of days ago here in NC and while working the snowing set it off pretty much all day. lol.... but while driving i thought "dashcam" recorded in a timed loop for instances when you may need it such as insurance issues or road rage etc... in the settings panel it has
off/manual/ auto/ or honk as choices. I did see a way to watch the sentry mode snowing footage so i thought that was saved to the flashdrive. i am so damn lost here. lol
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CarlThompson
Member
If you were able to watch video clips from previous sentry mode events on your car then those events must be recorded on your USB drive notwithstanding what @Knightshade said. How were you able to watch those videos? I thought you got the error message in your screenshot when you tried? Or was the error message from before or after when you formatted the USB drive? How did you format the USB drive?
For sure there are a lot of features in these cars and it can be a little overwhelming at first! But the good thing is you don't have to learn them all at once; you can just drive the car like any other car and learn the cool features over time.
How do you like the car so far? Are you having as much fun as I did when I first got mine?
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Dashcam does record a 1 hour loop of most recent footage. I'll get to the viewer in a second, first I wanna clarify the sentry vs dashcam thing.
What dashcam does:
If the car is awake AND valid USB storage is visible to the car:
It records dashcam video. By default the most recent 1 hour. Don't need to be driving, just the car needs to be awake and storage exists.
If you honk the horn or manually tell it to save footage it will move the most recent 10 minutes of dashcam footage to the SAVED folder.
That's it.
What sentry does:
Keep the car awake.
AND
Monitor around the vehicle, and if someone comes near it throw up the warning message on the screen and flash the lights
AND
If it goes to alarm state notify you via the app, blare loud classical music, etc
AND
IF dashcam footage already exists (since Sentry can not travel in time) it will move the PAST 10 minutes of existing dashcam footage to the SENTRY folder.
Sentry does not record video, and it still can be turned on and otherwise work fine without any USB media in the car, doing the first 3 functions.
Anyway as far as the viewer- last I checked the viewer will only let you view stuff in the SENTRY or SAVED folders, not RECENT (which is where the last hour is stored)- recent should be visible if you pull the USB stick and put in a PC though.
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I will add I went through a lot of frustration with mine.. it was resolved by two things.. learning not all USB ports are equal in the console.. some are data and some are power only :/. Who does a stupid design like that? anyways.. the biggest was to let the car format the stick. And that took a couple of times to stick and work reliably. This was bought used and I had to wait for Tesla to transfer the ownership which just took a couple of days.
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I’m technically challenged… new M3 owner….is it necessary for dashcam to be on all the time?? Also, if sentry mode is enabled, will it record events by itself or must dashcam also be in record mode?
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Having trouble understanding basic concepts with dashcam and sentry mode. Should dashcam remain on 24/7?
When parked and sentry mode is activated, must dashcam mode also be on at the same time? In other words, what happens if sentry mode captured some events and dashcam was off , what happens?
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Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Sentry mode does not record or capture anything. Ever.
The only time the car records video at all is if Dashcam is on.
All sentry does, as regards video, is if it goes to alert mode it will move the previous 10 minutes of dashcam recordings into the sentry folder to be viewed later.
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