TeslaCam issues (mid 2020)

[EVnut]

August 2018 Model 3 AWD, now with FSD computer upgrade. On firmware 2020.20.12

When TeslaCam and Sentry were introduced, it was a rocky start. But things smoothed out, and it eventually started working reasonably well, if still a bit sketchy. I started with a fast 64G thumb-drive that worked great, but I wanted to view my stuff on the go. I purchased an IXpand 128G drive and was using SentryView to see stuff on my iphone... or at home on my computer. Worked "well enough." As we all know, it is not a perfect system.

Fast forward to recently when the in-car viewer was introduced. Since then, nothing has worked quite right. I have three different cards (including the iXpand). They've all plenty fast writing. Smallest is 64G. None none of them seem to work right. And I sometimes (rarely, actually.... maybe three times in four months?) get a message on the screen that says the card isn't fast enough, so some things are not being recorded.

Here's where I am right now. Which card doesn't matter. Every one has been formatted on my Macbook Pro. And when put it in the car, the red camera light shows on the main display of the car. I can hit the icon to save a clip. Then I can view that clip in the viewer. Of course I can only view sentry and saved clips. Nothing from driving (this is the normal state of things for some reason). When long-press the camera icon to shut off recording, remove the drive and then try to read that card from my computer, there are NO subfolders under TeslaCam. No video files anywhere on the card that I can see! And when I put the card back into the car, I can view my saved files. WTH?

Something probably important: In the car, I am NOT able to use the new format feature. The button is greyed out for me. And for what it is worth my SentryView iPhone app cannot see the files on the iXpand either. But again when I put that drive back into the car, I can see the saved files.

After months of frustration, I've made a mobile service appointment and mentioned that I'm happy to get help with email or a phone call. I received a text, and here it is in full:

"Please re-format your USB per the owners manual guidelines on page 76-77.At this time, the recommended USB size that is recommend is 32GB, so the guidelines for formatting that are provided are specific to 32Gb. If you choose to use a size larger than 32GB, you may need to use a 3rd party application to format (Page 144) ."

Does the collective have any help for me here? I'm somewhat amazed to have my searches turn up nothing. Can I be the only one having this issue? Is there really a 32G limit on these cards? If so, I need to go out and buy yet another *smaller* drive for my TeslaCam to try? Seems absurd. But if I know it'll work, I'll go ahead and do it, I guess.

 

[SageBrush]

I don't have a solution to offer so I'll just sympathize.

For now I am willing to tolerate the TeslaCam as a toy that might work. If it was actually important to me I would buy a commercial product.

 

[i11matic]

On your MacBook Pro, format the drive/card to something other that FAT32 or exFAT and then put it in the car, you should be able to use the car to reformat the card. Also if you are using a card reader USB drive that can use two cards at once, the car will see it as multiple cards even if you only have one inserted and won’t reformat the card.

 

[EVnut]

I don't have a solution to offer so I'll just sympathize.

For now I am willing to tolerate the TeslaCam as a toy that might work. If it was actually important to me I would buy a commercial product.

Much appreciated. And yeah... I was THAT close to installing an aftermarket product when TeslaCam was announced. I had high hopes! Unimpressed with the first attempt.... it got better, but nowhere near as good as even the cheapest dash cam that I've used..... and now the system seems just entirely unreliable. Really too bad. Clearly this wasn't one of the intended or foreseen uses for the camera system. I'm glad they tried to kluge it together for us, but it seems *really* difficult to get right. Sort of like watching other car makers make a "Tesla Killer."

 

[EVnut]

On your MacBook Pro, format the drive/card to something other that FAT32 or exFAT and then put it in the car, you should be able to use the car to reformat the card. Also if you are using a card reader USB drive that can use two cards at once, the car will see it as multiple cards even if you only have one inserted and won’t reformat the card.

Thanks Mr. Matic. I'll give that a try. For the record, I have one thumb drive for music in one of the factory ports, and one thumb drive for TeslaCam in the other factory port. I installed my own power ports for phone charging that are from a different 12V source. So no confusion about the number of cards.

Does anybody know just how the car formats the thumb drive? Will it make it into a Master Boot? Fat32? exFAT?

 

[DanH]

Get an SSD external drive. Was having issues with the regular USB drives. After switching to an SSD drive, I couldn’t be happier. Haven’t run into any issue so fat. Viewing videos is snappier as well.

 

[EVnut]

Oh wait! If I have my music drive in one port and my TeslaCam drive in the other, how would it know which one I was trying to format?! Oops. May have figured out THAT pesky problem.

My first step in future testing will be to ONLY have one thumb drive inserted.

 

[EVnut]

Get an SSD external drive. Was having issues with the regular USB drives. After switching to an SSD drive, I couldn’t be happier. Haven’t run into any issue so fat. Viewing videos is snappier as well.

Yeah, that's what my brother did as well. I just keep throwing money at this thing. Could have bought a BlackView at this point!

I also would really like it to work with SentryView. I guess with a lightning adapter an SSD would work fine. I'm gonna take another stab at it tonight. It seems that just about every owner knows more about this than my Tesla service folks do! My adviser wrote back and told me that the only drive that works is 32G.

 

[SageBrush]

It seems that just about every owner knows more about this than my Tesla service folks do!

Not including me, of the ~ 3 who have responded.

I'm not used to hyperbole from you.

 

[EVnut]

Not including me, of the ~ 3 who have responded.

I'm not used to hyperbole from you.

Ha! I'll bet you knew that a card larger (or even smaller) than 32G would work for TeslaCam. And that would make you more knowledgeable than the service advisor who's advising me.... Seriously. She's pointing me to the manual even though I've already told her what I'm doing.... and the manual says nothing different than what I'm doing. And then she's misinterpreting what the manual says. Plus... I'm getting advice from more folks than those on this thread. Turns out that more than three people own these cars and use TeslaCam.

I appreciate the reminder though, and will work at keeping the hyperbole in check. I thank you a million times.

 

[john5520]

Fast forward to recently when the in-car viewer was introduced. Since then, nothing has worked quite right. I have three different cards (including the iXpand). They've all plenty fast writing. Smallest is 64G.
Does the collective have any help for me here? I'm somewhat amazed to have my searches turn up nothing. Can I be the only one having this issue? Is there really a 32G limit on these cards? If so, I need to go out and buy yet another *smaller* drive for my TeslaCam to try? Seems absurd. But if I know it'll work, I'll go ahead and do it, I guess.

Do you mind me asking what brand and model are these cards? As far I can tell, the iXpand is a flash drive.

 

[EVnut]

Do you mind me asking what brand and model are these cards? As far I can tell, the iXpand is a flash drive.

Everything I'm using now is a "flash drive."

The three I'm currently using:
iXpand 128G
Samsung 256G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7Q41PM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Sandisk 128G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07855LJ99/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And boy do those little guys get hot when the writing gets serious.

 

[john5520]

Everything I'm using now is a "flash drive."

The three I'm currently using:
iXpand 128G
Samsung 256G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7Q41PM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Sandisk 128G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07855LJ99/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And boy do those little guys get hot when the writing gets serious.

Thanks. What prompted me to ask, is you stated you got the message on the screen that says "the card isn't fast enough". From my research, 9/10 times that message pops up with those that use flash drives.

I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NY23WBG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With this card reader, but there are others that work well:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009D79VH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And as you can see, the sdcard is 128gb, so that 32gb needed advice is BS. I formatted it on my computer with Easus partition master. This was before the built-in utility. It was plug and play after that.
No fiddling around. Stuck it in the card reader and that was that. No error messages and I haven't had a single issue reviewing recordings. I wanted to get an SSD, but this combo has been flawless so far. I'm on 20.12 as well.

 

[SageBrush]

I thank you a million times

Only a million ? You think you can remediate hyperbole with under statement ?

 

[EVnut]

Only a million ? You think you can remediate hyperbole with under statement ?

Remember back when a million was the biggest number that we knew? A Millionaire was the richest person around. The national debt was in the millions. Only tiny MB's were huge memory!

Hmmm. I'm digressing a bit. For I am old.

 

[EVnut]

Thanks. What prompted me to ask, is you stated you got the message on the screen that says "the card isn't fast enough". From my research, 9/10 times that message pops up with those that use flash drives.

I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NY23WBG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With this card reader, but there are others that work well:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009D79VH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And as you can see, the sdcard is 128gb, so that 32gb needed advice is BS. I formatted it on my computer with Easus partition master. This was before the built-in utility. It was plug and play after that.
No fiddling around. Stuck it in the card reader and that was that. No error messages and I haven't had a single issue reviewing recordings. I wanted to get an SSD, but this combo has been flawless so far. I'm on 20.12 as well.

Thanks for the great links and data point. Any chance that you have a reliable USB-A to Lightening adapter that would let me use this for SentryView on my iPhone?

 

[john5520]

Thanks for the great links and data point. Any chance that you have a reliable USB-A to Lightening adapter that would let me use this for SentryView on my iPhone?

I have no experience with any, but there are a ton to choose from on Amazon and they're dirt cheap.

 

[EVnut]

Testing going well... seems that my music thumb drive was confusing everything. I still can't believe that I'm the only one having this issue, but here we are. I took that drive out, then I could reformat all of my other ones in the car just fine. And so far, it all seems to be working as designed. Hmmmm.

 

[i11matic]

Everything I'm using now is a "flash drive."

The three I'm currently using:
iXpand 128G
Samsung 256G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D7Q41PM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Sandisk 128G https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07855LJ99/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And boy do those little guys get hot when the writing gets serious.

Thanks. What prompted me to ask, is you stated you got the message on the screen that says "the card isn't fast enough". From my research, 9/10 times that message pops up with those that use flash drives.

I use one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NY23WBG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With this card reader, but there are others that work well:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009D79VH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And as you can see, the sdcard is 128gb, so that 32gb needed advice is BS. I formatted it on my computer with Easus partition master. This was before the built-in utility. It was plug and play after that.
No fiddling around. Stuck it in the card reader and that was that. No error messages and I haven't had a single issue reviewing recordings. I wanted to get an SSD, but this combo has been flawless so far. I'm on 20.12 as well.

While the Sandisk High Endurance cards are suited for dashcams, I would spend a little bit more to get the Samsung Pro Endurance cards as they use better NAND resulting in four times the lifespan. The Sandisk 128GB is rated for 10,000 hours, while the Samsung 128GB is rated for 43,800 hours. Granted it'll probably take more than 5 years to run 10,000 hours, but the higher quality NAND is less prone to errors too.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Endurance-128GB-Micro-Adapter/dp/B07B984HJ5/

 

[john5520]

While the Sandisk High Endurance cards are suited for dashcams, I would spend a little bit more to get the Samsung Pro Endurance cards as they use better NAND resulting in four times the lifespan. The Sandisk 128GB is rated for 10,000 hours, while the Samsung 128GB is rated for 43,800 hours. Granted it'll probably take more than 5 years to run 10,000 hours, but the higher quality NAND is less prone to errors too.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Endurance-128GB-Micro-Adapter/dp/B07B984HJ5/

The Samsung is fine too. The difference in price isn't that much and they both got great reviews. I don't think you can go wrong with either. My average daily commute is less than an hour. Even if I recorded 2 hours a day that's still less than a 1000 hours a year. So it'll be closer to 10 years with the SanDisk (taking the specs at face value).