TeslaCam w/included Tesla Memory Stick

[Contrails]

New owner here getting a little frustrated with the Tesla Cam and the 128gb stick that came with the car. Sometimes the car will recognize it immediately upon start up, and sometimes I’ll get in the car to drive and after a few minutes, I’ll notice that the icon for the cam isn’t there and it’s not seeing the stick. I’ll pull it out and re-insert it and everything is fine and it starts recording. I’ve formatted the drive to FAT32 a few times both in the car and on my PC.

Any other tips or something I might have missed to get it to recognize the drive every time without pulling it out and reinserting? I know Tesla has only been including the stick with new deliveries for a few months, curious if any other drivers have swapped for something better/bigger or had a similar issue.

 

[Apollo3]

I would recommend you take that usb stick out and use it as personal storage. Go buy a micro sd card that’s made for dash cam use along with a USB adapter and use that. I had a ton of the same problems you’re having back when I used a usb drive. Haven’t had a problem since switching to a micro sd card. Most people will tell you to go get an SSD, but the sd card does just as well for a fraction of the cost.

 

[Gasaraki]

New owner here getting a little frustrated with the Tesla Cam and the 128gb stick that came with the car. Sometimes the car will recognize it immediately upon start up, and sometimes I’ll get in the car to drive and after a few minutes, I’ll notice that the icon for the cam isn’t there and it’s not seeing the stick. I’ll pull it out and re-insert it and everything is fine and it starts recording. I’ve formatted the drive to FAT32 a few times both in the car and on my PC.

Any other tips or something I might have missed to get it to recognize the drive every time without pulling it out and reinserting? I know Tesla has only been including the stick with new deliveries for a few months, curious if any other drivers have swapped for something better/bigger or had a similar issue.

Use the car to format it. The car will format it to exFAT, not FAT32. FAT32 is old.

 

[ehacke]

I would recommend you take that usb stick out and use it as personal storage. Go buy a micro sd card that’s made for dash cam use along with a USB adapter and use that. I had a ton of the same problems you’re having back when I used a usb drive. Haven’t had a problem since switching to a micro sd card. Most people will tell you to go get an SSD, but the sd card does just as well for a fraction of the cost.

Agreed. Either something is wrong with the USB stick or with the port itself.

Most likely the USB stick.

I'd test it by swapping it.

Buy something designed for high-write load like this: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07P4HBRMV/
And an adapter like this: https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-MobileMate-microSD-Card-Reader/dp/B07G5JV2B5/

Install those, if it keeps happening after you replace the stick, I'd call Tesla Service.

 

[The_Observer]

Agreed on using a high endurance microsd for Tesla Cam/Sentry Mode, it's designed for this application. I have my 128gb Samsung endurance microsd for about a year now, and not a single issue at all.

 

[Contrails]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Knightshade]

The car does not need any "high write load" storage- the write load isn't high.

You can do the math yourself- the car is writing 2MB per second to the drive (0.5MB per camera per second).

Any quality storage, including USB keys, should work fine for longer than the average American owns a car. My 128GB Samsung Fit Plus for example has been working perfectly for over 2 years now.... I clean if off about once a quarter and 0 issues.

Switching to an SDcard just adds an additional point of failure (the USB to SD converter, and there's been a number of threads with folks having camera problems from exactly that bit failing).


If you're having issues with a brand new car and a brand new memory stick, you have a hardware problem. Open a service ticket.

 

[Xe-135]

I am experiencing the exact same issue. New 2021 M3. Does not recognize the Tesla USB in glove box on startup. Unplug/plug and it recognizes it.

 

[Contrails]

I am experiencing the exact same issue. New 2021 M3. Does not recognize the Tesla USB in glove box on startup. Unplug/plug and it recognizes it.

Glad I'm not the only one with this issue. There's a reddit thread someone started with the same problem.

 

[ehacke]

You know what, I just noticed I also have the same problem. I only noticed it once 2020.48.26 came out. I hadn't checked too often prior to that, but since then it's happened a couple of times.

The first time I restarted the car to bring it back, but now it seems that just removing and reinstalling the USB stick will do it.

Really doesn't add a lot of confidence to Sentry mode generally if it's constantly failing.

 

[Contrails]

I think I figured it out. I partitioned the drive into “TeslaCam” and “Boombox” to be able to load sounds for the new update. Seems to have fixed it. Driven the car a few days with the partitioned drive and it’s come on every time.