Just to clarify, there are several of us using a regular USB thumb drive that are experiencing this error. So the problem isn’t unique to those using hubs.
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USB Device Malfunction
- Thread starter jkdman123
- Start date
Yeah, thumb drive user here. Just opened yet another support case on this, requested mobile service, and got a message back saying they still think it's software, and they're still working on a fix. Really? It's been well over 6 months of this, the car continues making the stupid alert noise, and somehow they found time to make stupid ass fart noises but not actually fix bugs?
Cool.
They haven't replied to my request to replace the charger hub anyway, since I don't fit their description of the issue (using two devices simultaneously). That was two days ago and they haven't bothered messaging back and haven't confirmed that they'd be sending mobile service to replace the unit rather than me driving over an hour each way.
The odds of me upgrading to a performance Model Y are decreasing daily having to deal with this kind of stupid *sugar*.
Cool.
They haven't replied to my request to replace the charger hub anyway, since I don't fit their description of the issue (using two devices simultaneously). That was two days ago and they haven't bothered messaging back and haven't confirmed that they'd be sending mobile service to replace the unit rather than me driving over an hour each way.
The odds of me upgrading to a performance Model Y are decreasing daily having to deal with this kind of stupid *sugar*.
Another update. Tesla service claimed to be "waiting for a reply regarding the remote diagnoses". That update from them was on April 15. I re-scheduled my appointment because I'm not driving over an hour one way just so they can send me home after 10 minutes again. In typical Tesla fashion, I have to keep hounding them, wait days or a week before I get a reply, and the reply is either wrong or apparently made up.
To say I'm annoyed would be an understatement. The messaging interface in the app is buggy, which makes using it frustrating. There is apparently zero accountability for how long support requests are open, so there's no incentive to get this solved in any way. Actually getting someone on the phone is just a guarantee to spend hours on hold just to be given the run-around.
At this point, I have to wonder if they aren't just going to try to run down the warranty clock so they don't have to fix these problems. All they've got to do is keep me waiting a year, and then they can suddenly determine it needs to be replaced but now it's going to cost me. That's the only conceivable reason I can come up with for this to have dragged on so long. Has anybody actually had luck getting their hub replaced?
To say I'm annoyed would be an understatement. The messaging interface in the app is buggy, which makes using it frustrating. There is apparently zero accountability for how long support requests are open, so there's no incentive to get this solved in any way. Actually getting someone on the phone is just a guarantee to spend hours on hold just to be given the run-around.
At this point, I have to wonder if they aren't just going to try to run down the warranty clock so they don't have to fix these problems. All they've got to do is keep me waiting a year, and then they can suddenly determine it needs to be replaced but now it's going to cost me. That's the only conceivable reason I can come up with for this to have dragged on so long. Has anybody actually had luck getting their hub replaced?
GoodFella2K
Member
I reformatted my SD card from EXT4 to FAT32 and it may have resolved the issue? 
I haven’t seen the error in several weeks since.
I haven’t seen the error in several weeks since.
manddarran
Member
My experience as well. I’ve only seen it once since the 4.15 update. Disconnecting and reconnecting the drive resolved it.
RedModel3
Member
In my case, I replaced the disk completely with the "Tesla-approved" disk and formatted it directly in the car. Still have problems. Yes, it started after a software update. I have an appointment next week to fix so I'll update after that. I was hoping it was just software, but the SC wanted to check it out.
Chiming in here again. Tesla replaced my USB unit, and it made zero difference at all. I was on the 2021.4.15.x firmware and the last two versions appeared to make the issue either go away or be less frequent. Yesterday I got the update to 2021.4.18 and the problem came back immediately. At this point I've given up on the problem ever being reliably resolved.
Seems like the best bet given the limited knowledge we have about Tesla's bug database. The only thing that the .18 release appears to bring is more animals in the display, so not exactly critical functionality changes. Well, animals and broken firmware of course.
sduck
Mr. Duck
I've been using the same sandisk ssd in my 2018 RWD for well over 2 years with absolutely zero issues, no warnings or anything. And it's not the ssd that's helping, as plenty of people have the same trouble free experience with standard thumb drives and sd cards. I wonder what the underlying issue actually is.
I also have had this issue for a number of months. I notice that when this issue occurred, I would see both of the console USB ports loose power, like the e-fuse had disabled them. I suspected that there may be transients on the console ports/hub and at some point the e-fuse tolerances had been tightened such that it was tripping for these transients.
I have had success mitigating this (for the most part) by adding an externally powered USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) hub between the USB drive and the console USB port. I power the USB hub from the 12v power port using a 12v to USB adapter and a USB to 5V DC Jack cable (similar to this: Amazon.com: Belker Universal 5V DC 5.5 2.1mm Jack Charging Cable Power Cord, USB to DC Power Cable with 12 Interchangeable Plugs Connectors Adapters Compatible with Fan Speaker Router Mini and More 5V Devices: Electronics).
This appears to greatly reduce the occurrence of the USB error and makes the dashcam much more stable.
I recently mentioned this when discussing this issue with the service center but the only recommendation I got from them was to reformat the USB drive. Since the dashcam would most often recovery without any intervention on my part when the error occurred, it appeared to me to be more of an electrical issue than a device format issue.
I have had success mitigating this (for the most part) by adding an externally powered USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) hub between the USB drive and the console USB port. I power the USB hub from the 12v power port using a 12v to USB adapter and a USB to 5V DC Jack cable (similar to this: Amazon.com: Belker Universal 5V DC 5.5 2.1mm Jack Charging Cable Power Cord, USB to DC Power Cable with 12 Interchangeable Plugs Connectors Adapters Compatible with Fan Speaker Router Mini and More 5V Devices: Electronics).
This appears to greatly reduce the occurrence of the USB error and makes the dashcam much more stable.
I recently mentioned this when discussing this issue with the service center but the only recommendation I got from them was to reformat the USB drive. Since the dashcam would most often recovery without any intervention on my part when the error occurred, it appeared to me to be more of an electrical issue than a device format issue.
With no power to the port, the USB drive powers off so it can't be written to. You will lose Sentry mode recordings as well as your normal dashcam functionality. The Sentry icon will still appear, but the USB drive icon will not. So even though the car may alert someone attempting to tamper with it, you will not have a recording of the incident.
That may resolve the charging issue, because whatever device you have is now being charged from the hub. But of the Tesla USB hub is powering off, the recording problem will still exist.
I'm not convinced this is an issue with power tolerances being tightened either. I rarely (almost never) charge my phone with the dock ports, but I frequently receive the error or at the least have my USB drive not appear. I'm using a Samsung FIT drive, and the measured power draw I had on this device under full write load was tiny compared to even the slowest charging phone available.
I suspect they've customized a bunch of firmwares in the car in an attempt to cut down on power consumption. It seems likely that this could be causing the issues we're seeing, because the USB hub itself is experiencing a power issue and disconnecting. At a guess, but I haven't looked, Tesla is monitoring the power entries in sysfs to catch misbehaving devices, and that's the source of the alert. But, again, I haven't actually combed through the scripts to find out, so that's a wild but plausible guess.
Allow me to clarify a couple of points.
My comment was specific to the Dashcam/Sentry Mode behavior, and is not associated in any way with charging using the console USB ports. Since I first encountered the USB device error issue, I stopped using the console USB ports for charging, thinking that charging a device may have been contributing to the issue. While charging may be a contributor to the issue, I have not factored that into my experiments.
I have a 2018 LR AWD which was purchased in February of 2019. I have used Dashcam and Sentry Mode since the features were introduced. Configured using, at first, direct connection to the console USB port and then later using the USB hub (unpowered) to allow multiple phone charging. This configuration worked up until last fall.
Once I started seeing the USB device errors, I stopped using the console USB ports for charging and also removed the USB hub, instead going back to connecting the storage device directly to the console USB port. This did not resolve the issue.
I then tried a couple of other USB storage device types without seeing the issue resolved.
During this time, I was hoping that a firmware update may resolve the issue, since it appeared to have started after a firmware update (don't remember which one). As time passed and it appeared that this was not going to be resolved with a firmware update in short order, I began to lose confidence in the Dashcam and Sentry Mode features. I decided to try a couple of experiments, leading to the discovery (at least for me) that using a powered USB hub (the same one that I had previously been using, but now externally powered) restored the Dashcam and Sentry Mode stability.
I experimented with Sentry Mode, leaving it on overnight, when the car would usually sleep, and determined that, with Sentry Mode on, the 12v power port remains active and continues to power the USB hub. The car doesn't appear to sleep with Sentry Mode enabled. Camera captures are stored to the USB storage device connected to the console USB port through the powered USB hub.
Therefore, at least for me, this mitigation has restored my confidence in the Dashcam and Sentry Mode features.
I don't believe that, if transients are the cause of the issue, that transients caused by the USB storage devices themselves are what is causing this, since I would see random failures without any obvious change to the USB storage device. Rather, my thoughts moved in the direction of induced transients caused by some other external electrical or electromechanical change in the car (fan speed, HVAC duct change, pump start/stop, etc.), or perhaps a ground isolation issue. Since I don't have access to the datasheets for the devices involved (e-fuse, internal USB hub), source code for the programming of the e-fuse, or a schematic or layout of the associated PCB (trace copper density/thickness, PCB material, etc.), I was constructing experiments based off of factors that I could control (USB storage device, powered vs. unpowered USB hub). I got to the point where I though that perhaps isolating the USB storage device power from the console USB power would help. This is how I came up with this mitigation. There may be other ways of resolving this, but for now, this is the most stability I have seen for my circumstance.
Again, this is not a solution, and I am still hoping that Tesla does provide a root cause solution for this issue. However, for me, the mitigation I am using helps me to feel more confident about these features. Obviously, YMMV.
My comment was specific to the Dashcam/Sentry Mode behavior, and is not associated in any way with charging using the console USB ports. Since I first encountered the USB device error issue, I stopped using the console USB ports for charging, thinking that charging a device may have been contributing to the issue. While charging may be a contributor to the issue, I have not factored that into my experiments.
I have a 2018 LR AWD which was purchased in February of 2019. I have used Dashcam and Sentry Mode since the features were introduced. Configured using, at first, direct connection to the console USB port and then later using the USB hub (unpowered) to allow multiple phone charging. This configuration worked up until last fall.
Once I started seeing the USB device errors, I stopped using the console USB ports for charging and also removed the USB hub, instead going back to connecting the storage device directly to the console USB port. This did not resolve the issue.
I then tried a couple of other USB storage device types without seeing the issue resolved.
During this time, I was hoping that a firmware update may resolve the issue, since it appeared to have started after a firmware update (don't remember which one). As time passed and it appeared that this was not going to be resolved with a firmware update in short order, I began to lose confidence in the Dashcam and Sentry Mode features. I decided to try a couple of experiments, leading to the discovery (at least for me) that using a powered USB hub (the same one that I had previously been using, but now externally powered) restored the Dashcam and Sentry Mode stability.
I experimented with Sentry Mode, leaving it on overnight, when the car would usually sleep, and determined that, with Sentry Mode on, the 12v power port remains active and continues to power the USB hub. The car doesn't appear to sleep with Sentry Mode enabled. Camera captures are stored to the USB storage device connected to the console USB port through the powered USB hub.
Therefore, at least for me, this mitigation has restored my confidence in the Dashcam and Sentry Mode features.
I don't believe that, if transients are the cause of the issue, that transients caused by the USB storage devices themselves are what is causing this, since I would see random failures without any obvious change to the USB storage device. Rather, my thoughts moved in the direction of induced transients caused by some other external electrical or electromechanical change in the car (fan speed, HVAC duct change, pump start/stop, etc.), or perhaps a ground isolation issue. Since I don't have access to the datasheets for the devices involved (e-fuse, internal USB hub), source code for the programming of the e-fuse, or a schematic or layout of the associated PCB (trace copper density/thickness, PCB material, etc.), I was constructing experiments based off of factors that I could control (USB storage device, powered vs. unpowered USB hub). I got to the point where I though that perhaps isolating the USB storage device power from the console USB power would help. This is how I came up with this mitigation. There may be other ways of resolving this, but for now, this is the most stability I have seen for my circumstance.
Again, this is not a solution, and I am still hoping that Tesla does provide a root cause solution for this issue. However, for me, the mitigation I am using helps me to feel more confident about these features. Obviously, YMMV.
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