Yesterday my Dash Cam icon was indicating that it wasn't recording (grey X) This happens every few months. As I've done in the past, I removed the properly formated USB, deleted all the files and kept the Tesla Cam folder in it. This AM after replacing it, there was a red circle where it's ususally black. When I tapped on it, it said "Some clips not saved - USB too slow for dash cam." WTH? It's been working fine. I've used a highly recommended USB from Amazon that's been working great up until now. Any idea why the new error message?
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BOBEDIGITL
Member
@enolam There are TONS of threads regarding this issue. Try the search function, I believe there was also a master thread somewhere. People have been having this very same issue since V10. The same thing was happening to me. I swapped my USB for a SSD and I haven't received the error since. USB's aren't really made to be rewritten over and over again. I suggest you try either a SSD or some sort of SD card. Either of those two solutions seem to be the best fix. Good luck.
You'll probably be told it's a "software issue" by a few people on this board, but that's not really the case. I mean, software could mitigate it, but the fact is that the streams aren't really buffered, and USB drives aren't using the highest quality flash. Once you have a few cells go bad, and the hiccups caused in write speed, you start to trigger these types of errors. It's just the nature of trying to constantly stream writes to a media that isn't meant for that use.
MASTER THREAD: USB drives that work with Sentry and TeslaCam
Yes, it is long, but everything you need to know is in there. While not proven, I am a firm believer that this is a software issue with Tesla and not a hardware issue with whatever you drive you choose
I disagree a bit* with @BOBEDIGITL in that I don't think the added expense of either an SSD or a and SD card with adapter is required. I have a SanDisk CZ600 Cruzer Glide USB 3.0 256 GB Flash Drive from Costco that I have been using since I got the car in August and never had an issue (notice my emphasis on the size - I suspect this helps). While normally it is $33, you can get it at the time of this writing for $29. For the un-discounted price, I can get two and still have money left over for a few rounds of a good scotch at the bar (always neat!)
*I won't mark the post as "disagree" - certainly not worthy of that!
Yes, it is long, but everything you need to know is in there. While not proven, I am a firm believer that this is a software issue with Tesla and not a hardware issue with whatever you drive you choose
I disagree a bit* with @BOBEDIGITL in that I don't think the added expense of either an SSD or a and SD card with adapter is required. I have a SanDisk CZ600 Cruzer Glide USB 3.0 256 GB Flash Drive from Costco that I have been using since I got the car in August and never had an issue (notice my emphasis on the size - I suspect this helps). While normally it is $33, you can get it at the time of this writing for $29. For the un-discounted price, I can get two and still have money left over for a few rounds of a good scotch at the bar (always neat!)
*I won't mark the post as "disagree" - certainly not worthy of that!
All evidence points to SW being the issue. The "few bad cells" argument has no merit and the Tesla doesn't come anywhere NEAR the write speeds that even the lowest rated flash drive is capable of (the car only requires 4MB/sec).
An SSD or SD with converter is not worth the extra expense.
What you aren’t realizing is that any dip below that write speed will trigger these errors because the car is streaming the video to the drive instead of having a reasonable buffer. The drives average well over that for a write speed yes, but any short term pause or dip in performance will cause the teslacam to throw up its arms and give up. The only “software issue” is that they stream the data the way they do. That’s more of a functional decision (if you were to wreck you’d have more data on the drive than if they buffered it and then wrote it out in larger chunks) but the trade off is that it is extremely sensitive to performance anomalies and USB drives are horrible for that after just a little age. Disagree all you want but that’s why it happens and why replacing the drives works for a while. Full blown ssds have better wear leveling and larger write buffers so this won’t happen.
BOBEDIGITL
Member
I appreciate you not disagreeing with me haha. I guess it was my fault in not wording my response clearly enough. Going to an SSD or SD card definitely isn't a requirement, I meant to say people have seen less issues when switching from a USB to one of these other options. I tried 3 different USB and two of them were 256 GB and one was specifically "High Speed" and even that wouldn't make it work. However I did see the error less in comparison to the other two sticks. Glad the USB you are using is working for you. I didn't have such luck!
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
One owner here had 2 Teslas.
One was throwing the "too slow" error, the other was not.
He swapped the storage devices between cars.
The error stayed with the same car.
That (on top of the mountain of other evidence) makes it pretty clear it is a software issue.
If it was an issue with the storage hardware the problem would've gone to the other car along with the storage device.
One was throwing the "too slow" error, the other was not.
He swapped the storage devices between cars.
The error stayed with the same car.
That (on top of the mountain of other evidence) makes it pretty clear it is a software issue.
If it was an issue with the storage hardware the problem would've gone to the other car along with the storage device.
I gave up on the USB's after trying 4 of them. Each worked for a few weeks then had the message. The last time it failed 5 minutes before the car was sideswiped in a parking lot hit and run so I wasn't able to identify the culprit. Several people witnessed it while we were in the post office but no one got the license # and there were no cameras for the parking lot. So I had to pay the deductible myself. Anyway, switched to the Jeda hub and an SSD (as many people recommended) and have had no problems for almost 3 months.
Oddly the next time I got in my car, the USB was working fine with the RED mark indicating normal functioning. Thanks for the info. I'll see how it goes in the next few weeks and move to an SSD or SD card if I continue to have problems. I think there may have been something "glitchy" with my car last night in general... since it went about 15 miles past my normal set charge mark.
Since they run the same software, no, that would suggest a car hardware problem, and specifically not a software problem.
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
A hardware bug that some get and others don't, and to varying degrees (including not at all), and that often goes away either short or long term, just by either unplugging and replugging the drive or reformatting it?
And that some folks have said was fixed by a software update? (A number of folks who previously had the too slow said 40.x fixed it... some others said it STARTED it for them...)
Nope.
Software bug.
Lots of folks running the same version of windows and they don't all get the same errors all the time either.
Ditto iOS (which is a lot more same/controlled HW than windows)- or pretty much any OS.
I was using a new Sandisk Fit 128 GB USB drive that I speed tested right out of the box at >100 MBps sustained read and ~30 MBps sustained write. It was in my car for less than 2 weeks before I started getting the "too slow" error every few drives. I took it out and measured it's write speed at the same 30 MBps BUT it could not sustain that speed for more than a few seconds before it slowed down to a few Kbps with short bursts to 30 MBps and then back to a few Kbps as the drive buffer was filling and emptying in to it's now much slower storage memory. It was clear that those dramatic slow-downs were caused by the drive itself and in no way related to the car's software. I have been using a 250 GB SSD ever since with nary an issue and it still reads and writes at 100s of MBps the same as when I first installed it.
You do understand that many software "bugs" are actually hardware bugs that have been worked-around in software? If the USB issue is a software bug, how does it only affect some cars and not others?
It was me. My car is fine and my wife gets the error from time to time. As Knightshade relayed, we've swapped flash drives and mine still works fine and hers occasionally has the error that everyone else describes including the OP of this thread. It's quite possible that it's a hardware problem with her car but it didn't start until the same firmware update that everyone else blames (can't remember which one) so I suspect software over hardware. Doesn't seem to bother her enough to contact service so we haven't done anything else about it.
eXntrc
Member
Unfortunately this issue has been around for a very very long time. We've been tracking and discussing it in the TeslaUSB Github project as Issue #239.
The biggest frustration is that no one has found any single magic bullet to fix the issue. We've tried different storage cards. We've tried different different OS versions on the Raspberry Pi. We've tried various USB settings. We've tried saving Sentry clips but not regular clips. Some things work for some people while other things work for other people. No one thing works for all people.
If you're interested, check out that Issue #239. It's 539 posts and counting. I hope this will be fixed one day, but since it's been open for almost 4 months now I recommend you try a few things and just find something that works for you.
Best of luck!
The biggest frustration is that no one has found any single magic bullet to fix the issue. We've tried different storage cards. We've tried different different OS versions on the Raspberry Pi. We've tried various USB settings. We've tried saving Sentry clips but not regular clips. Some things work for some people while other things work for other people. No one thing works for all people.
If you're interested, check out that Issue #239. It's 539 posts and counting. I hope this will be fixed one day, but since it's been open for almost 4 months now I recommend you try a few things and just find something that works for you.
Best of luck!
Software bugs don’t always appear on every piece of hardware the software is installed on. There can be thousands of variables that could determine if the bug manifests itself or not. That’s why they can be hard to run down. It’s most def a software bug. It started for many with a software update, and for many went away with a subsequent software update. Textbook behavior for a software bug. Period.
If it's software, why can I duplicate the behavior on a particular USB flash drive but not on a more robust SSD? Shouldn't my car say the drive is too slow regardless of what kind of drive is installed?
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