Very strange vampire battery drain, need experts help.

[doberman]

As a diagnostic effort, turn mobile access back on and after the car has been parked at work for a while, go into the app from your phone and see if Sentry mode somehow turned itself back on?

I can't figure out why it would be different at home from at work unless it's Sentry - the data theory is possible, but I wouldn't expect that to eat as much power as you're losing.

I’ll do more diagnostic digging today at work with USB out, to rule out Sentry mode eating battery .

 

[trm2]

Wow, work is sucking the life out of your car too!

 

[doberman]

OP

I would also suggest turning off wifi completely while you check. Reading your first post, as others said it sounds like sentry mode loss, but you checked that. The other thing that stands out to me is the fact that it drains at work, but not at home.

This sounds like data sharing or wifi (bad cell connection at work by the car, and / or wifi trying to connect but not able to. Have you EVER joined wifi at work (your companies guest wifi etc? Go into the wifi settings to ensure that there is no saved connection for where you are at work, and turn off data sharing.

I’ll do it today, turn off WiFi and take USB out . Will report

 

[doberman]

Wow, work is sucking the life out of your car too!

Looks like it.Only lately, on the latest software, at the same time at home garage it feels completely comfortable and drain is minimal. I did check couple of days ago, didn’t use the car for 4 days and lost 4 mi only. ( I have other cars to drive as needed)

 

[animorph]

I hope it's Sentry Mode. That seems like the only answer.

I haven't seen a reset recommendation yet. Try all the resets, including Power Off. That's often the solution when strange things are happening. And strange things often happen after a FW update.

 

[jjrandorin]

OP did you enable location aware sentry mode at any point? I have NOT done so, I just turn it on when I want it... but I wonder if its turning on at work and not at home "automatically"?

 

[doberman]

I hope it's Sentry Mode. That seems like the only answer.

I haven't seen a reset recommendation yet. Try all the resets, including Power Off. That's often the solution when strange things are happening. And strange things often happen after a FW update.

I did a hard reboot couple of times. Brake pedal + both scroll wheels together for 25 sec. Nothing changed. I didn’t use Sentry mode at all.

 

[doberman]

OP did you enable location aware sentry mode at any point? I have NOT done so, I just turn it on when I want it... but I wonder if its turning on at work and not at home "automatically"?

No, never.

 

[justsomeguy]

I have a weird problem too. If I park on the street outside my house the drain is about the same as what you describe. A few feet away and in my driveway I just left it for 9 days and lost about 7 miles.

No idea what the cause is, it is annoying having to park in my driveway instead of just on the street. Cell signal and WiFi signal are both very weak where I park it on the street. Maybe that's what's happening to you?

 

[doberman]

I have a weird problem too. If I park on the street outside my house the drain is about the same as what you describe. A few feet away and in my driveway I just left it for 9 days and lost about 7 miles.

No idea what the cause is, it is annoying having to park in my driveway instead of just on the street. Cell signal and WiFi signal are both very weak where I park it on the street. Maybe that's what's happening to you?

Oyyyyy, at least I’m not alone and other people have similar things going on. I didn’t want to contact a Tesla first without troubleshooting myself and without trying to figure out it myself and a help with smart people in Tesla community. Tesla will probably would brush me off with this problem.

 

[doberman]

Ok Ladies and Gentlemen, guys and grils. Got some more info about my problem and car behavior. I did testing for last couple of days.
I started with TeslaCam usb stick, and didn't touch WiFi setting yet. I wanna work only with one variable at the time to troubleshout the problem. On Thursday arrived to work, turned off TeslaCam and removed USB completly out.I took pictures for visual evidence. At 15:30 battery charge was for 164 mi and outside temperature 89 F. 23:30 battery charge was 167 mi !!!! and outside temperature 68F. So I gained
3 miles in 8 hours. Next day I started with 117 mi at 15:34 and outside temperature 87F, at the end of the day it was 116 mi at 0:10 and outside temperature 70 F. It tells me that root of my problem probably TeslaCam. I did study USB, and Centry mode was never activated, OR at least I don't have any video evidence at all. Only driving files from TeslaCam. I never activated Centry mode and it was always off. No corrapted files and everything seems OK with USB. I use Samsung Bar 128 GB. I did reformated it again and got ready for the new, fresh start and experiment. Ill keep you posted...

 

[doberman]

I have a weird problem too. If I park on the street outside my house the drain is about the same as what you describe. A few feet away and in my driveway I just left it for 9 days and lost about 7 miles.

No idea what the cause is, it is annoying having to park in my driveway instead of just on the street. Cell signal and WiFi signal are both very weak where I park it on the street. Maybe that's what's happening to you?

I was thinking about your problem as well. 2 ways to figure it out. It can be Teslacam problem OR WiFi problem. when you park on your driveway, maybe car think your are safe and doesn't activate Centry Mode, BUT when you park on the street it DOES activate it. Turn off Tesla Cam and remove the USB or SSD and examine it for Sentry Mode files. Also check your car behavior without USB at all on your driveway and street. ( IF ITS SAFE to do experiment). Maybe we have bug in software or something stuck during update in this specific portion of the code and in our specific Tesla models ??

 

[dpodoll]

View attachment 440433 View attachment 440434 View attachment 440435 View attachment 440436 Ok Ladies and Gentlemen, guys and grils. Got some more info about my problem and car behavior. I did testing for last couple of days.
I started with TeslaCam usb stick, and didn't touch WiFi setting yet. I wanna work only with one variable at the time to troubleshout the problem. On Thursday arrived to work, turned off TeslaCam and removed USB completly out.I took pictures for visual evidence. At 15:30 battery charge was for 164 mi and outside temperature 89 F. 23:30 battery charge was 167 mi !!!! and outside temperature 68F. So I gained
3 miles in 8 hours. Next day I started with 117 mi at 15:34 and outside temperature 87F, at the end of the day it was 116 mi at 0:10 and outside temperature 70 F. It tells me that root of my problem probably TeslaCam. I did study USB, and Centry mode was never activated, OR at least I don't have any video evidence at all. Only driving files from TeslaCam. I never activated Centry mode and it was always off. No corrapted files and everything seems OK with USB. I use Samsung Bar 128 GB. I did reformated it again and got ready for the new, fresh start and experiment. Ill keep you posted...

try a smaller thumb drive Think I saw somewhere max size is 32G and formatted FAT32

 

[doberman]

I used Mac and formatted it to FAT32. Never have any file corruptions. I didn’t read anywhere that max USB size can only be 32 GB. Need to dig more about it.

 

[Phlier]

max size is 32G and formatted FAT32

The actual max drive size for FAT32 is 2 terabytes. The 32 gig restriction is a Windows only thing. Microsoft wanted to "encourage" people to switch over to NTFS back in the day, so artificially imposed the 32 gig restriction. You can get around this by using the command line in Windows, or by using aftermarket disk utility software, or you can just use a Mac (which doesn't have the artificial FAT32 restriction) to format the drive.

Windows will actually recognize drives formatted larger than 32 gigs, it just won't allow you to actually format a disk in FAT32 larger than that.

 

[doberman]

The actual max drive size for FAT32 is 2 terabytes. The 32 gig restriction is a Windows only thing. Microsoft wanted to "encourage" people to switch over to NTFS back in the day, so artificially imposed the 32 gig restriction. You can get around this by using the command line in Windows, or by using aftermarket disk utility software, or you can just use a Mac (which doesn't have the artificial FAT32 restriction) to format the drive.

Windows will actually recognize drives formatted larger than 32 gigs, it just won't allow you to actually format a disk in FAT32 larger than that.

I completely agree with you, that’s why I used Mac to format in FAT32.
I’m trying to figure out what was / is a problem with battery drain and how to fix it.

 

[darth_vad3r]

I completely agree with you, that’s why I used Mac to format in FAT32.
I’m trying to figure out what was / is a problem with battery drain and how to fix it.

Seems that removing USB helped you, but wondering did you also try the long-press on TeslaCam camera icon to change from red dot to grey “x”? (Cam icon, not Sentry icon)

Would be interesting to check API during the drain to see if it thinks Sentry is on even if car shows it off.

 

[KenC]

Try a different USB stick. The amount of range loss is typical for Sentry mode. The car won't sleep if there's a lot of activity in front of the cameras. When your temp drops, you might actually see a range gain, as the battery is more efficient if it's not 90+ degrees.

 

[doberman]

Seems that removing USB helped you, but wondering did you also try the long-press on TeslaCam camera icon to change from red dot to grey “x”? (Cam icon, not Sentry icon)

Would be interesting to check API during the drain to see if it thinks Sentry is on even if car shows it off.

Before I removed USB, of course I did long press on TeslaCam icon till it become grey X. After about 30 sec. I did remove USB. After exploring it, NO Sentry Mode files at all. Zero.

 

[doberman]

Try a different USB stick. The amount of range loss is typical for Sentry mode. The car won't sleep if there's a lot of activity in front of the cameras. When your temp drops, you might actually see a range gain, as the battery is more efficient if it's not 90+ degrees.

I did reformat USB, will do more experiments this week, if problem persist, new USB or SSD. Interesting thing is, I didn’t activate Sentry Mode, it was off always in app, I don’t have any Sentry files on USB, only driving recordings.