You can clear the recycle bin in Windows and/or just reformat the drive as FAT32 and create the TeslaCam folder again. In this case, likely all the deleted files are still consuming space in a recycle bin. Then when recording, it only runs for a day or two and stops again, yet the drive is mostly empty. The drive filled up, and you removed the drive from your car and erased all the files from both directories.
Stops recording after a short period after files are erased in Windows Use the hub for other devices on one USB port, but leave the dashcam connected directly to a USB port.ħ. Stops recording when getting into the car I’d expect a quality 128 GB drive should last at least a year with the amount of data Tesla is saving.Ħ. In addition, a larger drive will usually last longer as it doesn’t have to rewrite the same area as often. Flash drives have a limited number of writes, and cheaper drives will usually die sooner than better ones. If you’ve been using the drive for 6 months or more, and always stop recording before removal and the drive no longer works, it may also be the number of writes that have doomed the drive. Advanced recovery tools are unlikely to fix these kinds of problems either, but it might be worth a try. In some cases, the drive can be formatted and will work fine, but often the drive can’t even be formatted.
There is nothing Tesla can do in software to fix this user error.
The difference is, most owners are not writing to the drive when they pull it from a PC or MAC – so no apparent problem.
Very easy to trash a drive this way, even on a PC or MAC. When you pull the dive without stopping the recording, as power drops some writes will occur anywhere on the drive – including critical areas. Consider that Tesla is writing a massive amount of data to the drive, in multiple areas of the drive with four video streams. You have to stop video recording before pulling the drive by pressing the icon for several seconds until it is off (gray). Often a format brings back the drive, but not always. Attempting to reuse the drive fails, and usually, all the video is lost. If you forget to do this and remove the USB drive while recording, the file table, or in rare instances, the drive, may be corrupted. Tesla smartly recommends pausing the dashcam (long press on the dashcam icon so it turns grey) before physically removing the drive. A 128 GB drive should give a month’s storage capacity or so. The larger the drive, the less frequent this is needed. If you are on V9, you need to remove the drive every so often and erase the video (or just format the drive and add back the TeslaCam folder). Once the drive is full, it stops recording all videos. In V9 the video is not overwritten, and for a small USB drive, it can quickly fill up the drive. If you’re using the Sentry Mode, each motion outside the car saves 10 minutes of recording. If the drive has slow write speeds, all sorts of oddities can occur, including total drive failure. Upgrading to MCU2 fixes this and will add the rear camera to the saved video.
Unfortunately, there is little that can be done to improve the video on this hardware combination. In these cases, the drive works fine for a period of time but fails after a while.įor HW2.0 vehicles that got the FSD AP3 processor upgrade, and using MCU1, the video can lose frames and can be quite streaky. Some drives have fast writes for small amounts of data but slow dramatically for larger amounts of data. We recommend drives with 40 MB/s or higher write speeds. The drive cannot keep up with the amount of data that is being sent by Tesla. This is due to using a USB drive with too slow write speeds. Video is distorted or only part of each video frame recorded Ideally, connect the drive for the dashcam directly to one of the two front USB ports or in cars with the Glovebox USB connector, try that location.ģ. Some owners have had success by removing the drive, rebooting (holding both scroll wheels in until the screen goes black) and after the reboot inserting the drive. Many cables are power only and do not pass data. If you are using anything between the USB drive and the Tesla USB connection, try without it. Also, confirm the drive is formatted for FAT32 or exFAT and not NTFS. The most common issue is not placing a folder named “TeslaCam” in the root directory of the flash drive. See our section on Recommendations for drives that are fast enough.Ģ. Note that some drives get slower as they fill up and/or slow when an internal RAM cache cannot keep up with the four video streams. The drive write speed is inadequate and a faster drive is needed.