Parking Mode only keeps the last 200 or so video clips

[dam4227]

Hello,

I own a A129 Pro Duo dashcam and am very happy with it. The only issue I have is with the way it handles clips in parking mode and I'm not sure what I'm experiencing is normal.

Whenever I park the car and come back to it after a long period of time, it only has the last 200 or so clips (100 for the front cam and 100 for the rear cam) for that session. For example, if I park my car in front of our home at 5PM and go check on the dashcam a few times over the course of the evening and the following morning, I would get something like this:

• At 7PM, I would see all the clips that have been recorded since 5PM
• At 10PM, I would see about 2h30 worth of recording (everything between 5PM and 7h30PM would be gone)
• At 8AM, I would see most of the night (in the limit of 200 or so clips)
• At 11AM, I would see about 2h or 2h30 worth of recording (and everything I saw at 8AM would be gone)

Now, you'd think I ran out of memory or something, causing the device to erase the older clips, but no. I have plenty of space and I still have the recordings from the previous days. It's like every parking mode sessions can only hold keep a finite number of clips (about 200). I tried reading the sd card on my computer to see if maybe the Viofo app was acting up, but it's the same thing.

The card is a Sandisk High Endurance 256GB. I don't have a GPS Module.

Is this normal/expected behavior? If not, any idea on how to fix it? Thanks!

Here are my settings:
Video Resolution: 1080P 30fps + FHD P30
Time-lapse Recording: Off
Loop Recording: 3 min
Recording Audio: On
Exposure Value (Front): +0.0
Exposure Value (Rear): +0.0
WDR: On
Motion Detection: Off
G-Sensor: Low sensitivity
Date Stamp: On
Bitrate: High
Time Zone: GMT+3
Time Synchronization:
Boot Delay: 5 seconds
Parking Mode: Auto Event Detection
Parking Recording Timer: 24 hour (I also tried with just "On", but same results)
Parking G-sensor: High sensitivity
Parking Motion Detection: Low
Image Rotate: Off
Rear Camera Mirror: Off
Notification Sounds: All on
Live Video Source: Both Front (Rear Overlaid)
GPS: On
Speed Unit: KM/H
GPS Info Stamp: Speed + Coordinates
Camera Model Stamp: On
Screen Saver: 30s
Frequency: 50Hz
Language: English
Free Space on Card: 209.24GB
App Version: 3.1.0
Firmware: A129Pro.V2.1.20200803

 

[Capture Your Action]

Parking mode files do have their own looping cycle (about 30% of the card I think), however you are describing something very similar to what a customer of mine has been describing on both his A129 Pro setups.
So, it only seems to happen after you check the files? Does this happen with all parking mode files AND files you have manually flagged via the ! button?
This should be easy for others to replicate if it's a firmware bug.

 

[dam4227]

Thank you very much for your reply. It does happen as well if I don't check the files at all. If I park at 5PM one day and then go back to the car a day later, I'll still have only the last 2 or 3 hours. I've never flagged any file with the ! button, so I don't know about that, but all the clips that were on the card when I parked the car are still there.

Something else worth mentioning: in the app, there are 3 categories when you browse your clips: "All files", "Locked files", "Parking files". I don't have Locked files because I never used that feature, but the "Parking files" are always empty. My Parking mode clips are all under "All files" (although Parking mode is enabled and working, as the Parking mode icon appears when I turn off the engine).

Also, I can't say if it worked better with the previous firmware, because the first thing I did when I got the cam was flash the most recent firmware.

 

[Capture Your Action]

Thank you very much for your reply. It does happen as well if I don't check the files at all. If I park at 5PM one day and then go back to the car a day later, I'll still have only the last 2 or 3 hours. I've never flagged any file with the ! button, so I don't know about that, but all the clips that were on the card when I parked the car are still there.

Something else worth mentioning: in the app, there are 3 categories when you browse your clips: "All files", "Locked files", "Parking files". I don't have Locked files because I never used that feature, but the "Parking files" are always empty. My Parking mode clips are all under "All files" (although Parking mode is enabled and working, as the Parking mode icon appears when I turn off the engine).

Also, I can't say if it worked better with the previous firmware, because the first thing I did when I got the cam was flash the most recent firmware.

OK. Can you test with the rear camera unplugged? The user I’m assisting with this issue says it does not happen when the rear is unplugged.

 

[dam4227]

Tomorrow, I'll park my car in such a way that it can't be hit from behind and I'll unplug the rear camera Thank you.

 

[hochiinn]

on our cars, i have the voltage cutoff set to 12. maybe your constant voltage supply is going below cutoff? just a wag

 

[dam4227]

Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. I left my car parked and unplugged the rear camera, but when I came back to check late at night, there were no recordings. I thought maybe parking mode didn't start, so I made sure it was on, but when I checked in the morning, there was only 1 clip.

I had to change the Parking Motion Detection setting to High to get it to record a lot of stuff (not sure it's normal that it would trigger a lot less with just 1 camera plugged in, as if Parking Motion Detection doesn't behave in the same way for the rear and front camera). Anyway, after a few hours, I went back to check and had, again, about 200 clips (I hadn't replugged the rear camera, obviously).

Thanks

 

[dam4227]

on our cars, i have the voltage cutoff set to 12. maybe your constant voltage supply is going below cutoff? just a wag

If the voltage supply goes below the cutoff, then the camera just stops working and you have clips up to a certain time (when the battery voltage went under the cutoff value). You wouldn't have ALL the clips from like 3 hours ago up until right now (and always about 200).

 

[Capture Your Action]

Sorry for the lack of update yesterday. I left my car parked and unplugged the rear camera, but when I came back to check late at night, there were no recordings. I thought maybe parking mode didn't start, so I made sure it was on, but when I checked in the morning, there was only 1 clip.

I had to change the Parking Motion Detection setting to High to get it to record a lot of stuff (not sure it's normal that it would trigger a lot less with just 1 camera plugged in, as if Parking Motion Detection doesn't behave in the same way for the rear and front camera). Anyway, after a few hours, I went back to check and had, again, about 200 clips (I hadn't replugged the rear camera, obviously).

Thanks

So when is it that you notice the clips getting erased? When you go to check on new recordings?

It would make some sense that you would have less recordings, since motion is only getting sensed by the front.

 

[dam4227]

So when is it that you notice the clips getting erased? When you go to check on new recordings?

It would make some sense that you would have less recordings, since motion is only getting sensed by the front.

Today, after I set Parking Motion Detection to High in the morning and it started recording a lot. It just capped at about 200, like before with both cameras.

 

[Capture Your Action]

When does it erase the videos though? Is the camera erasing the older videos one by one as new ones are added or is it erasing all 200 at once?

About how many GB is the 200 clips? Does it equal to about 30% of the total card space?

 

[dam4227]

It seems to erase right away.

I took the car this morning to run some errands from 11:38 to 12:04, and I went to check the parking mode clips at 18:30. I had exactly 200 clips recorded during parking mode with the oldest being recorded at:

• 16:26:10 x2 (front + rear)
• 16:26:50 x2
• 16:29:18 x2
• 16:30:38 x2

I waited for a few minutes during which 2 motion detection events occurred. I checked again and now had 201 clips (3 erased, 4 added), with the oldest being recorded at:

• 16:26:50 x1
• 16:29:18 x2
• 16:30:38 x2
• 16:32:46 x2

I waited for a few more minutes during which 1 motion detection event occurred. i checked again and still had 201 clips (2 erased, 2 added), with the oldest being recorded at:

• 16:29:18 x1
• 16:30:38 x2
• 16:32:46 x2

Each of these clips is about 49MB big, so together they make up approximately 10GB of data, which is less than 5% of my SD card's capacity (256GB).

 

[Capture Your Action]

OK, so it's erasing them one at a time, not all at once. This could be normal, depending on what the max size (% of the card) is for the parking mode files.

@viofo what % of the card is dedicated for parking mode files before the camera starts to overwrite the oldest parking mode file? Also, shouldn't parking mode files be stored in the Parking Mode folder?

 

[Capture Your Action]

According to Viofo, the 200 parking mode file limit was on previous firmware versions. V2.1 should allocate 30% of the card space to parking mode files.
When you updates to V2.1, did you manually default the cameras settings, then press and hold the hard reset button on the side of the camera? Do so if you did not and test again.

 

[dam4227]

No, I did not do that. I'll try today and will get back to you. Many thanks for your help

 

[dam4227]

Sorry for the late reply. I followed the instructions, but it's not working. I tried redoing the procedure every day for the last couple of days, hoping that maybe I had done something wrong and redoing it would fix it, but no.

So what I do is that I reset the device to factory settings using the dashcam menu. Then the dashcam reboots on its own. After it reboots, I use a paper clip to press the reset button. This causes the dashcam to turn off. When I release the reset button after at least 5 seconds, the dashcam restarts automatically and I redo my settings.

Is there anything I'm not doing correctly? Thank you.

 

[Capture Your Action]

Sorry for the late reply. I followed the instructions, but it's not working. I tried redoing the procedure every day for the last couple of days, hoping that maybe I had done something wrong and redoing it would fix it, but no.

So what I do is that I reset the device to factory settings using the dashcam menu. Then the dashcam reboots on its own. After it reboots, I use a paper clip to press the reset button. This causes the dashcam to turn off. When I release the reset button after at least 5 seconds, the dashcam restarts automatically and I redo my settings.

Is there anything I'm not doing correctly? Thank you.

Seems you are doing things correctly. Maybe @viofo needs to look into this.

 

[thomas-dash]

I'm experiencing this same issue with the v2.4 firmware. It only saves about 200 files both on a 64GB and 128GB card. I have been rotating cards daily to get a feel for the cam and its settings. I noticed that even though there were files in the parking folder from previous days, the cam only recorded 200 files from the time I plugged the card in. It wasn't overwriting the oldest files in the parking folder, it was overwriting the oldest files since I plugged the card in.

 

[VIOFO-Support]

Hello,

I'm attaching a firmware file. Please update it to have a try. Please let me know the result. Thanks.

Here is the firmware updating instruction: VIOFO Firmware Update Guide Step-by-Step - VIOFO Official Website

 

[xiongguoy]

20210622? An older firmware?
What about V2.5 20210806?