Street Guardian stopped recording and then I got assaulted

Am I the only one wondering about the mysterious reference to an assault, and how it might be related to a dashcam?
 
H2TESTW test should show if there are any faults.
To minimize memory cards errors it is recommended to format memory card time to time inside unit. I do it about 1-2 per month but it`s all depends on size of memory and how much your dashcam is in use.
I know some time it is hard to remember to do format but I have added in my phone calender monthly reminder.

Results from the H2testw test showed nothing to be wrong with the card.

Warning: Only 30096 of 30186 MByte tested.
Test finished without errors.
You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.
Writing speed: 14.2 MByte/s
Reading speed: 19.6 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4


Am I the only one wondering about the mysterious reference to an assault, and how it might be related to a dashcam?

That was kind of click bate, but my camera stopped recording half an hour before I got assaulted in my car... sod's law.
 
Few more questions:

1. I assume you are using originally supplied cigarette lighter charger power supply ?
2. Dashcam is hardwired or using power from cigarette lighter socket ?
3. cigarette lighter socket in your car is always on or switches off with ignition off ?
4. what car make / model / year do you have ?
5. does your car have start-stop option ?
 
1. I assume you are using originally supplied cigarette lighter charger power supply ? Yes.
2. Dashcam is hardwired or using power from cigarette lighter socket ? Cigarette lighter socket.
3. cigarette lighter socket in your car is always on or switches off with ignition off ? Switches off with ignition off.
4. what car make / model / year do you have ? BMW 116i Sport E87, 59 plate.
5. does your car have start-stop option ? Yes, this is usually turned off by myself when I start the car.
 
1. I assume you are using originally supplied cigarette lighter charger power supply ? Yes.
2. Dashcam is hardwired or using power from cigarette lighter socket ? Cigarette lighter socket.
3. cigarette lighter socket in your car is always on or switches off with ignition off ? Switches off with ignition off.
4. what car make / model / year do you have ? BMW 116i Sport E87, 59 plate.
5. does your car have start-stop option ? Yes, this is usually turned off by myself when I start the car.

about start-stop option I meant ( auto start-stop ) if the engine stops automatically when you stop for example at traffic lights and then starts automatically when resume driving ?
 
about start-stop option I meant ( auto start-stop ) if the engine stops automatically when you stop for example at traffic lights and then starts automatically when resume driving ?

That's what I said
 
about start-stop option I meant ( auto start-stop ) if the engine stops automatically when you stop for example at traffic lights and then starts automatically when resume driving ?
Auto Stop/Start shouldn't have any effect on accessories. It just stops the engine so would have no effect on a dash cam.

When starting again there would be a slight voltage drop but not enough for anything to notice as the auto stop/start wont kick in unless the battery is fully charged to begin with ;)
 
Auto stop start should never be an issue, provided the camera is wired correctly, have seen this done wrong when hardwired
 
Mac leaves a bunch of hidden files all over the card any time it reads the memory card. I forgot to mention this important troubleshooting tip to format the card in the camera ANY time a Mac has had read/write interaction with the card. As a good habit , it's probably a good idea to format the card as soon as you reinsert it back into the camera while you're at it. (Good time to do so)

I've never ever experienced anything like you are describing and I see no reason to engage in such a voodoo practice. When I transfer dash camera files to a Mac I delete the files from the folder on the card and pop it back in the camera. Always have highly reliable results and full capacity on the cards. I've been doing this for years and only format occasionally. There is no need to constantly format memory cards.
 
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When starting again there would be a slight voltage drop but not enough for anything to notice

That only applies to devices which are designed to take that into account. Some dashcams are sensitive to these kinds of voltage drops, malfunctioning or shutting down when it happens :( Many cams were designed before stop/start was in use so you can't exactly blame the cam designers, although best practices for automotive electronics design allows for voltage spikes, drops, and fluctuations since they always happen to some degree and always will ;) Best practices and wide design parameters always costs more money so it doesn't always occur. Even then there are practical limits- one cannot reasonably expect a 12VDC device to operate correctly when fed say 9VDC though some simpler ones will :rolleyes: The new designs coming to market will hopefully have stop/start in mind and be better designed to handle this :D

Phil
 
Auto stop start should never be an issue, provided the camera is wired correctly, have seen this done wrong when hardwired

That only applies to devices which are designed to take that into account. Some dashcams are sensitive to these kinds of voltage drops, malfunctioning or shutting down when it happens :( Many cams were designed before stop/start was in use so you can't exactly blame the cam designers, although best practices for automotive electronics design allows for voltage spikes, drops, and fluctuations since they always happen to some degree and always will ;) Best practices and wide design parameters always costs more money so it doesn't always occur. Even then there are practical limits- one cannot reasonably expect a 12VDC device to operate correctly when fed say 9VDC though some simpler ones will :rolleyes: The new designs coming to market will hopefully have stop/start in mind and be better designed to handle this :D

Phil

I've never had a problem with auto start/stop, i've used 3 different dashcams over the years all worked fine.

Usually I have auto start/stop turned off since I find it pretty useless.
 
...There is no need to constantly format memory cards.
+1

I've got a 'GC' V2 front and V1 rear cam. The only time those cards get reformatted is when I do a F/W upgrade, and then only to insure there's not some subtle differences in the F/W versions that may cause problems. Given the V2 and V1 cams do not create identical length files and have identical start up and shut down times the files numbers will occasionally get out of sync (I'm a bit OCD about that). I'll then delete all files from both cards to reset the numbering. I've been doing this since I first got the cameras (the V1 within a week of it's initial release) and have yet to have any issue that could even remotely been attributed to not formatting the card regularly.

I'm also running a couple of A118-C cams as side cams, each with 'only' a 32gb card so they fill and overwrite regularly. Both have been in operation for well over 6 months now and neither has ever been formatted except for the initial in-camera format.

To those proponents of regular reformatting I ask: If reformatting a card is necessary to maintain integrity why is the same not true of a hard drive which uses the same file allocation methodology and is subject to a much more randomized updating pattern versus a card used in a dash cam?
 
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To those proponents of regular reformatting I ask: If reformatting a card is necessary to maintain integrity why is the same not true of a hard drive which uses the same file allocation methodology and is subject to a much more randomized updating pattern versus a card used in a dash cam?

a lot of the problems from a Mac come down to user error, people that delete files from the card but don't empty the trash before ejecting the card, the Mac marks these files as removed and leaves a file that tells the Mac it's ok to overwrite this segment, those hidden system files are a problem for the camera, formatting the card in the camera does not cause any wear on the card, it only resets the file allocation table so that the camera knows that the whole card is available for use, the allocation table doesn't know about any extra hidden files that now happen to be there, even without this handling error of not emptying the trash to remove the system files before removing the card on the Mac, just deleting some files (applies to Windows also) off the card and putting the card back in the camera is bad practice as the allocation table doesn't know about the changes that happened

want your cards to maintain their integrity, formatting them in the camera after you've done any sort of file handling in another device is good practice, there seems to be some sort of misconception that formatting the card in the camera is causing some sort of unnecessary wear and tear on the card, you will never live long enough to wear out the allocation table, it's a non issue
 
a lot of the problems from a Mac come down to user error, people that delete files from the card but don't empty the trash before ejecting the card, the Mac marks these files as removed and leaves a file that tells the Mac it's ok to overwrite this segment, those hidden system files are a problem for the camera, formatting the card in the camera does not cause any wear on the card, it only resets the file allocation table so that the camera knows that the whole card is available for use, the allocation table doesn't know about any extra hidden files that now happen to be there, even without this handling error of not emptying the trash to remove the system files before removing the card on the Mac, just deleting some files (applies to Windows also) off the card and putting the card back in the camera is bad practice as the allocation table doesn't know about the changes that happened

want your cards to maintain their integrity, formatting them in the camera after you've done any sort of file handling in another device is good practice, there seems to be some sort of misconception that formatting the card in the camera is causing some sort of unnecessary wear and tear on the card, you will never live long enough to wear out the allocation table, it's a non issue

Just to add to @jokiin's post, aside from forgetting to empty the trash before ejecting the memory card, another issue that can cause issues is removing the card or reader without actually ejecting it. I'm surprised at how often I see people do that and ignore any alerts from their computer after they have.
 
Just to add to @jokiin's post, aside from forgetting to empty the trash before ejecting the memory card, another issue that can cause issues is removing the card or reader without actually ejecting it. I'm surprised at how often I see people do that and ignore any alerts from their computer after they have.

that's a great way to damage the card also
 
that's a great way to damage the card also

Even if you don't damage the card you risk corrupting the data on it. Now that I think about it, it is not uncommon for a few new dash cam owners to come here looking for help after they remove memory cards from their cameras while they are still recording and wonder why they can't read the files (or worse). A dash cam is nothing more that a tiny dedicated computer. (SoC-System on a Chip)
 
Even if you don't damage the card you risk corrupting the data on it.

Most of us tend to be smart till first major fail. I learned this hard-way 7-8y ago after very (very!) important data get corrupted. After that in 99.99% cases I always first "Eject" from PC and only then remove from the slot.

 
Most of us tend to be smart till first major fail. I learned this hard-way 7-8y ago after very (very!) important data get corrupted. After that in 99.99% cases I always first "Eject" from PC and only then remove from the slot.


Don't feel bad @niko, I'll bet there's probably not one among us here who has never not had the experience at least once (and probably more times) of learning something the "hard way". :)

For me, I now religiously do staggered back-ups of my data to at least three different hard drives.
 
I now religiously do staggered back-ups of my data to at least three different hard drives.

I had few bad experiences lately and now I am also doing data back-up to one external hard drive, but it looks like I need to get another bad experience ( touch the wood ) so I will be backing up to three hard drives.
There is a saying: smart person learns from others mistakes, stupid learns from his own mistakes !
 
I had few bad experiences lately and now I am also doing data back-up to one external hard drive, but it looks like I need to get another bad experience ( touch the wood ) so I will be backing up to three hard drives.
There is a saying: smart person learns from others mistakes, stupid learns from his own mistakes !

Unlike the old days hard drives, especially large capacity ones are so inexpensive these days, there is no reason not to have more than one back-up. I have an excellent app that easily creates (and updates) bootable clones of my original hard drive and its easy to just rotate the process through the different external back-up drives on a schedule that my computer reminds me to do. This has saved me a lot of grief. Living on a rural mountain I took a lightning hit one time that came through the phone line from several miles away that fried my motherboard. The back-ups saved my ass! :)
 
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