A day's worth of files missing

[jorgeelgatto]

I wanted to look at something that happened the other day, and put the 64GB card into a card reader. To my surprise, there was a gap in the file number sequence. Files from Thursday were there, as well as files from Saturday, but there were NO files from Friday, the day I was interested in. Any guesses as to what happened?

 

[GRDIAN]

bad memory card. try formatting the card, and see if your issue comes up again.

 

[DT MI]

How is the camera powered? It's possible that the power connection went out temporarily (dirty contact, loose connection, etc.).

 

[reverend]

Sounds like it set the date backwards in time (possibly reset to default) which would explain the gap in file sequence and why the files were deleted?

 

[jorgeelgatto]

Thanks for the replies.

I use the camera in two vehicles, both of which deliver their power via cigarette lighter plugs. I habitually watch to see that the camera is recording while driving (flashing red LED), as I've experienced an occasional loose connection. I had no such problem in the last week. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I used the camera in the first car (drove to work), transferred it to the second car (which would have had several power up and down sequences), then put it back in the first car to return home.

The memory card is a Class 10 Transcend 64GB, two months old.

What I don't understand is that the camera apparently recorded video and assigned sequential file numbers to the clips, but didn't save the files to the card. When I looked at the list of files in the directory, there was a gap in the number sequence, which included all the the files representing Friday. The Thursday videos were there, along with the Saturday ones. ALL of the Friday videos, from both vehicles, are missing.

It's easy enough to blame the memory card, since nothing else makes sense to me, either. I've already reformatted, and will pull the card in a day or two and see if the anomaly reoccurs.

Charley

 

[jorgeelgatto]

Sounds like it set the date backwards in time (possibly reset to default) which would explain the gap in file sequence and why the files were deleted?

Good observation. I did notice that the date in the camera was incorrect. That would cause the files to be listed on the computer in an incorrect sequence, but they should still be there. I looked down the list for the missing ones and even did a search for them. No luck.

 

[reverend]

A lot of dashcams just delete the oldest file which is on the card - if the date was wrong and in the past then potentially it got itself into a situation where a file was created and then when it came to time to loop to the next file it deleted the file it had just finished writing - I've been caught out by that a few times myself

 

[jorgeelgatto]

Aha! Highly plausible explanation. Explains a couple of things.

After 35 years of driving around New Hampshire, I finally had a moose run across the road in front of me this passed Fall. No danger, as I saw it in plenty of time to stop. Beautiful thing with a gorgeous shiny coat, and dropping baseball sized moose turds that rolled along after it as she ran. "What a great video!", I thought. Nah-uh. Not there on the card. The camera clock had reset. I blamed the camera (Genius DVR-FHD 590), and replaced it with a mini 0806.

I guess it's time I installed that LK-290 Low Voltage cut-off device and kept the camera powered up all the time.

I was thinking of replacing this camera with a SG9665GC. Do capacitor dashcams have this clock reset problems, too?

Charley

 

[jorgeelgatto]

OK, still confused. I have two Transcend 64GB cards, and had them both mounted in the mini 0806. I removed the one with the files missing, and reformatted the other (now the only one mounted). It seems to be recording correctly (yesterday and today). The clock and date are correct.

Looking at the suspect card, I see files AMBA1061 (3/31/16 2:22PM) followed by AMBA1265 (4/2/16 2:17PM). So the camera failed to save a lot of late Thursday (3/31) and early Saturday (4/2).

I also see files AMBA 1344 (12/31/13 11:05PM) through AMBA1352 (1/1/14 8:13AM), which are actually videos taken on Sunday, 4/3/16.

A couple of things I don't understand: AMBA1344 has a file date of 12/31/13 11:05PM, but the video has a final frame date/timestamp of 01/01/14 00:05:05. Why the hour difference?

Also, to my thinking, for the clock reset theory to work, the camera should be continually replacing only one file - the very earliest one.

Any good conspiracy theories out there? Thanks, in advance.

Charley

 

[Rayman.Chan]

Hi Jor,
considering a battery problem.
please check the battery capacity by manually power up and record, without power cord connection.

 

[jorgeelgatto]

Tried that - it stays powered up for a minute or two, then shuts down. Too brief a period, INHO, but at least it stays on long enough to properly close the last file. I replaced the last camera because it always left the last power-down video improperly closed and thus unreadable.

Charley