A129 Pro firmware

[Nath]

I think it also needs to be said that how we act here can have an affect on this. There are several threads on these forums which degraded into a bash-fest with Viofo as the target. You can't really expect someone to just stay there and take a continual bashing- they will simply begin ignoring those threads. And if most related threads become similar then they may cease reading any of them at all

You have to admit it's a "chicken x egg" situation. I think threads were pretty calm at first, users were casually mentioning issues as well as pros/cons. The slight "bashing" started after @viofo's response time.

EDIT: Not to mention not knowing what is the cause of their/our issues. "Your card is slow", "power supply is bad", "Mars and Venus met in a line", "it's software issue and we are working on it" tells much more than silence or "beeps" .

 

[SawMaster]

Yes, it's something of a two-way street but the fact still remains that an unwelcoming environment will not get many guests

Phil

 

[EGS]

You have to admit it's a "chicken x egg" situation. I think threads were pretty calm at first, users were casually mentioning issues as well as pros/cons. The slight "bashing" started after @viofo's response time.

EDIT: Not to mention not knowing what is the cause of their/our issues. "Your card is slow", "power supply is bad", "Mars and Venus met in a line", "it's software issue and we are working on it" tells much more than silence or "beeps" .

I agree... when there is feedback given and there is a long silence, it makes you wonder and there is when anger and hostility starts building up. At the en it is up to them if they want to maintain a successful business or let it fail. Being capricious is not a good thing for anyone.

 

[airflame]

I changed front camera a129 pro to a129 from my other car and everything is working fine. So it seems its a front camera problem because the mount is from a129 pro and a129 is sitting on it with no problems of biping, turning off etc.

 

[Gordohat]

Are there support tickets raised on these issues? Maybe we can push Viofo through the tickets. Do we have any ticket links?

I haven't raised one myself and not sure if publicly viewable. Is Viofo responding to them and what is the latest updates?

 

[airflame]

Are there support tickets raised on these issues? Maybe we can push Viofo through the tickets. Do we have any ticket links?

I haven't raised one myself and not sure if publicly viewable. Is Viofo responding to them and what is the latest updates?

I have a camera 5 months now i was posting in official forum viofo and they dont give a dan about that issue.

 

[programatix]

Are there support tickets raised on these issues? Maybe we can push Viofo through the tickets. Do we have any ticket links?

I haven't raised one myself and not sure if publicly viewable. Is Viofo responding to them and what is the latest updates?

You can email Viofo at support@viofo.com and they do reply. However you'll get similar response as what you get here such as,
- try different card
- check hk3 cable
- etc

Also, they tend to reply to all emails (different subjects) in 1 of the email. Additionally, in the end you'll get a "merry-go-round" type of responses without any solution.

In my last email, I got so frustrated with writing reports to them (which I'm not sure whether they investigate or not), I asked them to either implement debug logging or a refund. Till now (5 days), no reply.

I suspect the flash driver that Viofo is using is poorly written, thus causing write "delay" and "error" during write. Either that or the task managing code (threading/interrupt) in A129 Pro is poorly written.

Anyway, on sdcard write error issue (the beeping alert), I may have found a "working" workaround for my unit. However I'm still testing to see if it really works. Tests must be done in the car with GPS module + rear cam installed, thus it really takes a lot of time and patient. Testing using the unit itself with a power bank inside the house will always has no issue. What I did is to move the partition to sector 0x8000. To do this, use disk partition tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard. Don't use the Disk Management that comes with Windows as it doesn't do alignment for you. Delete the existing partition and create a new one with 16MB of free space in front. Choose exfat for the file system. Then right click on the new partition and click properties. Under "Partition Info" tab, it should show "First Physical Sector: 32768". Then click Apply.

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

 

[airflame]

You can email Viofo at support@viofo.com and they do reply. However you'll get similar response as what you get here such as,
- try different card
- check hk3 cable
- etc

Also, they tend to reply to all emails (different subjects) in 1 of the email. Additionally, in the end you'll get a "merry-go-round" type of responses without any solution.

In my last email, I got so frustrated with writing reports to them (which I'm not sure whether they investigate or not), I asked them to either implement debug logging or a refund. Till now (5 days), no reply.

Sent from my SM-N975F using Tapatalk

They will not do debug because it seems its hardware problem not software. So if everyone will check debug they will know viofo sold people broken cameras. As You said they first say wrong card, wrong HK3, wrong acumulator, wrong power connection. And then silence. I am lucky in Poland i sended back camera to Polish Viofo and they replace it to A129 duo and give me difference a129 pro / a129 money back. 5 months i was talking with hem and i said enough...

 

[SawMaster]

I suspect the flash driver that Viofo is using is poorly written, thus causing write "delay" and "error" during write. Either that or the task managing code (threading/interrupt) in A129 Pro is poorly written.

This is far beyond my knowledge level but it does seem to make sense based on what little I know So would these things have to be done by the chipmaker? I do know that the manufacturers options and abilities are limited by the SDK they're given but I don't know what all that entails. If indeed this is something Viofo cannot do until the SDK allows it, then it would be more the chipmaker's fault than his, and as I understand things that is where the problem currently lies.

Not trying to make excuses for anyone here, I'm just trying to gain some understanding of how these things work and why things aren't going as well as they should go.

Phil

 

[airflame]

This is far beyond my knowledge level but it does seem to make sense based on what little I know So would these things have to be done by the chipmaker? I do know that the manufacturers options and abilities are limited by the SDK they're given but I don't know what all that entails. If indeed this is something Viofo cannot do until the SDK allows it, then it would be more the chipmaker's fault than his, and as I understand things that is where the problem currently lies.

Not trying to make excuses for anyone here, I'm just trying to gain some understanding of how these things work and why things aren't going as well as they should go.

Phil

Viofo should do debug log and all errors will be known in 1 day...

 

[Michele73]

Probably the A129Pro has been sold too much in advance, before proper testing, under the marketing need to release a quadhd product.
The point is: now what? Replace all the cameras? I think this is not a realistic solution...or, what?

 

[DAP]

Testing using the unit itself with a power bank inside the house will always has no issue.

This makes me very suspicious that it is voltage related.
Is it possible, while the car is outside and hot, to power the whole camera setup via the power bank with an extension cord to a wall outlet? Car does not need to be running, if the car is in the sun, it will be hotter than it ever will when driving. See if the camera behaves differently.

 

[Nath]

This makes me very suspicious that it is voltage related.

And you could be right.

1) 3-wire kit have no way near a "nice" output
2) I measured sometimes 4.3V inside the camera after 5V connected to a GPS base - the flex cable is probably the main culprit
3) miniUSB seems like a pretty doubtful connector (try a little wobble...)

Sure many sudden voltage drops can be handled by the inside capacitors but if it's related to some kind of noise (i noticed some interference with wireless devices in my car), it needs some smaller ceramic capacitors.

 

[programatix]

Anyway, on sdcard write error issue (the beeping alert), I may have found a "working" workaround for my unit. However I'm still testing to see if it really works. Tests must be done in the car with GPS module + rear cam installed, thus it really takes a lot of time and patient. Testing using the unit itself with a power bank inside the house will always has no issue. What I did is to move the partition to sector 0x8000. To do this, use disk partition tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard. Don't use the Disk Management that comes with Windows as it doesn't do alignment for you. Delete the existing partition and create a new one with 16MB of free space in front. Choose exfat for the file system. Then right click on the new partition and click properties. Under "Partition Info" tab, it should show "First Physical Sector: 32768". Then click Apply.

I tested this for 3 days and I no longer get beeping alert during driving and parking mode. I believe it's due to the "alignment" issue. First of all, there's the card block size and also the cluster size. A flash storage has a block size which is the size it writes. For a flash storage with a 512 bytes block size, every writes (erase, write, verify) must be 512 bytes. For sdcard, if I'm not mistaken, this is known as "Erase block size". Either that or the sdcard has 2 types of block sizes. Correct me if I'm wrong. Note that if a block size is 512 bytes, if I want to write only say, 100 bytes, I first need to read the whole 512 bytes out from the flash into the RAM. Then replace the 100 bytes that I want to write into the RAM and finally write the whole 512 bytes into the flash (erase, write, verify). But if I am to write 512 bytes, I wouldn't need to perform the "read and replace" step.

Then we have the cluster size (default at 64KB for FAT32 and 128KB for exFAT, well depending on the partition size). When formatting the card (and creating the partition), we need to make sure that the cluster starts at the offset aligned to the block size. Then we also need to make sure that it ends at the offset which is aligned to the block size. So I guess that by leaving 16MB free before the partition for my 512GB Samsung EVO Plus somehow aligned the exFAT (128KB cluster size) and the block size of my card properly.

Anyway, I tested the SD Card Formatter (https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/) and formatted my card with it. This tool somehow leave 32MB of free space before the partition. It formatted the card as exFAT with 256KB cluster size. Since it's released by SD Association which defines the SD standard, I guess it may have obtained the required info from the card to choose the best or optimized partition layout and file system. Most likely the "erase block size" for my card is 32MB, thus the reason why the partition is aligned at 32MB.

So I would advise those who have issue with beeping alert, try using the SD Card Formatter to format your card.

NOTE: Not having the partition and file system cluster size aligned with the card block size doesn't do any harm except for maybe early wear. Also, there are methods that the system can implement to minimize the "bad" effects such as implementing cache. However, with the correct alignment, it will provide an optimum writing processes thus may speed up write process, in the case where the system is not doing a good job at it.

 

[gabilondo77]

Thank you for such detailed feedback.I hope @viofo can make the built-in camera formatter to do this,editing the formater or maybe with a script if is working and if is possible of course...

 

[airflame]

I tested this for 3 days and I no longer get beeping alert during driving and parking mode. I believe it's due to the "alignment" issue. First of all, there's the card block size and also the cluster size. A flash storage has a block size which is the size it writes. For a flash storage with a 512 bytes block size, every writes (erase, write, verify) must be 512 bytes. For sdcard, if I'm not mistaken, this is known as "Erase block size". Either that or the sdcard has 2 types of block sizes. Correct me if I'm wrong. Note that if a block size is 512 bytes, if I want to write only say, 100 bytes, I first need to read the whole 512 bytes out from the flash into the RAM. Then replace the 100 bytes that I want to write into the RAM and finally write the whole 512 bytes into the flash (erase, write, verify). But if I am to write 512 bytes, I wouldn't need to perform the "read and replace" step.

Then we have the cluster size (default at 64KB for FAT32 and 128KB for exFAT, well depending on the partition size). When formatting the card (and creating the partition), we need to make sure that the cluster starts at the offset aligned to the block size. Then we also need to make sure that it ends at the offset which is aligned to the block size. So I guess that by leaving 16MB free before the partition for my 512GB Samsung EVO Plus somehow aligned the exFAT (128KB cluster size) and the block size of my card properly.

Anyway, I tested the SD Card Formatter (https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/) and formatted my card with it. This tool somehow leave 32MB of free space before the partition. It formatted the card as exFAT with 256KB cluster size. Since it's released by SD Association which defines the SD standard, I guess it may have obtained the required info from the card to choose the best or optimized partition layout and file system. Most likely the "erase block size" for my card is 32MB, thus the reason why the partition is aligned at 32MB.

So I would advise those who have issue with beeping alert, try using the SD Card Formatter to format your card.

What temperature outside car You have?

 

[programatix]

What temperature outside car You have?

The car thermometer shows around 39° C around noon.

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[Aly_Oops]

So far. No issues. Going on to 6 months of use. Those with parking issue need to realize it won’t work with batteries that have been drain to 50 percent or more. Your vehicle may think it 100 percent charge but unlikely. After sitting for awhile the voltage will drop from 13 v to 12 or 11 volt. Shutting off your camera. The fix is a battery conditioner and a battery analyzer tester. Some are expensive and some are cheap. They usually all fall within a good indicator of the quality, the health and etc. it may tell you the battery is too damage and need replacement battery. A volt meter can give u a hint but you need to know how to interpret the result and when to take reading.

 

[programatix]

So far. No issues. Going on to 6 months of use. Those with parking issue need to realize it won’t work with batteries that have been drain to 50 percent or more. Your vehicle may think it 100 percent charge but unlikely. After sitting for awhile the voltage will drop from 13 v to 12 or 11 volt. Shutting off your camera. The fix is a battery conditioner and a battery analyzer tester. Some are expensive and some are cheap. They usually all fall within a good indicator of the quality, the health and etc. it may tell you the battery is too damage and need replacement battery. A volt meter can give u a hint but you need to know how to interpret the result and when to take reading.

The problem is, it doesn't shutdown during the night. Also when it shutdown during the day, it wasn't really hot as I'm sitting in the car with no air conditioning.

Also, if it's car battery issue and the power is cut by the HK3 kit, then its red led (inside) should turn off but it's still on.

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[airflame]

So far. No issues. Going on to 6 months of use. Those with parking issue need to realize it won’t work with batteries that have been drain to 50 percent or more. Your vehicle may think it 100 percent charge but unlikely. After sitting for awhile the voltage will drop from 13 v to 12 or 11 volt. Shutting off your camera. The fix is a battery conditioner and a battery analyzer tester. Some are expensive and some are cheap. They usually all fall within a good indicator of the quality, the health and etc. it may tell you the battery is too damage and need replacement battery. A volt meter can give u a hint but you need to know how to interpret the result and when to take reading.

o_0

What are You talking about i have a a129-G duo and my camera record 24/7 with no problems i my car connected straight to car battery HK3 with 40° C outside. I bought a129-G pro duo and in 5 months of using it did not stand 2 hours recording. Lets be true a129 pro is a misfire.