About ready to throw in the towel... (card errors from hell)

Florida Dashcam

Florida Dashcam

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Black Box G1W-H // Vantrue X1 Pro // Viofo A119-S V2
Hi guys,

Long story short, I had a Viofo A119s a few months back totally stop working (ie: no matter what I did, it just wouldn't record, no matter the memory card, and also would not take any firmware updates). I was lucky the seller accepted the return 6 months after the purchase and I considered myself having probably just gotten a dud device. It happens. Viofo had me do everything they could but after a few days of trying, they told me they couldn't help me and it was up to the seller to take the return. That's another story for another time...

I got a new one in, it's been about 6 months, and all of a sudden, I'm driving and the camera stops recording with that famous blue box that reads "FORMAT SD CARD". I format it and it leads me back to the recording screen...but it's not recording at all. I see 00:00 in the upper right hand corner (not X's). I was using the memory card that Viofo suggested (Samsung Evo 64GB - the red card). When this happened, I bought another of the same memory card (so now I have two, and this is a brand new card), installed the newest firmware for the A119S, and then turned it back on. Again I am left where I was left with my Viofo.

The other day, on a hunch, I decided to totally format the card (start clean), plug the camera in, and update the firmware. After the camera was done, I ejected it, and plugged the camera into a wall outlet where I did a test to see if it would record. Miraculously, it did. For 8 seconds. Then it error'd out with the message "CARD ERROR", and kept looping 8 second recordings. The camera got stuck in this cycle and wouldn't react to any of my button pressing, so I had to unplug it totally and reformat the card. I have not gotten it to record since then.

Today I have tried every which way to troubleshoot this camera (per every single suggestion from Viofo's own website and all the forums), making sure I put the firmware on the camera as detailed. When I go to the menu and check to see if my firmware has taken, it tells me that I'm still on the factory firmware.

Now the card is not even being recognized by my computer when plugging it in via the camera USB cable. I have to use a USB adapter to get the card to read now, and I feel out of options. I am ready to throw in the towel but I'd rather not because I love the quality and convenience of the Viofo A119S but so far, I have been doing more troubleshooting than recording.

Any input to save my sanity?
 
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need to start at the card first, format the card in your camera then use h2testw to test the card and post the results here, can go to the next step after you've done that
 
jokiin said:
need to start at the card first, format the card in your camera then use h2testw to test the card and post the results here, can go to the next step after you've done that
Click to expand...
My problem is that the card will not be recognized by the computer. When I plugged the card in prior (via camera + USB cable), it would always pop up as a removable disk, and I can open the contents. Now, even when looking at a disk manager, the cam does not make a connection to the computer. However, the blue screen with the MASS STORAGE text is on as if it's attempting to make a connection.

Also I am on a Mac, and I am reading online that the h2testw program is a Windows-only program. Know of any Mac alternatives?

Thanks.
 
there is a Mac alternative but I don't recall the name, not a Mac user

cameras make for poor card readers at the best of times, do you have a card reader at all?
 
jokiin said:
there is a Mac alternative but I don't recall the name, not a Mac user

cameras make for poor card readers at the best of times, do you have a card reader at all?
Click to expand...
Absolutely. Let me plug the card in and look for that alternative program, and I will post the results here, after formatting the card completely.
 
jokiin said:
need to start at the card first, format the card in your camera then use h2testw to test the card and post the results here, can go to the next step after you've done that
Click to expand...
Alright, so I found the program and used it to run a test.

The test came back with this window:

Screen Shot 2018-07-23 at 6.53.48 PM.png

Other than that, I do not see any information.
It put a bunch of .h2w files on the card, spent some time reading the files, and then completed the test.

According to F3's website:
If the test shows the result "Success! Your card is ok!" your SD card is good and you can delete all .h2w files on your SD card
Click to expand...
 
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jokiin said:
ok, next step do a full overwrite erase with this https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

after you do that the card will need to be formatted in camera again before use

see how you get on after that
Click to expand...
Alright, so the process ran and gave me the following information:

Screen Shot 2018-07-23 at 7.42.58 PM.png
(ps: the card is named Viofo - not to be confused with me doing this through the camera)

I clicked "OK", ejected the card, put the card into my camera and plugged it into a wall outlet via USB.
When I turned the camera on, the blue box said "FORMAT SD CARD", so as you said, I formatted the SD card on the camera.
I backed out of the menu and I am still seeing this 00:00:00 screen, which will not allow me to record.

This is what I see:
Screen Shot 2018-07-23 at 7.48.00 PM.png
 
Have you tried to reload the firmware ? i had a camera of mine stop recording though in my case just deleting the files on the card ( on PC ) and then format in the camera made it work again.
But i was told to also do a reflash of the firmware, and it seem to work again as the card are full again and recycling, so in a few months time i will see if it do it again.
 
jokiin said:
you've tried another card yeah?
Click to expand...
Yes, I have tried a Lexar as well as another 64GB of the same Samsung Evo card.
I even used my father's Sandisk card, I know they say not to, but just to see...and that card actually allowed me to record.
That card is unfortunately back at his house and I don't have access to it (but that shouldn't matter anyway since everyone says not to use that card...still weird)
 
kamkar1 said:
Have you tried to reload the firmware ? i had a camera of mine stop recording though in my case just deleting the files on the card ( on PC ) and then format in the camera made it work again.
But i was told to also do a reflash of the firmware, and it seem to work again as the card are full again and recycling, so in a few months time i will see if it do it again.
Click to expand...
I have tried putting the .bin file in the root folder as instructed while the camera is connected.
The website says that the camera should blink the red light on the REC button while it's "updating".
I didn't see the REC light blinking though. The camera still didn't record.
When I went into the menu, it showed I was still on factory firmware.

So I reset the camera back to factory defaults, formatted the SD card on the computer, and then plugged it into an SD card adaptor.
I put the .bin file on the card's root folder again, and then ejected the card.
When I plugged it into the camera and went to the menu, it showed I was still on factory firmware.
 
OK. So there was a batch of A119S cameras that couldn’t update from V2.4. Viofo released a special loader that needed to be loaded onto the camera before it could be updated beyond V2.4. After the special loader update, the camera would then be fine for any further updates. Unfortunately, I am currently on vacation, so I do not have access to this loader file. There is probably a link to it somewhere in one of these threads, just not sure where. I’ll see if I can find it.
Not saying this will fix your issues of the camera not liking the cards though. I’d get it updated to the latest firmware and see what happens.
 
I found the thread, but it refers to the A119 not being able to update beyond V3.4, so I may be confusing my cameras. Unfortunately, without access to my office computer, I can’t say for sure which camera it was. Sorry. Maybe someone else can recall and assist.
 
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