Camera is taking a long time to start recording mapping data....

StingrayJG

StingrayJG

New Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2023
Messages
15
Reaction score
5
Location
Shelton, Connecticut
Country
United States
Hello all,
I got my 2nd A229 Duo installed into my wife's vehicle earlier today and it seems to be working well. I haven't hard-wired either one yet but at least now they are both in, registered on the website, firmware updated, and recording driving videos.
One thing that I did notice that I don't know if it's a "problem" or not is that when I go back and review the video recordings in Dashcam Viewer, there is no speed or mapping data displaying in Dashcam Viewer until I have been driving for a while, like about 4-5 minutes or more before mapping data starts to appear on Dashcam Viewer. The coordinates are displaying and updating on the fly on the video recording instantly. But as soon as I start the vehicle, the recording begins, and I begin driving, Dashcam Viewer will show no speed or mapping data during the video playback until roughly the 4th or 5th minute of continuous operation/driving. So, I know that the GPS is functioning and communicating right away after start-up but for some reason there is a 4-5 minute lag until the data shows in DV. I have my recording intervals set to every 3 minutes and so far since I installed my A229 Duo last week, my entire first 3-minute clip and part of the next 3-minute clip will not show any speed or mapping data when played back in Dashcam Viewer, but the data is showing on the screen of the recordings as I'm driving right away. It shouldn't be an issue of where I have it mounted because I have the cam mounted in the exact same spot on the windshield as my prior "older than dirt" 2017 WheelWitness HD Pro cam that preceded this one, and that old cam recorded speed and mapping right away before I was even out of the driveway whenever I looked back at the recordings in DV.
Since this is my first time experience with the VIOFO brand, I don't know if this is "normal" for them to have this long of a delay or if there is some kind of issue happening that can be corrected to eliminate the delay. It's not worth going too crazy over but a lot can happen in your first 4-5 minutes of driving where you might appreciate having that information recorded onto your files for DV viewing as well as the video itself.
Is anyone else experiencing this issue with theirs, or have you in the past? Just wondering if this is something I might just have to get used to or if there is a way to eliminate the delay. I'm using the latest version of DV and the latest firmware update on the cams.
Thanks.
 
I have once had a brand new camera being slow to acquire satellit lock ( another brand using external antenna ) turn out it was the RTC battery in the GPS antenna.
But it then gave no Speed watermarked in the footage from start, only minutes later when the GPS got going anyway.
But since you mention dashcam viewer, it could also be a software issue, not least if the values like speed ASO are stamped in the footage from the get go.
So if you have speed ASO watermarked in the footage from the turn of the key, or close to that, then it is probably a player issue as then all the meta data should be there alright.

Are your camera and DV player up to date ?

Sadly the copy i have of DV is locked to a brand of cameras, not viofo, so even if i have the A229 in the car i can not try to replicate.
 
kamkar said:
I have once had a brand new camera being slow to acquire satellit lock ( another brand using external antenna ) turn out it was the RTC battery in the GPS antenna.
But it then gave no Speed watermarked in the footage from start, only minutes later when the GPS got going anyway.
But since you mention dashcam viewer, it could also be a software issue, not least if the values like speed ASO are stamped in the footage from the get go.
So if you have speed ASO watermarked in the footage from the turn of the key, or close to that, then it is probably a player issue as then all the meta data should be there alright.

Are your camera and DV player up to date ?

Sadly the copy i have of DV is locked to a brand of cameras, not viofo, so even if i have the A229 in the car i can not try to replicate.
Click to expand...
Yes, using the latest version of DV (hard lesson on that learned by me last week, remember?) :rolleyes: and camera firmware was updated to the latest version also on day one right after installation of mine and hers last week and today respectively.
Yes, the coordinates stamped onto the video are present right from the cam powering on from the beginning and updating on the fly as soon as I start moving so that validates to me that there is no issue with the GPS establishing an almost immediate connection with getting satellite data for speed and mapping. The issue is only with DV showing the vehicle's position on the google/mapquest map and your speed on the speedometer gauge until after at least your 4th or 5th minute of continuous operation of the dashcam. They are stamped on the actual video itself just fine right from the start.
Kind of weird.
 
I thing in DV software there is a feature to clean / wipe buffer, i think that have been used before to fix some issues.
I dont really keep up with these matters as i dont use that kind of software myself.

you could try and swap the 2 cameras around to see if the issue follow the camera to your " old " car VS the wife's ride
 
kamkar said:
I thing in DV software there is a feature to clean / wipe buffer, i think that have been used before to fix some issues.
I dont really keep up with these matters as i dont use that kind of software myself.

you could try and swap the 2 cameras around to see if the issue follow the camera to your " old " car VS the wife's ride
Click to expand...
In DV, if I go into Help> Preferences>Advanced there is a section called "GPS Data Cache" that you can check to be enabled or disabled. Mine was set to "Enable"
It says: "Enabling the GPS Data Cache dramatically improves data processing times when reloading files. The Free and Standard versions can cache up to 1000 video files and the PRO version caches up to 10000 files." and then there are two buttons that say "Reveal Cache" and "Clear Cache".
When I clicked on "Reveal Cache" it brought me to a folder at:
Windows C:>Users>*redacted*>AppData>Local>earthshinesw>DashcamViewer>Cache
Inside this folder there were two sub-folders, one was a second "cache" sub-folder and the other was called "QtWebEngine"
"Cache" had several files in it, less than a page full so not a lot. If you click on "Clear Cache" it clears out the contents of this "cache" sub-folder. (I did that).
If you double click on the "QtWebEngine" sub-folder, within there is: QtWebEngine>Default>Cache
Within that "cache" sub-folder was 1,156 files and all of them except about 10 of them were only about 19kb-31kb each so they look like some kind of very small little index files or data pack files. Even though this is also a sub-folder named "cache" this sub-folder does not get emptied out when you press the "Clear Cache" button in Advanced Settings, so I would guess you would have to manually delete the contents of this folder if you wanted to empty it. I'm not sure what these little small files are holding in them so I'm not sure if it is OK to manually delete these files. I was thinking about trying it but I also don't want the software to get unstable if you aren't meant to do that yourself. It just worries me that the "clear cache" button doesn't clear out that sub-folder so it makes me think maybe it's not meant to be manually tampered with in that way.
 
Ok, I had a chance to do some more research today on this issue, and it looks more like it is the dashcam GPS not starting up right away that is the cause of this more than the DV software.

Today my wife did some driving so I had more data to analyze than I did yesterday.
Today her dashcam powered up while she was still parked in our garage. The stamp of on-screen coordinates was all zero for about 2 seconds and then disappeared off the screen. Understandable, she was still in the garage so no good GPS signal. After she pulled out of the garage, 29 seconds had elapsed on the dashcam recording and then the dashcam had an unobstructed view of the full sky, so you would think you would see the on-screen GPS coordinated re-appear in fairly short order, but that's not what happened. The GPS coordinates did not appear on-screen until the 2:40 mark of the first 3:00 vid-clip. And even after this, DV still showed no speed or mapping until the second 3:00 vid-clip started. And when the DV mapping did start to appear it was very inaccurate, it had her cutting through yards and parking lots when taking corners, and sometimes when she was on a straightaway it would show her straying off so she was driving across everyone's front yard or the woods instead of on the road, even though the video clearly shows she's right on the road the whole time.

My experience with my dashcam in my vehicle was even worse.
I was parked out in the driveway so I had a completely unabated view of the full sky right from start-up of the vehicle and power-up of the dashcam. I have a Uniden radar detector which is also audible that also powered up on start-up and the detector voice said "GPS connected" within 4 seconds of start-up of the vehicle, so the detector had no problem instantly getting GPS data almost as immediately as can be expected. The dashcam did not do this, not even close. The dashcam did not show any on-screen GPS coordinates until the 1:54 mark of the THIRD 3-minute vid-clip! So even though my dashcam had instant access to the full sky to grab a GPS signal where my wife's had to wait 29 seconds to get a view of the sky, it took my dashcam 7 minutes, 54 seconds until it started to receive and display GPS coordinates on-screen where it only took my wife's dashcam 2 minutes, 40 seconds.
Conversely, three days ago I was getting into my vehicle leaving a store parking lot and within 10 seconds of power-up, the GPS started showing on-screen coordinates, but DV would still not show any speed or mapping for the entire remainder of the 3-minute vid-clip. Weird. Another head-scratcher. The data is all over the map (no pun intended).

So, the information gathered by today's data is showing that there is a very long delay in the dashcam beginning to grab and display GPS data and apparently even under almost identical driving conditions, the size of the delay can vary wildly. Under virtually the same starting point and same neighborhood driving route, it took one dashcam just a shade over 2 minutes to lock on to GPS, and it took another identical dashcam almost 8 minutes in the same neighborhood.

Like I said in some of my other posts, my old outdated prior dashcam from 2017 that I had mounted in the exact same spot as this one, and I never did a single firmware update to since unboxing in 2017, never gave me this problem that I ever noticed, so this issue is a new one for me. That's why I was asking if this GPS delay issue is a normal thing that "just happens" with newer dashcams or VIOFOs in particular, or if it is a symptom of some kind of problem that can be addressed and resolved if I knew what it was.

I don't have a big body of work to go with right now with these dashcams. I just installed mine a week ago today and hers yesterday, so not a lot of driving data yet to look at long-term trends. But the early results are still clearly showing a consistent GPS connection delay that has typically been anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes (except for one time only so far that took only ten seconds and never happened that fast again since). It's kind of aggravating because you can get into an accident or incident just as easily a minute or two into your trip as you can after a long time driving so it is a little annoying that you might not have that data soon enough into your driving for it to potentially help you one day. The video seems to be recording without issue so far, so that's the most important as far as documenting an incident, I just really wish this issue would straighten itself out or I knew what to do to help it stop happening.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Thanks @DT MI. Funny timing, I was just in the middle of composing a reply to this thread (re)explaining all of this when you posted to the thread. When I saw that someone had posted I thought I'd better see what it was about before I hit reply.

My basic message to @StingrayJG is that it is completely normal for a dash cam to take several minutes to acquire signals from enough GPS satellites to get a "fix" and then it can begin recording mapping data.
 
DT MI said:
The GPS unit in the camera works by triangulating it's position from a number of satellites, and it's possible that it can take 10 minutes or more to get a fix on those satellites depending on a number of factors.

Member @Dashmellow has a pretty good post on it here: https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/gps-antenna-time-synchronization.49183/#post-596322

He also provided a link to a Wikipedia article on the subject that's worth reading.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info, @DT MI and thanks to @Dashmellow as well for that explanation. I definitely have a better understanding now on how that all works.
I guess my TTFF status must've been close to ice cold when it took me 7:54 to get a fix today but the other day after I was only out of the vehicle for about 30 minutes and then back in, it only took about 10 seconds to get a fix. Makes more sense now.
Glad to hear it wasn't a "problem" with the actual unit itself that would require having to get involved with repairs or returns. That's a relief.
It does seem like Dashcam Viewer prefers that you have your fix at the beginning of the vid-clip because almost all of my clips where the fix is acquired sometime after the recording has begun playing, DV will still not show the speed or mapping data until it starts playing the next full clip with the fix on it right from the beginning of the clip.
Maybe my old cam had these symptoms too and I just never noticed it. It was pretty primitive by today's standards. I'm looking at everything through a magnifying glass now because it's all new to me and I want to make sure that there are no issues with anything, so I'm noticing every little thing where before I might've glossed right over it without catching it as easily.
I'm also seeing a high amount of glare in the front camera clips in both vehicles, worse in my wife's vehicle, so I ordered a front CPL lens for each cam to see if that hopefully cuts down on it a lot.
Thanks again, guys. Much appreciated.
 
StingrayJG said:
It does seem like Dashcam Viewer prefers that you have your fix at the beginning of the vid-clip because almost all of my clips where the fix is acquired sometime after the recording has begun playing, DV will still not show the speed or mapping data until it starts playing the next full clip with the fix on it right from the beginning of the clip.
Click to expand...
The way it is. The coordinates in the video must be from the beginning of the video so that they are displayed in the Dashcam Viewer,
no matter how long the video files are. If you want to see the coordinates in Dashcam Viewer earlier, set the video length to 1 minute.
 
StingrayJG said:
The coordinates are displaying and updating on the fly on the video recording instantly. But as soon as I start the vehicle, the recording begins, and I begin driving, Dashcam Viewer will show no speed or mapping data during the video playback until roughly the 4th or 5th minute of continuous operation/driving.
Click to expand...
I see the same issue sometimes.
To me it appears as if the cam after a new start is taking quite long to (re-)establish a good GPS fix.
 
CoreForce said:
I see the same issue sometimes.
To me it appears as if the cam after a new start is taking quite long to (re-)establish a good GPS fix.
Click to expand...

+1.

If there is a gap of say more than 4 to 5 hours between two recordings, the next time I start the car and the dashcam turns on, the GPS signal latching takes time i.e., 5 minutes or 3 to 4 kms distance.

Once the connection has been established, if I disconnect and reconnect the dashcam, the GPS latches immediately.
 
It is normal due to cheap gps chipset in gps modules. Another modules have internal memory for almanah and efemerid data so cold start happens not so often as here.
 
Dex_ said:
It is normal due to cheap gps chipset in gps modules. Another modules have internal memory for almanah and efemerid data so cold start happens not so often as here.
Click to expand...

Your are quite right about the use of cheaper GPS units in dash cams. More expensive units would dramatically increase the cost of dash cams and only speed up TTFF by a few minutes at most.

High end commercial and military GPS units can achieve satellite acquisition almost instantaneously and hold almanac information for long periods of time if not permanently because they are always powered on. We see the same with GPS on smartphones because they always have battery power and are constantly updating the information throughout the day.

Dash cam GPS units do have internal memory but since most run on super-capacitors they go "cold" when shut down for a few hours and needs to acquire data from at least 4 satellites all over again once they boot up after you start your engine after your car has been sitting overnight. Personally, I don't find waiting a few minutes for the GPS data to populate to be a big deal.
 
Last edited:
I don't talk about mid-cost or high-cost solutions and of course not about military GNSS solutions. Viofo may add few $ to total cost but get powerful module without dramatical increasing total cost.

Even cheap Beitain BN880 gnss module is much more featured compared with MTK-3337 used on almost all Viofo gps modules. BN880 is ublox 7 series alternative. It is cheap but Viofo may use other chinese modules.

Mtk3337 work only with GPS sattelites.
Beitain support GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS and SBAS.
Mtk3337 does not have memory so it works only with hardcoded settings. And that more worse it can't store almanac and ephemeris data. Beitain have external memory so even after power off it can made hot and warm starts.

Almanac data is valid up to 6 days and transmission time from GPS satellites is 12.5 minutes (from Glonass is 2.5 mins) . So if GNSS module can't store almanac data in internal power-consume memory or external power-independend memory it may delay up to 12 mins on cold start.

Also GPS only modules work less accurate than multi-system modules. I'm on vacation now and can't share for you videos then my car already stopped at crossroad on red light but on dashcam I still have speed 15km/h, next second 5km/h, and next second is 2km/h and finally 0km/h. Few times such delays in GPS data at different date.

Wait few minutes not so bad thing in dashcams like work with GPS only sattelites. But I still have feeling that better spend additional 5 dollars once and solve such problems than spend 5 minutes every dashcam start time to wait for gps fix.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top