Camera kept restarting while driving, and recorded files were either unreadable or had duplicate videos from a few hours before.

tilt

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TL:DR: This was with a non-Viofo power cable. Issue settled down with a Viofo power cable. Story below for more details:

I just completed a five-day road-trip with my brand new A129 Plus Duo (only installed the front for now because I did not have time). I had an older, much cheaper dashcam (G1WH) earlier which was already hardwired; so I just plugged the Viofo into the same old cable, as a temporary measure, hoping to not need to re-do the hardwiring bit. Well, famous last words :)

The camera functioned beautifully for the first six hours. During the last two hours the camera kept playing the restarting chimes every 3 minutes (loop time).

When I checked the footage on the computer after stopping for the day, I found that the first six hours had files that could be played on the computer (and had the icons of the first frame). The files for the last two hours had the generic video-player-app icon; and when I clicked on those files to play, one of two things happened:

Either the file would show an error saying it was bad/corrupted and could not be played (these were the majority of such files); or it would play, but the footage was a duplicate of a random file that was recorded much earlier during the first six hours (this happened with very few files).

Since any advice on this forum begins with "Use the original Viofo cables and interfaces and then come back if the problem still persists" I switched to the original Viofo Cigarette-lighter adapter and cable. The issue has not resurfaced since then - neither the constant restarting nor the unplayable files.

Therefore I have now decided to order the hardwire-kit from Viofo, install that, and then observe.

However, I do have one question: I do not plan to use the parking mode stuff at all - the camera is only for recording while the car is moving. The only reason I hardwired the earlier camera and want to do this one is so that the cables can be routed properly and be hidden. So, would I still be able to disable parking-mode recording even if I use the Viofo hardwire kit?

Thank you and cheers
 
I suppose you can keep using the supplied car charger that came with the current dashcam, not hardwiring it.

And you can turn off the parking mode in the settings if you don't need it.
 
I suppose you can keep using the supplied car charger that came with the current dashcam, not hardwiring it.

And you can turn off the parking mode in the settings if you don't need it.

Well, when I said hardwired, it is "kinda sorta" hardwired. Let me elaborate:

I have hardwired a standalone cigarette-lighter socket (12-volt socket) to the fusebox and have plugged the older dashcam's cigarette-lighter car-charger. So, in a way, I was already doing what you suggest :). I did it that way so that I did not have to cut the camera's cable; plus it could be easily undone any time I wanted it; and most importantly, it hid all the cables.

Thanks for the info re. parking mode.

Cheers
 
Just an update for all of you who were gracious and helped me:

I finally bought the hardwire kit and hardwired the camera; and also installed and connected the rear camera.

I mus say that since then I have not faced any of the issues that I faced while suign the cigarette-lighter adapter.

Also, I finally figured out that the problem was NOT with the cigarette-lighter adapter - it was the 12-volt socket in my car that had some kind of loose contact and kept losing contact occasionally that resulted in missing time etc.

Once again, thank you all, and cheers
 
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