CF-100 wasted space on SD card

Gibson99

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2014
Messages
9,293
Reaction score
8,079
Location
Houston, we've had a problem, Texas
Country
United States
Dash Cam
Yes
I've noticed that there's a huge number of .tmp files in the EVENT folder. I put in a 64gb card and formatted it, let it record for a minute, then checked it in my PC. it had 202 (yes, two hundred and two) 60 megabyte files in the event folder, all named .AAAAAAAAAAAAA####.tmp, numbered sequentially starting with 0000 and ending with 0201. they all have the same time/date (the time i formatted the card in the camera), and all are exactly the same size - 62,914,560 bytes. that's 12 gigs of space used up and only about 30 seconds of actual video recorded (in the normal folder). What the heck?

The 32gb card i was using before has them as well but there weren't as many - only 100 files x 60mb = 6gb. Anyone know why these are here, chewing up space?

At first I thought maybe it was reserving space for the emergency files, since the 32gb card has 25 actual event files and 75 tmp files (and the tmp files start counting at 0025 and go up to 0099), but the 32gb card still has 3gb free space, even after driving over 2000 miles on a road trip without deleting anything. the 64 hasn't been filled yet since i just put it in yesterday but i expect it will have 3-6gb free space too.

any ideas?
 
I'm cleaning my "Events" folder time to time and see exact the same "junk files"and my 32GB Sandisc still holds less than 3 days of driving (4.5-6 HRs of actual driving). Is it normal?
I bought a Samsung Evo 64GB SDXC, but I'm not sure if CF-100 supports SDXC.
 
my cf-100 had no issues formatting the 64gb card (sandisk ultra) directly in the camera (hold emergency button till it prompts you to format, then press volume up once and it will format). it did sort of freak out and repeat over and over "sd card has an error" while i was holding emergency, but it eventually took my button presses (be patient, don't press them more than once) and formatted just fine, then said "2 channel recording is getting started".

i haven't done the math on the cf-100 but on my a118 (1080p single camera) i get about 5 hours recording time on a 32gb card before stuff gets overwritten. i don't know the bitrates for the front/rear on the cf-100 but i bet the total bitrate is similar so you'd get similar recording time. i use parking mode on my cf-100 so stuff gets overwritten FAST, which is why i upgraded to a 64gb.

when you clean up your sd card, do you delete the tmp files too? do they come back on their own? i'm not super worried about it, it just seems there's no reason for them to be there when that space could be used to store more normal/park video. if it needs to create an emergency file due to g-sensor or button press, just nuke the oldest normal/park file. don't waste space with .tmp files and don't leave 10% of the card blank for no good reason. use the whole card - that's what it's there for! not yelling at you david, i'm yelling at the coders/engineers at blacksys. :mad:
 
When I'm cleaning the "Events" I'm deleting everything and next time I see exact the same junk. NO idea what these files for, but they been showing up from the begging.
I'm not using parking mode and don't know if my cam using the whole 32GB or not, but I certainly want to keep at least 3+ days of driving on a card.
 
parking mode (and 2 channel) was the main reason i bought this cam. our van was hit twice in parking lots (AT CHURCH no less!), and neither time did anyone leave a note. and each time cost about a grand to get fixed - and that's using my next door neighbor's body shop, where he knows we're paying out of pocket and not insurance... if this ~$200 cam (including the battery protector kit) gives me info on whoever hits it next it'll be worth it.

as for using the entire card... we recently went on a 2000 mile road trip. part way thru the trip (somewhere around 1300-1400 miles i think) i pulled the card to make sure i had the video from when a truck dropped something that broke our windshield. at that point the card had about 3gb free space - completely unused. but it also had all those tmp files wasting space, and only the last couple hours of normal driving, plus some parking video from the previous night.

i expect you'll probably see the same thing after a few days driving - pull the card and you'll still see some unused space.
 
Q: Do you know if your CF is using the whole 64GB or just 32GB as it's specified by the Blacksys?
My very tech-savvy coworker saying that there is a possibility that even if a device formatted a bigger storage card and shows no error, since it's speced to "up to 32GB" it might not use the whole 64B.
 
The events folder holds recordings from G sensor triggers and possibly when you hit the emergency button. I believe the temp files are there to make sure there is enough free space to save the video when an event occurs. I have also deleted them in the past only to have them come right back, so I just ignore them now when archiving my daily footage. It would be nice if we were able to customize the amount of space reserved for events, as I'd only want perhaps the last 10 on the card since I archive daily. For people who rarely if ever remove the card, a larger partition makes sense. I have been on 12+ hours trips and would've preferred to have more space dedicated to normal recording, since the beginning of the trip had been overwritten due to the wasted space in the events folder.

KuoH

The 32gb card i was using before has them as well but there weren't as many - only 100 files x 60mb = 6gb. Anyone know why these are here, chewing up space?
 
Gibson, I just pulled my fully recorded old 16GB card that I was using before I got 32GB and it shows 3.1 GB free of 14.9GB, "Events" folder contains 42 files total of 2.46Gb of .AAAAAAAAAAAAA00xx junk, while Normal folder has only 69 files total of 8.81GB....

My current 32GB card shows 12Gb free of 29.7Gb, has 100 "AAAAAAAAAAAAA" files (5.85 GB) in "Events" and 140 files (17.5GB) in "Normal".
Does it make any sense???
 
Last edited:
The camera is reserving about 20% of the card's capacity for the events folder, I've not seen any way to change or disable that. As for expecting the card to be filled to 100% capacity, that won't happen. There needs to be some free space for saving the current segment and / or file management.

KuoH

My current 32GB card shows 12Gb free of 29.7Gb, has 100 "AAAAAAAAAAAAA" files (5.85 GB) in "Events" and 140 files (17.5GB) in "Normal".
Does it make any sense???
 
i haven't pulled the 64gb card recently. it's probably not full yet anyway as i just put it in mid-last-week and we haven't driven much. funny how after driving 2 solid days you try to avoid driving for a while. ;)
 
I just installed a new firmware (as Gibson stated in another thread the cam rebooted twice before finalizing the update) and let it run for a few min and "Events" is full of "AAAAAAAAAAAA" files again: 100 files, 61.440MB each... Looks like kuoh is right and soft creating these files just to have enough space for the next 100 or so emergency events.
 
As for expecting the card to be filled to 100% capacity, that won't happen. There needs to be some free space for saving the current segment and / or file management.

KuoH
ok, i can accept the 20% rservation for event files, tho on a big card like 32 or 64gb, it's quite wasteful. that said, my other cameras (a118, a118c, f70) never have more than about 300 megs of empty space once the card is full and it begins cycling out old files. seems the cf100 wants to waste even more space by simply not using it at all. i wonder if they would respond if i emailed them about the wasted space, particularly with the tmp/event files...
 
I've never looked at their product but at a guess those temp files are just reserving event space and would get replaced as needed

As to empty space it's needed for file handling and recycling, different solutions have different requirements in this respect
 
I've noticed that there's a huge number of .tmp files in the EVENT folder. I put in a 64gb card and formatted it, let it record for a minute, then checked it in my PC. it had 202 (yes, two hundred and two) 60 megabyte files in the event folder, all named .AAAAAAAAAAAAA####.tmp, numbered sequentially starting with 0000 and ending with 0201....
Just checked the CF-100 I got for my wife's car and it's got 205 '.tmp' files on a 64GB PNY card. :(

An unrelated question - In the configuration section of the viewer program there's an 'INFO' tab that allows for the input of Name and Car Number. I entered something in both fields but can't determine where, if anywhere, this information is displayed. Any ideas?
 
Just checked the CF-100 I got for my wife's car and it's got 205 '.tmp' files on a 64GB PNY card. :(

An unrelated question - In the configuration section of the viewer program there's an 'INFO' tab that allows for the input of Name and Car Number. I entered something in both fields but can't determine where, if anywhere, this information is displayed. Any ideas?
I noticed those too and also have no idea where it goes. Maybe it shows up in the blacksys app along with the g-sensor and GPS data?
 
I noticed those too and also have no idea where it goes. Maybe it shows up in the blacksys app along with the g-sensor and GPS data?
Don't remember seeing them anywhere in the BlackSys viewer except in the tab where you enter them. Maybe they get put in the metadata for the movie files and stills? (I'm assuming there is some?)
 
Don't remember seeing them anywhere in the BlackSys viewer except in the tab where you enter them. Maybe they get put in the metadata for the movie files and stills? (I'm assuming there is some?)

I've not seen it it the viewer either. Didn't think about the metadata, when I get around to it (and remember) I'll check that.
 
Has anyone tried creating blank TMP files on the card? or smaller TMP files? We could possibly customize how much space is reserved by changing the size of these TMP files. I will try it myself if no one has tried it.
 
i have not, but i suspect it won't make any difference. the camera will only use a certain percentage of the total space for parking and regular files, no matter how much is actually in the event folder. i've had some instances where i deleted the temp files and they were actually still gone next time i removed the card, but there was still several gigs of free space on the card.
 
Back
Top