Format Card Prompt

rrrake

rrrake

New Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
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Country
Canada
Dash Cam
A118C, A119
I have recently hardwired an A119 into a Subaru Legacy for a friend and it all went smoothly, or so I thought.

Randomly the screen will turn on (sometimes right away, sometimes after driving for 10 mins+) and the Format Card Prompt will come up waiting for you to hit a button to cancel or accept. The camera seems to stop recording while this prompt is up and waiting for input.

I noticed from some reviews I read that other people are having the same issue, and was wondering if anyone has come up with a solution to this? Turning off the format card prompt does not seem to work.

I have a second A119 to install in my Saabaru to replace my A118 but until the A119 can be trusted to actually record all the time I am hesitant to make the switch.
 
rrrake said:
I have recently hardwired an A119 into a Subaru Legacy for a friend and it all went smoothly, or so I thought.

Randomly the screen will turn on (sometimes right away, sometimes after driving for 10 mins+) and the Format Card Prompt will come up waiting for you to hit a button to cancel or accept. The camera seems to stop recording while this prompt is up and waiting for input.

I noticed from some reviews I read that other people are having the same issue, and was wondering if anyone has come up with a solution to this? Turning off the format card prompt does not seem to work.

I have a second A119 to install in my Saabaru to replace my A118 but until the A119 can be trusted to actually record all the time I am hesitant to make the switch.
Click to expand...
I have an A119 and do not have that problem, Maybe ur unit is a one of a kind defective. Try to return and get it replaced.
 
rrrake said:
I have recently hardwired an A119 into a Subaru Legacy for a friend and it all went smoothly, or so I thought.

Randomly the screen will turn on (sometimes right away, sometimes after driving for 10 mins+) and the Format Card Prompt will come up waiting for you to hit a button to cancel or accept. The camera seems to stop recording while this prompt is up and waiting for input.

I noticed from some reviews I read that other people are having the same issue, and was wondering if anyone has come up with a solution to this? Turning off the format card prompt does not seem to work.

I have a second A119 to install in my Saabaru to replace my A118 but until the A119 can be trusted to actually record all the time I am hesitant to make the switch.
Click to expand...
Are you saying the Format Card prompt pops up after your already recording/driving or when the camera first starts? Are you running the original firmware or the newest beta 0805?
 
rrrake said:
I have recently hardwired an A119 into a Subaru Legacy for a friend and it all went smoothly, or so I thought.

Randomly the screen will turn on (sometimes right away, sometimes after driving for 10 mins+) and the Format Card Prompt will come up waiting for you to hit a button to cancel or accept. The camera seems to stop recording while this prompt is up and waiting for input.

I noticed from some reviews I read that other people are having the same issue, and was wondering if anyone has come up with a solution to this? Turning off the format card prompt does not seem to work.

I have a second A119 to install in my Saabaru to replace my A118 but until the A119 can be trusted to actually record all the time I am hesitant to make the switch.
Click to expand...
Try to plug it in ur cigarette lighter socket to see if its ur hardwire next if same do a factory reset. If all fails try to get a replacement if possible.
 
CaptureYourAction said:
Are you saying the Format Card prompt pops up after your already recording/driving or when the camera first starts? Are you running the original firmware or the newest beta 0805?
Click to expand...

Correct.

I tested it last night, and on the startup of the car, it was recording fine. But 10 minutes into the trip the screen turned on and the format card warning popped up.

I was the passenger at the time, so I cancelled it and the camera started recording normally again.

The camera is running the original firmware and purchased through FoxOffer on eBay the day they first became available.
 
CaptureYourAction said:
Sunny was talking about the prompt everytime the camera started, not after recording already started. Latest firmware (beta) has fixed this. If yours is popping up mid trip, thats another issue. I'd update to the 0805 beta firmware and test it out.
Click to expand...

@CaptureYourAction, Thanks for the suggestion. Do you happen to have a link handy for the 0805 beta firmware? I can install it and test it when my friend has some time off later in the week and report back.

Also unrelated: I ordered GPS module for the A119 from you on ebay a week and a bit ago and while I haven't had a chance to hook it up yet it arrived very quickly, so thanks for that!
 
jackkk said:
Try to plug it in ur cigarette lighter socket to see if its ur hardwire next if same do a factory reset. If all fails try to get a replacement if possible.
Click to expand...


@jackkk I appreciate the suggestions.

I'm not sure what difference that would make but I'll give it a shot for testing purposes.

The hardwire I am using is a 12v - 5v down convertor purchased through edo tech supply out of California.

I then went to the wreckers and pulled a wiring harness for an auto dimming mirror out of a wrecked Subaru and wired it up to plug into the connector in the roof and then have the mirror plug into it.

I've uploaded a picture of one of the wires for one of the cars if anyone is interested (note in the picture 12v and 12v switched reverse are wired backwards and were fixed before it was installed):

IMG_0317[1].JPG


The male plugs into the car harness and the female plug is so the Auto Dimming Mirror can be powered normally.

I have used it flawlessly with an a118c in the past for a year or so, so I'm fairly confident it's giving a clean and steady 5v to the camera.

It should be noted that my second A119 is lost in transit somewhere on the way from China and hopefully shows up this week, so if/when it ever arrives I'll swap them and see if the problem persists on both of the cameras.

I appreciate the suggestions to try to track down the cause of this strange problem.
 
@rrrake If you dont mind me asking, what kind of Micro SD card is being used?
 
rrrake said:
@CaptureYourAction, Thanks for the suggestion. Do you happen to have a link handy for the 0805 beta firmware? I can install it and test it when my friend has some time off later in the week and report back.

Also unrelated: I ordered GPS module for the A119 from you on ebay a week and a bit ago and while I haven't had a chance to hook it up yet it arrived very quickly, so thanks for that!
Click to expand...
Cool, no problem. The link to the new beta version is below. It's toward the bottom of the page. Beta 0805.

https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/a119-production-firmware-updates.20406/page-2
 
Thanks @rrrake, all the specs seem right to me, just figured I'd ask the obvious question, before you rewired the whole car. good luck in finding your issue.
 
@rrrake With the original firmware I could see if for some reason you had a momentary loss of power and the camera restarted, you could get the Format Card prompt. Not that there is anything wrong with they way you wired it, but that's something to consider if you still have an issue.
 
rrrake said:
@jackkk I appreciate the suggestions.

I'm not sure what difference that would make but I'll give it a shot for testing purposes.

The hardwire I am using is a 12v - 5v down convertor purchased through edo tech supply out of California.

I then went to the wreckers and pulled a wiring harness for an auto dimming mirror out of a wrecked Subaru and wired it up to plug into the connector in the roof and then have the mirror plug into it.

I've uploaded a picture of one of the wires for one of the cars if anyone is interested (note in the picture 12v and 12v switched reverse are wired backwards and were fixed before it was installed):

View attachment 25095


The male plugs into the car harness and the female plug is so the Auto Dimming Mirror can be powered normally.

I have used it flawlessly with an a118c in the past for a year or so, so I'm fairly confident it's giving a clean and steady 5v to the camera.

It should be noted that my second A119 is lost in transit somewhere on the way from China and hopefully shows up this week, so if/when it ever arrives I'll swap them and see if the problem persists on both of the cameras.

I appreciate the suggestions to try to track down the cause of this strange problem.
Click to expand...


Twisting wires like that is terrible idea. Either use quality crimps or solder them.
Unless of course you are after intermittent power issues and fire.
 
SergeiF said:
Twisting wires like that is terrible idea. Either use quality crimps or solder them.
Unless of course you are after intermittent power issues and fire.
Click to expand...

Uhh. What do you think happens when you put a wire into a marrette?
 
Do like Sergei said. Use proper crimps.
What you have is asking for trouble.
 
To report back with testing.

I took the camera out of the car, and could reproduce the problem plugged into the wall or a battery.

It looks like it recorded fine for days and then didn't loop properly at the end of the card (hence why we could drive for a bit before the warning came up).

I upgraded to the newest beta firmware, and let it run for 6 hours and it looped fine this time. I'm installing it back in the car today but I expect no problems this time.

Thanks for the constructive help everyone.
 
Last edited:
rrrake said:
To report back with testing.

I took the camera out of the car, and could reproduce the problem plugged into the wall or a battery.

It looks like it recorded fine for days and then didn't loop properly at the end of the card (hence why we could drive for a bit before the warning came up).

I upgraded to the newest beta firmware, and let it run for 6 hours and it looped fine this time. I'm installing it back in the today but I expect no problems this time.

Thanks for the constructive help everyone.
Click to expand...
Do you think you may have accidentally shut off the loop function in the menu?
 
CaptureYourAction said:
Do you think you may have accidentally shut off the loop function in the menu?
Click to expand...

I thought about that and I did check the settings before I upgraded.

It was set to 3 mins in the loop menu before I flashed to the newest firmware. I didn't see anywhere to actually turn off the looping feature (is that an option?)

The video was looping 3 mins properly, but it hadn't recorded any video on the card for 5 previous days. There was about 850mb free on the card out of the 64gb.

Upon boot plugged into the wall the camera showed it was recording properly (with 5 1/2 minutes of space left on the card) but I guess once it hit the 3 min mark and started over something went wrong as the format prompt popped up.

I thought maybe it was the cheap sd card ($21cdn/$16usd for 64gb) not being fully compatible, but with the firmware upgrade resolving the problem right away I can't be sure what caused it. Hopefully it was an abnormal isolated incident.

I will update again after it has successfully (or not) looped once it's back in the car.

My second camera has been stuck in customs since July 26th, but when it arrives I'll leave the original original firmware and test with it before upgrading to see if I can reproduce the issue.
 
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