K2 shuts down for no reason/at random

The car dashcam is also dual-channel (Viofo A129 Duo). So it's the best test I can arrange.

Received the new K2 power supply. No chance to install it yet. Swapping the power supply is not trivial, due to Innovv's decision to furnish only bare wire ends.
 
Plenty of riding between last update and now, power supply is still working.

I've left it taped to the outside of the frame. Seems super unlikely that would have anything to do with anything, but who knows.

I'll leave it there for another couple of months just for giggles. It's supposed to be fully weatherproof after all, so should be fine. Just doesn't look that great.
 
lj4i5fgl.jpg


This is the placement I ended up with. Didn't want to take the chance that the power supply would malfunction again, should I place it inside the frame.

I did turn the power supply around. Originally, I had the wires exiting downward. The position shown allows more slack on all the wires. They are fully sealed at the junction with the case, so water intrusion shouldn't be a problem.

The black tape is self-amalgamating silicone. No adhesive left on the frame or power supply, if I need to remove the tape. Can be moved to see the frame label, if required.

With this placement, I can still see the blue LED if I look from the right way. It's actually easier to see in daylight than before, because it's shaded by the silicone tape.
 
Nope, even this setup doesn't work 100%. It's been fine since that post in late February...until a few days ago, when the stupid piece of junk shut down for absolutely no reason during a ride.

As before, it wouldn't stay on long enough to do anything, even when manually activated. Stayed that way until well after I got home.

When I pulled the SD card, I found several <50 MB, unplayable video files.

I suspect the DVR gets overheated and shuts down without warning. Even when it's not particularly hot out. I don't know how else to explain these shutdowns, since it's only started happening again with warmer weather.

Either that or I have a third bad power supply.

I asked Innovv whether the DVR will overheat & shut down, & how to tell whether it's about to, but they haven't answered yet.
 
To still have these unreliability problems most of a year later is absolutely infuriating. I am ready to get rid of this K2 and try the Thinkware M1 motorcycle dashcam. Need to read some reviews first.
 
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Nope, even this setup doesn't work 100%. It's been fine since that post in late February...until a few days ago, when the stupid piece of junk shut down for absolutely no reason during a ride.

As before, it wouldn't stay on long enough to do anything, even when manually activated. Stayed that way until well after I got home.

When I pulled the SD card, I found several <50 MB, unplayable video files.

I suspect the DVR gets overheated and shuts down without warning. Even when it's not particularly hot out. I don't know how else to explain these shutdowns, since it's only started happening again with warmer weather.

Either that or I have a third bad power supply.

I asked Innovv whether the DVR will overheat & shut down, & how to tell whether it's about to, but they haven't answered yet.
from your symptoms I would look at a possible memory card issue, what card do you use, how often do you format the card?

@OCD Tronic can follow up with @RockThinking and see if anything else to check
 
Long time since i have seen RockThinking around, hope he is well out there.
 
if you click his latest activity it say "The news feed is currently empty. " but maybe just cuz he is looking and not posting.
 
I've seen a suspect memory card cause similar quirky issues. The cards pass all computer tests but still have some underlying issues.
I would test with another card. K2 has been very reliable and solid since updating the power supplies and the latest firmware.
Make sure you're on the latest firmware 0.67
 
I use a Samsung High Endurance 128 GB card, formatted about once a month, just whenever I want to pull the card to view videos. Recently I've been formatting it about once a week as I try to troubleshoot this latest powering-off issue.

This is the exact same type SD card I use in my other dashcam, a Viofo A129, and have done for nearly a year without issue in that device. I treat it about the same way - pull the card to verify proper recording, and format before putting it back in the dashcam - once a month or so.

Yes, I checked both after purchase to verify their performance. They came in genuine packaging, and passed h2testw testing. No reason to think either is counterfeit.

I do have an older, 16 GB Sandisk Ultra card (U1 speed) that I use for loading firmware updates on both dashcams. Tell you what, I'll format it and use it for recording for the next week or so, just to see if the K2 behaves differently.

Meanwhile, here's some more data from yesterday's riding, with the usual 128 GB Samsung SD card:

One trip was less than 5 minutes. K2 started up and recorded normally the entire time. K2's WiFi was connected to my phone as usual.

About 2 hours later, I took a longer ride. This is where it gets weird. FWIW, I use 3-minute clips.

The K2 powered up and began recording at 18:04:42. From the video it looks like this is when I turned the bike's key on, in my friend's garage. But it only recorded for 1 minute 24 seconds. This clip has a "wrench" flag in Dashcam Viewer, which says "Bad GPS time value detected in at least one point. Applying a fix."

Meanwhile the K2 was connected to my phone's WiFi, so I assumed was recording normally. Nope. It didn't record the following 30 minutes or so.

The next video clip is timestamped 18:42:22, is abnormally small (36 MB) and is unplayable.

The one after that is timestamped 18:55:42, and is normal, with correct timestamp and filesize. Plays fine.

Same story for the next clip (18:58:43).

Though I was out riding for the entire period from around 18:00 to 19:30, there are only 2 more clips after that.

One is timestamped 19:01:43 and is almost the size of a full 3-minute clip (~300 MB), but is unplayable.

The next one is stamped 19:04:27. Small file (~20 MB), unplayable.

Nothing after that.

While I was out, I noticed that the K2's WiFi was no longer connected, some time around probably 18:30. I stopped and looked - the K2 was powered off. No activity LEDs, no WiFi connection. Tried to turn it back on - same thing as I've seen previously, where it would start to power up but wouldn't stay on. Gave up, rode home. Pulled over after I got off the highway, again manually turned the K2 back on (using the silver button). That was around 19:00. It is now clear that though the K2 looked like it was working normally after that, and until I parked at home, it was either recording corrupted files or not recording at all.

So there are actually 2 things going on here:

--The K2 can be connected to WiFi, and appear to be working normally, but either not recording at all, or recording unplayable, corrupted video files.

--The K2 will also shut itself off and then refuse to stay on when manually turned back on, seemingly at random. I thought it may have had something to do with heat the last 2 times, but now I'm not so sure.

WTF.

I did order a new Sandisk High Endurance 256 GB SD card. I had been planning a storage upgrade anyway. Meanwhile I suppose I'll run the existing, 128 GB Samsung card through some tests.

BTW, the picture below shows where the K2 DVR is installed on my Vstrom. You are looking at the inside of the right side fairing, from the left side of the forks, K2 DVR is at upper left. It is stuck to the plastic with some Velcro. There is a big vent at the front of the fairing (to left of picture) so the DVR should receive plenty of airflow when moving at any speed. I can't imagine how it could be overheating here, if it is designed to work when under a seat (where it would get much much less air).

ONzsHiSm.jpg
 
The existing SD card (Samsung 128 GB High Endurance) got through a full h2testw run without errors. Not surprising, I never had any indication that it was the problem. Results:

Code:
Warning: Only 122102 of 122103 MByte tested.
Test finished without errors.
You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.
Writing speed: 36.7 MByte/s
Reading speed: 82.6 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

Not sure what else I can do to verify a working SD card. I've never had any indication of a problem with this one.

I received the new 256 GB SanDisk High Endurance card last weekend, and ran it through h2testw. Here are the results:

Code:
Warning: Only 243950 of 243952 MByte tested.
Test finished without errors.
You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.
Writing speed: 72.1 MByte/s
Reading speed: 82.9 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

Interesting that the write speed is nearly double on the 256 GB card vs. the 128 GB. Don't know why that would be.

Installed the 256 GB card in the K2. No mysterious shutoffs so far...but it's only been a week.
 
h2testw just confirms the card is real, not always a good indicator of how well a card might work in the camera
 
Which is incredibly frustrating. I've had zero problems with the same model card in the other dashcam. It would be really nice if the K2 gave some kind of error message if it doesn't "like" the SD card, vs. simply shutting down for no apparent reason. If in fact that is what was happening.
 
Yep, it definitely wasn't the SD card. Over the last few days, the K2 has started not only shutting down randomly, but sometimes failing to turn on when I turn on the bike.

Sometimes I can manually turn on the K2 (pressing the big silver button) and it will stay on until after I shut down the bike. Sometimes it will just turn itself off again.

I'm beyond frustrated with this piece of junk.

I contacted my vendor and he said he's going to consult with the factory. Don't know what that will accomplish however as I've already had a replacement DVR and 2 replacement power supplies. Maybe next we'll swap the cameras & GPS antenna? Those are the only parts remaining from the original install.
 
well a dodgy / faulty camera can actually totally trip up a system, you might want to try with just 1 of the 2 cameras plugged in at a time ( each to its own connector )
If that dont give any different results maybe try each camera one at a time in the same input to the DVR.
One of the first advises in narrowing down issues with car dual channel systems are to try and unplug the rear camera ( the only one on a wire in car systems )
But as both are wires in a MC system, it could be one or the other.

I will however say you have been patient with this, so nothing lagging on your part.
 
I'm not sure it is possible to operate the K2 with the rear camera disconnected - it won't connect in the app if you have both disconnected.

However I am done troubleshooting; fixing things is up to the vendor/manufacturer now.

I did have one idea that I'm not sure whether it is brilliant or stupid: There is a USB port on the DVR that one can use the power the unit. It is intended for bench testing/off-bike operation, but perhaps I can use it to power the K2 since the "proper" power supply has been so very unreliable.

The connection would not be as robust or weatherproof as with the power cube, but I can mostly fix that with the right kinds of tape.

Since the circuit is switched, that would mean I can't use K2's parking mode, but I don't use that anyway.

Off to the garage to experiment, and maybe have a test ride.
 
One drawback to the simplified, USB power supply scheme is clear: The DVR cannot power down cleanly, so the clips being recorded at shutdown are corrupted & unplayable.

Even so, that is much better than having the K2 not power up, and turn off at random, which is what I've been putting up with off and on for almost a year.

If I use 1-minute clips, the problem is not a big one. I typically don't care about anything that happened during the 1 minute after I've parked.

I had to shave rubber off one of my USB cables to plug it in to the DVR. The micro USB port is recessed in a channel too narrow for the vast majority of USB A-to-micro B cables.

Garage test was successful. I got 9 solid minutes of video (three, 3-minute clips per camera) and one pair of corrupted, partial clips by leaving the DVR powered up 10 minutes via USB.

Going to tape the USB cable in place & go for a test ride. If successful, will figure out more permanent installation.
 
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