Missing recording?

[atomicorion]

So my wife was involved in an accident earlier today(it was her fault but thankfully she's alright).
The car(did not fair so well),had its front bumper ripped off,bonnet and (both) headlights scratched and front left fender damaged.
The Mobius recorded just 1 second of the accident(the aftermath).
Every time the vehicle is driven,Mobius turns on and there is a recording, without fail.
But this very time when one needs Mobius the most(in an accident),it did not provide the footage.
I'm somewhat at a loss as to why it recorded only 1 second of footage.
If it did record,this post would be in the "close calls and accidents" thread and not here.

 

[jokiin]

how often do you check the memory card?

 

[alan philp]

What model of car was it and did the airbags go off? The circuit that the Mobius was tapped into might have been cut by the cars control unit after the impact. It might also be a fuse that’s blown on the circuit due to the accident damage. If the battery was low or you have it set to immediate power-off disconnect it will have closed the file and shut down.


I notice the Mobius actually closes the file several seconds prior to losing power… maybe encoding lag?

 

[atomicorion]

how often do you check the memory card?

Pretty much every week,just so I know footage is being recorded.

What model of car was it and did the airbags go off?

It's a Mazda CX7 Turbo Luxury and no the airbags did not deploy which I thought was a bit unusual considering there's about 8 airbags? throughout the car.I guess the angle of the impact(corner of left side fender) was not enough to trigger the airbags?.

The circuit that the Mobius was tapped into might have been cut by the cars control unit after the impact. It might also be a fuse that’s blown on the circuit due to the accident damage. If the battery was low or you have it set to immediate power-off disconnect it will have closed the file and shut down.

I notice the Mobius actually closes the file several seconds prior to losing power… maybe encoding lag?

But how does that explain the loss of any video footage prior to the accident?
And even if a fuse was blown or immediate power-off disconnect was set(which it is),Mobius would've still captured any video footage prior to the accident.

 

[map]

I'm glad your wife is ok.

Could it be that the camera wasn't recording prior to the accident due to a loose power supply, and the impact from the accident jostled the power supply enough to momentarily record the aftermath?

 

[parklawn]

Could it be that the camera wasn't recording prior to the accident due to a loose power supply

A definite possibility. It's happened to me a couple of times, and you wouldn't know unless you happen to look up at the screen or led.

 

[alan philp]

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your post:

The Mobius recorded just 1 second of the accident(the aftermath).

I took that to mean it recorded up to 1 sec after the accident. Do you mean the only recording is a 1 sec clip immediately after the impact? If that’s the case I would suspect a faulty Mobius as a faulty card seems to just stop recordings completely... or the loose cable as map suggests.

 

[atomicorion]

I'm glad your wife is ok.

Could it be that the camera wasn't recording prior to the accident due to a loose power supply, and the impact from the accident jostled the power supply enough to momentarily record the aftermath?

Thanks for your concern.
The usb power supply cable was not loose as I checked after the accident nor did the impact jostled it.

Sorry, I think I misunderstood your post:

I took that to mean it recorded up to 1 sec after the accident. Do you mean the only recording is a 1 sec clip immediately after the impact? If that’s the case I would suspect a faulty Mobius as a faulty card seems to just stop recordings completely... or the loose cable as map suggests.

To the best of my knowledge,the Mobius does not seem to be faulty as I checked it every week to make sure it's recording, which it does,meaning the card is also working otherwise there'd be no recordings at all.
The 1 second clip which the Mobius recorded was after the accident.
Speaking to my wife,she reckons the 1 second clip was about 10-20 seconds after the accident.

 

[map]

If the camera and card were working fine prior to the day of the accident and are both working fine afterwards, a loose or faulty power supply is the only thing I can really think of.

Perhaps if you lived in Tas or the alpine areas there is a chance it could be the camera being "frozen" and failing to record.

Hopefully one of the more knowledgable folk will have an idea.

 

[Bungus]

This is really baffling. Cannot contribute anything new but would like to know what cause this weird behavior especially the timing.

 

[alan philp]

I haven’t really dabbled with the option, but could the Mobius have switched to some sort of motion detection mode?

 

[Bungus]

OP have been checking his card every week and it's OK. Unless he did a FW upgrade or let battery run flat, settings shouldn't change.

 

[alan philp]

I read that too but it shouldn’t be taking 1 sec clips. The battery, Mobius or card might have become faulty since the last time it was checked.

 

[Bungus]

That's the puzzling part. If it records 1 sec post accident it should continue recording. And why no recording prior accident?
I had one time upgrade FW and nothing else, found that Mobius didn't record afterwards. The FW upgrade had changed all my settings. Set it up again and all's well. Still doing periodical checks on the recording red LED though.

 

[atomicorion]

I did change the FW to 0.59 a while back(apparently this FW is best for night capture?) from the original FW when I got the Mobius.
But it was running fine without any issues at all until now.
Another thing I have noticed is that the night footage seems to be more "grainy" now that than before.
Video footage was very clear before.
Other than that,Mobius had no problems with the recording.

 

[jokiin]

0.59 having better night recording has been debunked with blind tests, @Isoprop put together a good demo of this a while ago, there have been a stack of bugfixes since that version though and it makes sense to be running the most recent version as there has been a lot of fixes related to file handling, card support etc between then and now

 

[Error7]

To my mind the only logical explanation is that the camera wasn't powered up prior to the impact but power was connected momentarily at the time of the collision. The power outlet in my wife's car was very loose and this caused the camera to record ok until she drove over a bump in the road or turned a bend sharply. This was enough to stop the recording but then it would start again after a while. I ended up hard wiring the camera into the ignition circuit. End of problem.

 

[atomicorion]

To my mind the only logical explanation is that the camera wasn't powered up prior to the impact but power was connected momentarily at the time of the collision. The power outlet in my wife's car was very loose and this caused the camera to record ok until she drove over a bump in the road or turned a bend sharply. This was enough to stop the recording but then it would start again after a while. I ended up hard wiring the camera into the ignition circuit. End of problem.

As I said in my earlier post : "The usb power supply cable was not loose as I checked after the accident nor did the impact jostled it".
The usb power supply cable was still snugly connected to both the Mobius and the car's cigarette lighter socket after the accident.
Also: "Speaking to my wife,she reckons the 1 second clip was about 10-20 seconds after the accident".
If the usb cable was loose as you say; did it jump back in 10-20 seconds after the accident? while the vehicle has fully stopped?

 

[Error7]

If the usb cable was loose as you say; did it jump back in 10-20 seconds after the accident? while the vehicle has fully stopped?

When the Mobius receives power, it takes quite a few seconds before it actually starts to record. It doesn't do it immediately.

Another factor to add to the equation (which may not apply to you) In my car, when I switch off the ignition, the auxillary sockets and radio etc, stay powered up for a further 60 seconds or until the drivers door is opened, whichever is first. So my Mobius can continue to record for up to a further 60 seconds in addition to the 'power off' settings I have set in the camera.