Mobius seems to "freeze" after recording a few minutes

[Gabolinche]

A while ago I bought a Mobius to install in the wife's car. I use a Panorama II in my car but the wife thinks it's "ugly and big" so the Mobius was a perfect fit with her requirements to allow the installation. I must say I'm impressed by the size of the thing, you keep reading about it but never quite grasp it until you hold one in your hand. Video quality is excellent, not as good as the Panorama II but almost there (at least during the day).

Anyway, I configured and installed the Mobius (FW 1.13) a couple of months ago. I'm no expert on the thing and have been trying to read as much as I can on this forum, but every time I drive her car I notice this behavior:

1. I turn on the car (no ignition problems like others have reported, apparently this car keeps voltage high enough during ignition)
   
2. Three fast blinks from the back red LED indicate the battery's level.
3. Then a steady slow blinking from the back red LED (in sync with the top yellow LED) indicate auto-recording is happening on mode 1.
4. Drive around for a few minutes and so far so good, everything is being recorded.
5. After a few minutes the back and top LEDs stop blinking and "freeze", both LEDs are not blinking but constantly lit (back red, top yellow) and no recording is happening at this time.
6. Pressing any button in the camera does not change a thing, both LEDs keep frozen.
   
7. Disconnecting power (either pulling the plug or turning off the car) does not change a thing, both LEDs keep frozen.
   
8. Pressing buttons after disconnecting power still doesn't work.
9. Let the camera "rest" for anywhere between 10 - 45 minutes and eventually both LEDs turn off.
10. Apply power again and I get three fast blinks from the back red LED and auto-recording starts again as if nothing had happened before.
11. Go to step 4 and repeat.

Any ideas on what may be happening? At first I thought the camera was freezing up and I can't do anything until the battery runs out (see step 9). But then I apply power again on step 10 and get three fast blinks meaning the battery is still full. Also, on step 8 I've tried everything from briefly pressing buttons to keeping them pressed for a minute to pressing combinations of buttons, but nothing works.

Could this be an overheating problem? I touch the aluminum heat sinks and they're pretty hot, not burning hot but almost. The weird thing is that this keeps happening on any day (extreme heat around 38°C and cool night weather around 25°C). The minutes it runs normally (step 4) tend to vary, sometimes it runs ok for more than 40 minutes, sometimes it just runs for about 5 minutes and freezes. From mental notes, time running doesn't seem to correlate with ambient temperature. "Resting" period of step 9 also varies, I've had times when the LEDs turn off 10 minutes after power is disconnected and times when they take more than 40 minutes to turn off.

I don't have the camera with me so I can't take a pic of the current configuration but, off the top of my head: it's running firmware v1.13, motion detection is off, power on delay fast, power on auto record is set to both, power-off delay 10s, data rate standard.

Any help and/or suggestions are greatly appreciated! If I can get this little wonder to work as reliably as my Panorama II it will definitely replace it in every car (front and back). Cheers!

 

[reverend]

A daft question but have you tried upgrading the firmware as versions since 1.13 included better compatibility with various memory cards - also have you tried a different MicroSD card in there to try and see if it's the card or the camera?

 

[Gabolinche]

A daft question but have you tried upgrading the firmware as versions since 1.13 included better compatibility with various memory cards

I thought about going up to 1.20 (before finding out just today that 2.10 is out) but after reading the experiences with low light I decided to leave it at 1.13 for the time being. I'll try 2.10 just to see if it fixes anything, doesn't hurt to try.

also have you tried a different MicroSD card in there to try and see if it's the card or the camera?

That's a good point, I'll install another memory card just to rule that out. I'll see if the wife lets me borrow her car this afternoon to try and speed up the ruling out process...

 

[reverend]

To be honest I was happy with it at 2.10 anyway - a bit of noise never hurt anyone

Cards can cause random problems as I'm finding out - might be worth running it through h2testw to make sure it's actually ok.

 

[steph280]

Had that issue with a Class10 micro SD card. Swapped with a cheap Kingston Class4 and fixed it. Go figure.

 

[Gabolinche]

Had that issue with a Class10 micro SD card. Swapped with a cheap Kingston Class4 and fixed it. Go figure.

Another vote for the memory card issue then... Thanks...

Since I couldn't get permission to borrow the wife's car (apparently I can't drive it without her supervision), I unmounted the camera and brought it with me to experiment. Tried updating the firmware but I'm using a 64gb class 10 Kingston card and exFAT is not supported while updating so downgrading to another card will have to wait until I get home tonight. Nevertheless, I connected the camera here in my desk and it started recording. I timed the moment from when it started recording (blinking) to when it froze: exactly 3 minutes. And guess what? My clip length is set to 3 minutes. I'm guessing the camera is freezing when it has to write a clip and start recording a new one, sometimes it will freeze in the 1st clip change and sometimes it will freeze in the N-th change. Seems like trying another memory card will have pretty good results, but will have to wait until I get home...

 

[Odi]

Sounds like your issue is the overwriting with 64GB cards

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mobius-64gb-overwrite-when-full.4579/

I had the same issue with the 64GB Patriot Class 10 I bought until I formatted with SD Formatter 4.0 with Full (Overwrite) and Format Adjust Size On

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mobius-64gb-overwrite-when-full.4579/page-2#post-70424

PS. You can get it to power off by pressing the reset button on the back (I used the lens hex tool that was included to push it). After formatting, I left it running on my desk overnight to confirm that it would overwrite correctly.

 

[Gabolinche]

Sounds like your issue is the overwriting with 64GB cards

That sounds like a quite good possibility... The SD card is definitely full so that might be it... I'll give it a shot... Thanks...

 

[Rexy03]

32g class 4 cards seem to be the less problematic

 

[Gabolinche]

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mobius-64gb-overwrite-when-full.4579/

Well, after reading through that thread it definitely sounds like that is the problem I'm having (overwriting a full 64gb SD card is buggy).

I had the same issue with the 64GB Patriot Class 10 I bought until I formatted with SD Formatter 4.0 with Full (Overwrite) and Format Adjust Size On

I'm in the process of formatting the card and will continue using the camera until it fills up. I hope to report in a couple of days if my problem was solved... Thanks a lot for the help!

 

[Isoprop]

Well, after reading through that thread it definitely sounds like that is the problem I'm having (overwriting a full 64gb SD card is buggy).


I'm in the process of formatting the card and will continue using the camera until it fills up. I hope to report in a couple of days if my problem was solved... Thanks a lot for the help!

You didn't say which FW version you have installed. If you have the latest v2.10 then you'll have to in-camera format your 64GB card. This will format the card to FAT32. V2.10 no longer supports exFAT.
I have been testing different brands of 64GB cards on different HW versions. The firmware is v2.10. My results aren't yet conclusive, but here are a few important tips:
Your external power supply MUST be capable of supplying a constant 1A current with a stable 5V. Voltage spikes are not good.
Your internal battery must be in a good state and not 'puffed'. I haven't done any tests with the supercap.

 

[Gabolinche]

Well, I'm happy to report that the Mobius 64gb Overwrite When Full post was exactly the solution to my issue. First I tested my 64gb Kingston SDXC card with h2testw just to make sure everything was ok (it was). Then I reformatted the card with SDFormatter 4.0 as per @Odi 's comment and the instructions in the post. After that, the camera has been recording seamlessly for about 40 consecutive hours already having loop-recorded over 100% of the videos a couple of times.

You didn't say which FW version you have installed. If you have the latest v2.10 then you'll have to in-camera format your 64GB card. This will format the card to FAT32. V2.10 no longer supports exFAT.

Thanks, Isoprop, I was using 1.13 and then upgraded to 1.20 but I don't think that is what actually fixed the problem. I'll keep running 1.20 and stay away from 2.10 until the first incremental update comes out after the big update. Any clue as to why exFAT support was dropped in 2.10? I really like the fact that my Mobius (1.20) supports exFAT natively contrary to my Panorama which requires FAT32.

 

[jokiin]

When was the last time you tried exFAT in the Panorama?

 

[Gabolinche]

When was the last time you tried exFAT in the Panorama?

About 6 months ago or more... I finished tinkering with it a while ago and since then it has been running so stable that I haven't had the need to tinker again with it anymore. I don't even know which firmware version it's running... Is there some newer version that came out in these months?

 

[jokiin]

Yeah later versions can support exFAT

 

[Isoprop]

Well, I'm happy to report that the Mobius 64gb Overwrite When Full post was exactly the solution to my issue. First I tested my 64gb Kingston SDXC card with h2testw just to make sure everything was ok (it was). Then I reformatted the card with SDFormatter 4.0 as per @Odi 's comment and the instructions in the post. After that, the camera has been recording seamlessly for about 40 consecutive hours already having loop-recorded over 100% of the videos a couple of times.


Thanks, Isoprop, I was using 1.13 and then upgraded to 1.20 but I don't think that is what actually fixed the problem. I'll keep running 1.20 and stay away from 2.10 until the first incremental update comes out after the big update. Any clue as to why exFAT support was dropped in 2.10? I really like the fact that my Mobius (1.20) supports exFAT natively contrary to my Panorama which requires FAT32.

I don't know why exFAT was dropped - maybe because people complained they couldn't update the FW with 64GB cards. There are always two sides to the coin...
But I agree, I liked the exFAT support. Oh well.