No recording on Mini Advanced Car Eye 2>0

[minielec]

Hi
I've had my mini for about 6 months, always hear the dashcam say 'device recording' when I start the engine and 'recording stopped' when I turn it off. Never had any need to look at the videos until today when an hgv clipped the back of me. I've taken the SIM card out of the camera and plugged it in to my pc, but can only seem to find 4 clips on there - has anyone else had this problem of the camera not recording for months on end please?

 

[dash riposki]

How big is the memory card?

Have you checked for locked 'incident' files, in a second folder? Files saved from bumpy roads?


you can't ignore these cams. Even the best ones you have to check them frequently to make sure they are functioning properly.
Memory cards fail, cards fill up with useless locked files, etc

 

[kamkar]

Welcome to the forum.

Not familiar with this brand / camera.
If it is on old hardware there are some risks.

1: with enough events stored as read only, there would be 0 space for regular driving footage, but if you just have 4 files thats probably not it.
2: old hardware would sit there and appear to record but actually not doing that, new hardware will alarm if there is a memory card or other issue preventing recording.

There are also the risk of fake memory cards, this will be a small card that is made to look like a larger card, but it will only store the original amount of data, just on a PC it would say for instance that it is a 64 GB card when in truth it is just 2 GB

You shoud test your memory card in a computer using the H2testw software, maybe format it with the SD formatter tool from SDorg. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

Even new smarter dashcams, you should never forget about the camera, it is a good idea yo inspect the memory card every couple of months, when i do this on the PC with a 256GB large card, and i focus on first and last recordings in drive sessions it take me about 10 minutes ( just making sure the files can open and play and for me to recognize where it is, so i only play a few seconds of every file i inspect, or it would take a very long time to do )
Needless to say drive sessions most often start and end in familiar places, so this would be where you live, where you work, family and other things you do and shopping ASO, if you are anything like me you will soon learn you drive the same roads again and again.

You should also format the memory card in the dashcam every few months.

The 4 files you do have are those old recordings ?

 

[minielec]

Welcome to the forum.

Not familiar with this brand / camera.
If it is on old hardware there are some risks.

1: with enough events stored as read only, there would be 0 space for regular driving footage, but if you just have 4 files thats probably not it.
2: old hardware would sit there and appear to record but actually not doing that, new hardware will alarm if there is a memory card or other issue preventing recording.

There are also the risk of fake memory cards, this will be a small card that is made to look like a larger card, but it will only store the original amount of data, just on a PC it would say for instance that it is a 64 GB card when in truth it is just 2 GB

You shoud test your memory card in a computer using the H2testw software, maybe format it with the SD formatter tool from SDorg. https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

Even new smarter dashcams, you should never forget about the camera, it is a good idea yo inspect the memory card every couple of months, when i do this on the PC with a 256GB large card, and i focus on first and last recordings in drive sessions it take me about 10 minutes ( just making sure the files can open and play and for me to recognize where it is, so i only play a few seconds of every file i inspect, or it would take a very long time to do )
Needless to say drive sessions most often start and end in familiar places, so this would be where you live, where you work, family and other things you do and shopping ASO, if you are anything like me you will soon learn you drive the same roads again and again.

You should also format the memory card in the dashcam every few months.

The 4 files you do have are those old recordings ?

Hi kamkar - I ran the test you suggested - it completed without errors. It's a 32 GB card and that's what it showed up as on the test. The 4 files are recordings that just show a photo as a still image, but when I press PLAY they turn black and I can just hear some sound. They are all about 6-8 weeks apart, which I really don't understand. The app on my phone for the camera has never worked either - a problem with Apple Car Play conflicting with it...

 

[minielec]

How big is the memory card?

Have you checked for locked 'incident' files, in a second folder? Files saved from bumpy roads?


you can't ignore these cams. Even the best ones you have to check them frequently to make sure they are functioning properly.
Memory cards fail, cards fill up with useless locked files,

Hi dash riposki - I'm reluctant to format the memory card as it said that everything on it will be deleted? The 4 files are recordings that just show a photo as a still image, but when I press PLAY they turn black and I can just hear some sound. They are all about 6-8 weeks apart - no logic to it...

 

[kamkar]

Could it be the camera are set to only save events, meaning triggering some sensor ( often G - sensor )
You could test that by hitting / flicking the camera while it is on, if that generate saved recordings then the camera seemingly only save events.
It is not uncommon for cameras to also save a pic when a sensor is triggered in a event, i find that very useful as 3-4 weeks later when i pull the card it is not always immediately clear why i have pushed the manual event button.
I have also made it a habit to say out loud why i pressed the button, cuz some times the reason might be a car up ahead running a red light, and in the footage it look even further away due to the optical properties of wide angle lenses.
But normally the locked event files go in a folder named RO ( Read Only ) or maybe event, some cameras i think could also add a suffix to the file name to prevent them from automatic overwriting when the memory card are full.
The pictures go in a folder named pictures.

Have you tried to press your event button to generate a event ? just to see if that do something different VS what ever have made your camera save those random things ?

Strange way to go about it though, all other dahscams record all the time, and then save events if there are any, that of course is a bigger workload on the memory card VS saving a single event now and then.
Maybe there is a option to have it record all the time and save events like ordinary cameras
I have googled the camera and it dont look like something i have seen before, which are rare cuz most often a car or other brand just slab their name on a existing camera from X maker.

Also maybe in settings of the camera there is a return to default option ? some times people have done something unfortunate, default should do the basics just fine.
When i get a new camera all i do is change the time zone ( +1 normally and +2 now that we have summer time ) and then if not factory i use 3 minute file sizes - best image quality / bitrate and then i turn G- sensors ASO off as i do not want bad roads to create false event recordings.


Then again if you just got "shunted" and the camera only saving events then that should have been saved too.

 

[kamkar]

Could it be you have to use some dedicated player / APP to use the camera ? some dashcams have done things like that even if it is rather silly.

 

[Mtrev]

The old advanced car eye needed to use the bmw viewer to show properly if I remember correctly, I wonder if that’s still the case with the new one. What does your instruction manual say about viewing videos?
Also definitely check the settings as suggested by kamkar, would be a logical reason for so few videos.