Why a TeslaCam clip breaks
A Tesla records each camera to its own MP4 file on the USB drive, and closes every file by writing its index, the moov atom. The index lists where each frame sits. The clip that was being written when the car went to sleep, lost power to the USB port, or had its drive pulled out never gets that index, and every player then refuses it.
The footage is on the drive; only the map to it is missing. The tool on this page builds a new index around that footage. It re-encodes nothing, so the picture is the camera's own, byte for byte.
What we tested it on
We took a front and a rear clip from a Tesla, removed the index from each, and repaired them. Every frame came back identical to the original, compared frame by frame.
| Camera | Video | Frames back | Needed another clip? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front | 1280×960 H.264, about 36 fps | 1,061 of 1,061 | No |
| Rear | 1280×960 H.264, about 36 fps | 1,043 of 1,043 | Yes, a rear clip that plays |
The front clip carries its own encoder settings inside the footage, so it came back on its own. The rear clip keeps them only in the index that went missing, so the tool borrowed them from another rear clip. We haven't had repeater clips (left_repeater, right_repeater) to test yet. The check below tells you, for free, whether yours can be rebuilt.
Tesla's cameras record no sound, so the repaired clip is silent like the original.
Copy the clips before anything else
- Plug the USB drive into a computer and open the TeslaCam folder.
- Clips sit in RecentClips, SavedClips and SentryClips. Each file is named with the date, the time and the camera: front, back, left_repeater or right_repeater.
- Copy the broken clip to the computer, and one clip that plays from the same camera, recorded the same day.
- Don't format the drive, in the car or on the computer, until you have a repaired file that plays.
If the computer can't open the drive at all, the damage is to the drive, not to the clip. Copy what you can with a file-recovery program first, then repair the clips that won't play.
Repair it in your browser
- Open the broken clip in the checker on this page. Your browser reads the file from your disk and never uploads it.
- If the checker asks for a reference clip, give it the clip that plays from the same camera: back for back, front for front. It borrows that clip's settings and nothing else.
- Read the result. The checker tells you whether it found the footage and how much of the clip it can rebuild. This step is free.
- Watch the free 5-second preview. It plays at reduced quality with a watermark, enough to see that your footage is back.
- Download the full clip with a paid plan: one video, 3 months or 1 year, and you can cancel anytime. If the repaired video doesn't play, you get a refund.
What it can't bring back
- A 0-byte clip, or one filled with zeros. No footage reached the drive.
- Clips the car deleted or recorded over. Repair works on files you still have; it doesn't undelete.
- Speed, steering and location. The repaired file has the picture only, as the original does.
- A drive no computer can read. Get the files off it first.
If the checker says it can't rebuild your clip, you haven't paid anything.