Recording - Empty Recording file

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  • I own a Formuler Z8, with a 128G USB3 Key connected.

    Lastest Firmware.

    When i record an movie, the "Red Dot on top right screen" is here, and say "Recording". ( Screen Shot 3 )

    I press Stop recording, and i get the message "The Recording will stop, and become avalaible in the Recordings Section". ( Screen Shot 2 )

    When i go in the "Recordings", i always get the error : " Warning : Empty recording file." ( Screen Shot 1 )

    Thanx!! Any Help appreciated :smiling_face:

  • I also have Z8 (Firmware 1.4.41 with MOL2 7.5.0) with a 128G USB3.0 (exFAT filesystem) device connected and see sometimes strange behaviour also:

    Sometimes the recording is visible in recordings but when trying to play it, MOL2 plays another recorded program.

    Sometimes it cannot play the recorded file at all. No error, just nothing happens.

    Sometimes files cannot be deleted using MOL2 or the Z8 File explorer. Then I use linux to delete the .ts files.

    Possible solutions/analysis, what if you put the USB device in a PC/laptop

    1) can you verify the .ts filesize there?

    2) Let windows/mac/linux do a filesystem check.

    3) Play the .ts file(s) in VLC on a PC/laptop.

    4) Try to copy the .ts file to the PC/laptop and then try to play locally. Sometimes even copy-ing to the PC fails. Then step 5) can help.

    5) Use this TestDisk tool to force-copy the file(s) to PC/Laptop.

    Doing a (Windows 10) chkdsk on the usb drive gives me this error:

    Corruption was found while examining files in directory \Recordings\ (11).

    An unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 470).

    I've combined and separated the following chkdsk options, all gave that same result: /F /R /X /offlinescanandfix /freeorphanedchains /markclean

    I googled that long error code and found no fixes.

    Running exfatfsck (linux tool) results in various "unknown entry" messages of types "0xe5" and "0xe7". Unfortunately exfatfsck cannot fix filesystems.

    However with TestDisk I was able to copy "corrupted" files. After I copied them at least I was able to remove them (when mounting the stick to a linux PC/Laptop and using a simple "rm" on the "corrupted" file(s)) on the USB stick to recover the space without losing the recordings.

    I guess the only way to get rid of the filesystem corruption (caused by Z8 firmware OR MOL2) is to copy all the files to a PC (and use the TestDisk tool for the files that cannot be copied using explorer.exe), then format the drive again, run chkdsk and make sure no errors appear, and then copy all the files/dirs back from the PC/laptop to the USB drive again.

    Sometimes it is required to use Windows "diskmgmt.msc" (or the Mac/Linux equivalent) to first create a disk partition before you can create a volume on the usb drive. To keep things simple make sure the partition and the volume are both 100% of the drive.

    And somehow the MOL2 Devs need to investigate this. Since multiple people are having issues with some (similar) USB drives?

    Edited 4 times, last by ddd: Added the "cannot delete file(s)" scenario. Added diskmgmt.msc hints. (October 25, 2019 at 10:15 PM).