Rivian Gear Guard didn’t record? How to find out why

Updated October 22, 2026 · by the Overlook team at CTT Apps (about us)

You come back to a new scratch on your Rivian, open the USB drive, and there’s nothing in GearGuardVideo for that afternoon. Sometimes the recording is there and you’re looking in the wrong place; sometimes it never existed. This guide walks through the causes we see most, in the order that finds the answer fastest, and ends with a test so you know it works before you need it.

Rivian changes settings and menus with software updates, and they differ a little between models. Where we describe a setting, look for it under the Gear Guard or camera settings on your touchscreen; the names below are the ones owners usually see.

First: is the recording really missing?

Before changing anything, rule out the three ways a recording that exists can look missing. Each one has fooled us at least once.

• The time is off by hours. Gear Guard file names are in UTC, not local time. An event at 3:51 PM in New York is named …_195151 (19:51). Sorting by name, it looks like it happened in the evening, or the next day. Why the names differ.
• It’s in a different folder. Events you starred are in GearGuardVideo/Starred. If it happened while you were driving or just pulling in, look in IncidentCam or RoadCam instead; Gear Guard is for when the car is parked and locked.
• It’s on a different drive, or in a different vehicle folder. A car can see more than one drive, and a drive that’s been in two cars has a folder for each. How to tell which drive the car uses.

Overlook avoids all three: it reads every vehicle folder on the drive, converts the Gear Guard names from UTC, and shows everything on one day timeline in local time. If the event isn’t on the timeline either, it wasn’t recorded to this drive, and the sections below explain why.

The checklist

1. The Gear Guard video setting

Gear Guard has two parts that people often mix up: the alarm and lights, and the video recording. The video part is its own switch in the Gear Guard settings, and it can be off even when Gear Guard itself shows as on. If you’ve just had the car serviced, reset it, or taken a big software update, check the switch again; it’s the single most common cause.

Gear Guard also only arms when the car is parked and locked. If you stepped away with the car unlocked, or the car didn’t lock because a key was still inside, nothing was watching.

2. The drive the car records to

The car needs a drive it has accepted. Signs that it hasn’t:

• The car keeps asking to format the drive. It wants FAT32 or exFAT, between 128 GB and 2 TB. If it offers to format and there’s nothing you need on the drive, let it. FAT32 or exFAT, and how to format.
• A message such as “Speed testing could not be completed”. The car tests that the drive can keep up with several cameras at once, and a slow drive fails. Cheap flash drives and ordinary SD cards are the usual culprits. What to buy instead.
• No new folders appear. A drive the car is using grows a vehicle folder (model and VIN) with GearGuardVideo inside it as it starts recording.

Also check the port. The drive has to be in the port the car records to, and a hub or adapter between the drive and the car can stop it working. Plug the drive straight in.

3. A full drive, or a failing one

A full drive on its own isn’t a problem: the car records over the oldest footage to make room. What it does mean is that a Gear Guard event from a while ago may already have been replaced by drive footage. With continuous RoadCam recording on, that can happen within days on a small drive. How long your drive keeps footage.

A failing drive is different. Signs of one:

• recent days are missing while older footage is still there;
• files of 0 bytes or a few kilobytes, especially many of them;
• recordings that stop partway through, or won’t play on a computer either;
• the car asking to format a drive it was happily using last week.

Flash memory wears out with constant rewriting, and a dashcam drive is rewritten all the time. If you see these signs, copy off what you need and replace the drive with one built for continuous writing.

4. Where you parked, and what else was on

Depending on the software version, the car can treat some places and modes differently:

• Saved locations. Some versions let you turn Gear Guard off at saved places such as Home, so it doesn’t record every time someone walks past your driveway. Handy, until something happens in the driveway. Check whether yours is set.
• Other modes. Modes that keep the cabin running for people or pets, or that relax security while you’re nearby, can change how Gear Guard behaves. If the event happened while one was on, check what that mode does on your software version.
• A low battery. The car protects its battery, and camera features are among the things it can pause when the charge is low. If the car was parked for a long time or was nearly empty, that may be why.

5. Gear Guard didn’t notice

Gear Guard records when it detects someone or something close to the car. That’s what keeps it from filling the drive with every passing car on a busy street, and it’s also why it can miss things:

• a car that clips yours while driving past quickly may be gone before a recording starts;
• something happening several metres away may not count as close;
• a light touch, such as a door tapping your panel, may not register as contact.

In those cases a different recording often helps. If you drove away soon after, the first minutes of the next drive in RoadCam/DriveStream show the car’s surroundings, and sometimes the other vehicle still parked beside you. That only works with continuous recording on.

Test it before you need it

Five minutes of testing saves finding out the hard way:

1. Check the Gear Guard video setting is on, then lock the car and walk away.
2. After a minute, walk back slowly along one side and stand by the car for a few seconds. Do the same at the other side and at the back.
3. Take the drive out (wait for the car to finish first) and open it in Overlook on a computer.
4. You should see one or more new Gear Guard events, with the time in local time, and every camera playing.

Note which side triggered a recording and how close you were. That tells you roughly what your car will and won’t catch where you usually park.

Keep what it records

Once Gear Guard is recording, the next risk is losing the event to the car recording over it. Copy anything important off the drive soon (what happens when it fills up). Overlook Plus can back up Gear Guard events, incidents and saved clips each time you open the drive, and an Overlook Cache backs them up from the car on its own whenever it’s on Wi-Fi.

Related guides

• Gear Guard vs RoadCam vs Incident Cam: what each Rivian camera mode recordsWhen each mode records, where it saves, and which to check after something happens.
• FAT32 or exFAT for your Rivian’s USB driveThe car records to both. What actually differs, the size and speed Rivian asks for, and how to format each.
• Choosing an SD card or SSD for Rivian Gear GuardWhat A2, V30, U3 and “high endurance” promise, why random writes matter, and how to test what you bought.