Tesla Owners Seeing Rare Warning for Blocked Front Camera

As posted on Reddit, a recent Tesla software update has apparently added a new “Traffic control feature may be degraded” warning for when the front camera is blinded or its sight is otherwise blocked.

The 2020.40.3 update started rolling out to Teslas earlier this week, and the update brought with it a host of new features, along with fixes for some pretty significant issues. A Reddit user reported seeing the following warning on their Tesla dashboard following software update 2020.40.3:

Image: u/TheOperatingOperator on Reddit

While the user who created the thread explained that they’ve only seen this warning after installing the latest software update, another user went on to state that the system has had this warning in its arsenal since as early as August of this year.

The warning in question appears when a Tesla’s front camera has its sight blocked by a foreign object, or when it is blinded by some kind of light — sunlight, in most cases. In either case, the camera’s image processing becomes impaired, resulting in the deterioration of Tesla’s Traffic Control feature.

Many noted with fall occurring the sun is now lower in the sky during fall and winter, resulting in these rare warning messages starting to pop up.

Whether this feature came with software version 2020.40.3 or is older, the fact remains the latter has brought with it a bunch of useful new features.