All V2 and Pan V2 cameras all turned off at the same time today

Cameras
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1

Today, all of my V2 (3) and my Pan Cam V2 (1) cameras, showed as off (not offline, but off) in the app, and I confirmed that the lights on all these cameras were off (V2 lights on the back, Pan Cam V2 on the front). Not red, not blue, not yellow, but completely off. But all of my V3 (9) and Pan Cam V3 (2) cameras are fine.

I just viewed all of these cameras last night, and all cameras were working fine last night.

The Pan Cam V2 is on firmware 4.49.1.47, and the V2 cameras are on firmware 4.9.9.1851, and 3 days ago I updated to Android app 2.40.0 (190). The app reports these as the latest versions available for my devices.

I tried the “Restart camera” option on several of these, but it said the restart failed.

I powered down and powered-up the Pan Cam V2. It powered up, red light, did its swivel thing, blue light, and then shut off a moment later. I reset the power again, and it stayed on this time after doing its thing.

Pushing the “power” icon on the V2 camera view multiple times, and force-closing the app, and the rear light finally came on solid blue, and I had a live view for a moment on all cameras.

Then all the V2 cameras showed as “Device is offline (error code 90)” in the app, and going to the camera view still didn’t bring anything up, like it sometimes does even when it says it is offline, and the blue light was slowly flashing on the back.

I reset the power on one of the V2s, and the rear light flashed blue, yellow, blue, yellow, etc, then after several seconds, flashed blue fast, then solid blue, and the camera is now online.

I am going to leave the other two V2 cameras alone and not reset the power, to see if they will come back after a while by themselves. The rear light on these is slowly flashing blue now, and the IR lights are on (they are in the dark).

So there is a workaround to get them back online, but I have never had a single issue with any of my various cameras or other wyze devices since the time since I have had them (up to 2 years for the V2s), so it is really weird that all the V2 cameras and the Pan Cam V2 would all turn OFF today, with no changes to anything in my network or environment, no power outages, no internet outages, no disconnects from any other devices in my network, IoT or otherwise.

I’ll write this up as something to remember in the mean time - I wanted to share my experience, in case someone else sees anything like this.

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A followup:

I left the other two V2 cameras alone to see if they would fix themselves, and looked at them an hour later, and they have come back online by themselves.

This is what I was hoping for.

I don’t have enough smart plugs for every camera, so if I were out of town, then there is no way to power cycle the cameras, so I was hoping that they would fix themselves, and they did.

I only have one wyze camera (the Pan Cam V2) on a smart plug, and I have only used it once in 18 months, and maybe I didn’t wait long enough to see if the camera would have fixed itself.

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Another followup today:

The 2 V2 cameras that I left alone, which came back online an hour later last night, are offline again tonight, and the light on the back, is slowly blinking blue.

I will again leave these alone, to see if they come back online by themselves.

4

And again, those cameras are now back online by themselves again, a few hours after I found them to be offline.

Its hard to see if it is the same time each day. I am probably just noticing it about the same time, because that is when I have time to check on things.

5

I’ve seen similar behavior before.
The internet connection between the wyze device and your wireless router likely is bad/short/saturated/unreachable by the device.
Your ISP may have lost the internet connection.
There may be a billing/payment issue with your ISP.

Easy test…unplug the cameras, move to a central location like the kitchen counter, plug in to various outlets behind the toaster and microwave and above the stove or by the phone or whatever, place them all side by side. Don’t touch them - just see if they all work when near each other and near your modem.

Report back in 24 hours what you observed.

Just a suggestion.

Many of us are puzzled why sometimes a device - usually my pan & scan v1s - would randomly be unavailable to view live or stop recording events. I solved this buy purchasing more cameras and covering the area from multiple angles just in case. For example, I had a garage that stored my RV, motorcycles, boat, and classic cars with 8 cameras, all mounted too high to reach without a ladder. Cameras were cheap back then - $25 each or so - so cost wasn’t an issue for me. it may be for you/others, and i understand that.

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@B57 Do you have SD cards in your cams for continuous recording?

I had this happen once and all my cams went offline within seconds of each other. I could tell because the SD recording stopped.

The OG recovered after a few minutes and the rest stayed off. I didn’t notice this until 1-2 hours later but I could just press the power icon for each cam in the app to turn them back on. There were no system wide issues in Wyze at that time so I’m not sure why it happened.

Since then I’ve tried to replicate this but neither power outage nor internet outage could trigger this behavior. The cams always just come back on on their own just fine.

Update: Thanks @WorldwideDave, it was kind of confusing so I’ve updated my reply to say who I was asking!

7

Good question about the continuous recording and the SD cards. I think that post was for the original poster, not me. I have cards in everything including the outdoor bases. In some cases the SD cards cost more than what I paid for the cameras. Taken me years to get all the devices I have. Glad I did it slowly vs. all in one sitting.

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Actually @WorldwideDave I do have a question for you. When you have multiple cameras covering the same area and getting motion detection at the same time, do your event videos all get uploaded without issues?

Recently I noticed a pattern of missed event/notification when I have 2-3 cameras triggered at the same time. Only 1-2 of them make it with the upload.

9

Good question.
I feel like one notification is enough to get me to look at my phone or review events.
I think all uploaded fine. Cam plus annual plan. Longer videos recorded.
I didn’t have my notifications dialed in at that time though. I turn off many notifications as I would get hundreds a day.

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Thanks @WorldwideDave . I have my notifications turned off too, but the one Person/Vehicle notification I was expecting didn’t show up because the camera seemed to fail the upload. I might need to add another node to my Mesh…

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Dont bother to contact support. All they say is try this, try that bla bla bla. They wont replace my new outdoor cam with a battery that lasts 2 weeks. Same settings as my v1 cams that last 4 months. Try Eufy cams, they are great and no charge for video capture.

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Check through the playback stuff to see if the camera got it, but it just wasn’t uploaded to cloud as an event.

That would be good to know.

I do have 4 node mesh and plaster and brick walls in one place.

Another house has 2 node mesh but is a smaller house with steel, rebar, and concrete.

I do things on 5G where I can, but most wyze devices I have are 2.4 GHz.

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I feel like for a while my V1 outdoor cams drained very, very fast. I was bringing them in and out every 3-5 days to recharge them. I tweaked a setting somewhere and it mellowed out. Now it is every 3 months or so for the one camera I have left not on a solar panel. It maybe records a cat walking by every week, and then 4-6 videos when the trash truck roars by.

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My v2 had the exact same settings as my (3) v1 settings. I recharged 4 times in 4 weeks. Unacceptable. Without cam+ it’s only a snapshot and usually too late when Subject passes. Eufy doesn’t charge unless you sign for cloud. It has 16Gb storage and you can upload videos. Videos are 20 seconds and will retrigger if Subject is still. Moving. Also 180 day battery charge.

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There is a concensus I believe that with outdoor cameras, the V1 especially would start recording after a cat walked by – like I’d see an inch of the tail at the beginning of the recording, then another 30 seconds of just blank, no movement.

I don’t have an outdoor v2.

I do have the normal cam v3 and they are stellar. I also Love my cam OG very much. The night vision is amazing.