If you have the ability to scroll back thru all footage on the SD Card using the “View Playback” link within the live stream, how is the Greyed out Playback Button in the Events Player screen preventing that? With the Event playing, you have the exact date and time the Event was recorded so that you can go to the SD Card footage manually.
This is either an App Software or Cam Firmware bug that Wyze has acknowledged and they are working on. It is not a hardware failure.
I’m not on beta that I know of. I just got the cameras 2 days ago, plugged them in, added them to the app, then got a notification in the app that there was new firmware available and gave me the option to update.
Sorry I’m not sure how to quote. But I don’t understand why you would say this is not a hardware failure, when 4 cameras with the same firmware and app are not behaving the same way (in my case, 3 are behaving correctly, and 1 has a grayed out playback button). Given that I don’t see why you have excluded hardware.
Seeing the time of the event then navigating to manually it is a last ditch workaround. Not sure why anyone would choose to do that, if they had an option to return or exchange the camera.
If you review the history of this issue, it has never been a hardware issue. It has occured and been remedied in the past thru app updates. And, while the cams may indeed be running the same firmware on the same app, the heart of the issue is how the Wyze Server is seeing the individual cam on the server. In the past this issue was related to the services that were assigned to the cam. All UI features within the app are receiving their instructions from the server based on the app version, the firmware version, and the services assigned. If this were a hardware issue, the Playback Button link in the Events UI would be accessible and would then fail when trying to access the SD Playback UI as “No Video at the Present Time” or “No SD Card Found”, as would the View Playback link bar in the Live Stream… Which you stated worked fine. When the SD Card is removed and viewed externally, there would also be no Record file structure or MP4 video files saved.
If you feel that the cam needs to be returned, feel free to do so. I am not discouraging any customer to exercise that right. I just applied for a return of a perfectly working item today that was a duplicate order mistake I made. Wyze has a great return policy.
Interesting, thanks, I didn’t know that history or how the server thing works.
I got my cameras through Amazon and they have a great policy for returns/exchange so I don’t expect any issue.
Yes. This particular topic 
was started over a year ago for the same issue seen on a V2 cam. It has also been experienced on multiple other cams since then by other users and posted elsewhere. I have personally experienced it on other cams since then in Beta Testing. All have been resolved by App Software, Cam Firmware, or Server-side Code updates.
Simple! I am NOT going to hunt for a 5 sec event which happened somewhere within a minute that event tells me it happened, especially when here’s not way to speed up/slow down the stream, and I can only skip 30 sec at a time. On the other camera I can simply view playback of the 12 sec surrounding the event, and this is exactly how the feature is advertised.
I agree that it’s not a h/w issue, but I paid for a piece of h/w to provide specific functionality, enabled by s/w. If that functionality cannot be provided, that particular piece of h/w unfortunately is getting sent back, because that’s the only way for me to get my money back.
I went as far as asking Wyze whether they would be willing to simply offer a credit, so when the issue is resolved, I would then get a 3rd camera using it. Their answer - “just return it”.
So, it seems like Wyze engineers know what causes the issue, and were able to fix it in the past, right? Why is the issue back then? And if it resurfaced, why would it take so long to fix this time around?
Amen!
To quote, you simply highlight some text with a mouse, and then “QUOTE” word appears right above it, and you just click on it. Alternatively, I see that the forum s/w generated these tags (without quotes), so I guess you can do it manually too.
“[quote=“daverx, post:63, topic:237115”] blah blah [/quote]”
THAT I have to agree with. A support person told me that even if my Amazon return window was closed (I bought the camera through Amazon), just contact Wyze and they would allow shipping the camera back to them, and issue credit towards a future purchase. Not too many other companies do that, and I must give them credit for being customer-oriented.
I am able to see the time on the cam timestamp within the Event Video and then go to and drag the SD timeline indicator to within a second of the exact time the event occurred on the SD Card. No scrubbing, rewinding, or fast forwarding required. Just did it today on my FLP for SD Video Playback of an event that was caught on another cam.
Yes. Here are examples from multiple other types of cams having the issue, some going back over a year.
Cam-pan-3 video playback - #12 by ken8
Grayed out "playback" button in cloud events
Very good question. And one I do not have an answer for. I could speculate. But it isn’t something I can fix. This is not the first time a prior bug has resurfaced many calendar pages later.
If it is an App or Firmware bug, the fix has to be coded into a new version, Alpha Tested, then Beta Tested. At any point during that testing if some other issue has to be fixed (since most releases contain multiple fixes, updates, and patches), even if this one is fixed, it has to be recoded for the new fixes and re-released for yet another round of Beta testing. There are some Beta tests that last for months before a final Release Candidate is run thru a pre-release final Beta Round and prepped for Production release.
Just thought of one thing, not sure if it is a factor or not. As I mentioned, I bought 4 of these cams, 2 black and 2 white. With one of the black ones, I just don’t know which one, I inserted the SD card first thing before even plugging it in. I then plugged it in and went through the same setup process I used for the other 3. On all the other 3, I only put the SD card after the camera was up and running. It made the little noise it makes, etc.
What I don’t know is whether the 1 cam I did that with is the one that’s having this issue. For the 1 black cam I have with this issue, I tried unplugging it, removing the SD card, removing it from the app, then plugging it in, adding to the app, then putting the SD card back in. But it still had the issue.
So I don’t know. But I know that both of the white ones, I added the SD card after the cam was up and running, and those do not have this problem. So whether or not it made the difference, that’s how I plan on doing it for my replacement camera which I’m told is on the way.
I am glad you can do that. For me, it only shows the timestamp of an event in minutes (no seconds - am I missing a place where I can see the seconds?). And most of my events last only a few seconds, so a notification may say 10:52, and I would be scrolling up and down within that minute, not seeing anything, only to find that the movement occurred at 10:51:57, and the camera registered it as 12:52:01, for example. Bottom line is I don’t want to have to hunt for it, just like I don’t on my other Wyze cam.
I am a s/w engineer myself, so I understand the process well.
I doubt that would make a difference, as it’s the exact sequence I did with my new white cam. I wanted to ensure it worked correctly first, before I unpacked the SD card. In my case, both SD cards are by Sandisk, same speed (the highest they have), and the only difference is the size of the cards. I can’t play with swapping the cards to see if that makes a difference, for 2 reasons: 1) the cameras are in different geo locations, and 2) I don’t want to risk the first camera to start working normally.
It shows the hour and minutes for me too in the Events List. I have Cam Plus.
But it also shows the timestamp in the Event Viewer with hh:mm:ss if you have the Timestamp feature enabled within the cam settings.
The last time this happened it was related to the services that were assigned (or not) to the cam. On the cams that are exhibiting this issue, what services are assigned to the cam?
Does this differ from the services assigned to the cams that are working?
Not in my case. All of them have no subscription.
Ah, so I think on my new camera I assigned CamPlus Lite (the free tier). I don’t remember doing that on my first camera, so most likely it has no subscription of any kind.
Do you know if there’s a way to un-assign everything from the new camera, or am I better off just resetting it and going through setup again?
Ah, yes, the notification only has the minutes, but the event itself has the seconds too. That helps somewhat - thanks!
If you have Cam Plus Lite assigned to a Cam, the only easy way I know of to get the cam unassigned is to assign it to Cam Plus. It has been an issue all along getting cams unassigned from Cam Plus Lite if you don’t have at least one Cam Plus Subscription. The hard way is to cancel and delete the subscription online and then resubscribe. That method really isn’t worth the hassle when there is a workaround.
Well, in truth, i don’t want any subscriptions, that’s why I have an SD card inside. I don’t want to have to figure out how to cancel a paid subscription later.
I don’t mind resetting the camera completely and setting it up again. I don’t need anything currently stored on that SD card either. Do you think that would work? I don’t mind even giving it a slightly different name if needed. I hope they don’t automatically re-activate the subscription based on MAC address.
BTW, it tells me I have no subscriptions, although I distinctly remember selecting Cam Plus Lite for a new cam. Hmm…
