There theoretically shouldn’t be any reason why spotty internet would corrupt an SD card. Even after 30 mins on the cams that reboot, my experience from looking at the files on the card is that the cam’s soft reboot does properly close out the current file and stop writing before rebooting.
But of course, “theoretically” is the key word. Stranger things have happened.
There must be some sort of common denominator, I’m starting to think it is environmental, maybe we need to tally which users with SD card issues are in hot regions with cams in the sun etc.
These cams record into 1 minute clips when set to coninuous. Most homes lose power once in a while due to a storm. I don’t think it is typically expected that anytime you lose power your Wyze cam can’t overwrite that file.
FAT has multiple functions to deal with incomplete writes and files without EOF data. I haven’t had an issue and my Wyze cams get power cycled daily. If I trusted Wyze automations to work when a camera had crashed or stopped responding, maybe the Restart command would be tempting…
Yes, I know they are 1 minute clips, but they are continuously recording, the next clip starts immediately after the last one, and I doubt your plugs are synching up with that instant in between files. No file system deals well with a file write being interrupted, that’s why the cams (and your PC etc) have a “safe eject” for removable drives.
Obviously it is up to you, and yes power outages happen from time to time (and they often do corrupt things, that’s why PCs are on UPSes etc) but doing one every day, in my opinion, is playing with fire.
The automation is more of a preventative measure to stop a crash or card issue from maybe happening. Agreed that if the camera becomes non-responsive, that’s when you’d need to use the smart plug to hard reboot it. But with my weekly reboots, I’ve never had one become non responsive.
I have a feeling power outages or people unplugging the cams without a safe eject is the reason for at least some of the SD card issues that get reported here, as often people are able to fix it with a format. I know when the little battery in my dash cams no longer had capacity to cleanly shut down when I turned off the cars, my cards would start having issues. Replaced the batteries and the issues went away.
Like I said, to each their own, but having had to recover lots of corrupted SD cards for various people over the years, I play it safe.
Yes, yes, we all took ‘Computers 101’ – interrupting file writes is ‘bad.’ Groundbreaking stuff. But honestly, agonizing over FAT corruption on tiny, one-minute clip as if it’s some critical system? If these cameras couldn’t handle an occasional power cycle without self-destructing, they’d be useless.
Sudden power loss is expected. There is no “shut down” on a Wyze cam.
Think of a dashcam when a car turns off, a battery dying in a camera, a plug being unplugged, a storm… unplugging them is part of the expected use of these devices.
Playing with fire’ by unplugging it? Please. It’s a cheap camera, not a nuclear reactor. The idea that its plug timing needs to be ‘synced’ to the nanosecond between files is peak overthinking. These things are designed to be relatively robust for what they are. If it dies, you format the $10 SD card and move on.
Most of those ‘SD card issues’ are probably because they bought the cheapest card they could find or the card just wore out from, you know, actually being used. Not to mention the rarity of someone buying an endurance type card.
So, you’re recovering ‘lots of corrupted SD cards’? Sounds like a thrilling hobby. I’ve worked in tech since the 1990s and can think of zero times any job or friend has presented a need for me to recover any corrupted flash media.
I’m not interested in treating every piece of basic tech like it’s a delicate Faberge egg about to shatter.
I actually used that as a specific example of where I’ve seen my own endurance rated SD cards get corrupted, when the battery or supercapacitor in the camera loses its capacity and does not gracefully shut down.
I disagree, otherwise they would not have the “safe eject” option. Removable media needs to be stopped before removing it (or at the very least ensure no writes are in progress).
As I said, obviously you’re welcome to do as you please, I’ve been in the computer and networking industry for decades as well and have seen many cases of memory devices getting corrupted due to non-graceful shutdown. Since the cams have the option of doing a graceful reboot, I choose to use that, I’m not saying you have to, just suggesting it. No need to get hostile or take offense, was just a suggestion to prevent future issues.
What you are missing is that your behavior is leading to a life full of your own first hand examples of what you describe as device corruption. Perhaps what you are doing is actually not working as well as you’d hope, given that my dozens of Wyze cams hard unplug and reboot daily and they’re been more reliable since I started doing that.
It’s great to share wisdom, but it’s not great to share what might be described as an over-the-top worry about a device being unplugged that legitimately does not have a graceful shut down option and is marketed to the general public.
Every Wyze cam I have has an “eject SD card” option in the app, I’m not sure which ones you’re using but I’m guessing they do too.
This is not over the top or paranoia, it is industry standard best practice for any removable storage (or really, any storage). You’ll find it recommended anywhere you look, and if you work with this stuff enough you’ll see the effects of interrupting a write to any type of media, whether it be a hard drive or removable SD card.
Um, first hand experience is the best kind of knowledge, far preferable over theories or things you might see on the 'net somewhere.
Personally, the only two times in my life that one of my own SD cards have been corrupted were:
-Battery backup in dash cam died, cards began corrupting until I replaced with a new battery and everything went back to normal.
-Card in a phone hit the end of its life span/writes and stopped working properly (it was not endurance rated and this particular phone relied heavily on SD card as it only had like 8G of internal memory).
However I’ve seen it dozens of times with other people’s cards and devices where they just yanked the plug or pulled the card out improperly.
I’ll leave it at this - the official recommendation in the industry is always safely stop/eject any removable media before powering off or physically removing it. I agree with/second that recommendation, both to avoid issues with corrupted files and for the longevity of the SD card. I am not saying people have to follow it, as obviously everyone is free to do as they please.
You’re really doubling down on the ‘eject SD card’ feature as if it’s a full-blown graceful shutdown for a device that’s designed to be abruptly powered off. We’re talking about Wyze cams, not enterprise-grade servers.
Ah yes, the ‘industry standard best practice’ for a $30 security camera. Tell me, do you also put your toaster on a UPS?
Exact same ones I’m using, though they’ve gone up in price quite a bit. I’m about to order a Sandisk Endurance one for another purpose, have always had good luck with their cards too.
Approved 
