No MicroSD Card

[franks59]

I have four Wyze cams. 2 Tilt/Pan and two V2. All of them have 32GB MicroSD cards installed. All have been working fine for months.

Since the latest firmware update two of the cams - a Tilt/Pan and a V2 refuse to recognize the SD card. When I went to View Playback on the V2, it said No MicroSD card installed. Going into settings, it said there was a card installed with 10MB/0 MB available. When I tried to format it from the app, it said none was installed.

I pulled the SD card from the V2 and brought it to my computer. The computer said the card was not formatted. I formatted the card and put it back in the cam. It recognized the card again. To be safe, I formatted it again from the app. Now the cam does not recognize it again.

I haven’t fooled around with the Tilt/Pan yet.

Any ideas.

[steve4335]

What kind of SD card is it? I had problems with Sandisk class 10, switched to a Samsung endurance card (which is made for this type of use case) and haven’t had any issues since.

[franks59]

It is a Sandisk.

I removed the card from the V2 again and brought it back to the computer. It said it was still formatted. I put it back in the cam and it has been working now for the last few minutes, so maybe after I formatted it the 1st time I didn’t get it in there securely enough. Still doesn’t account for need to re-format it in the 1st place.

I then removed the card from the Tilt/Pan and brought it to the computer. It too needing formatting, which I did. I replaced it and it’s been ok for the last few minutes.

Sandisk might be the problem but I’m suspicious that two of them developed the same problem on the same day just after a firmware update.

[steve4335]

I went through a similar dance with my sandisk card, reformatting, testing, it failing, me thinking it was something other than the card itself…and its not that the card is bad, its just that it was not built for this purpose… i would have the card work for a while, but when i would go into playback to view the footage the problems would start. I would suggest getting either the Wyze branded card, or the Samsung Endurance card before you spend too much time testing everything else and driving yourself crazy. Here is the thread i found that convinced me to get a different card:

Bytes, bits, bitrates, FPS, codecs (compression) and Samsung PRO Endurance microSD cards

I took what I have gathered from research to speculate on the encoding profiles that are used in the Wyze firmware. This reveals some interesting details. I have further speculated on the bitrate on the audio encoding in order to subtract audio and reveal the underlying video bitrate. I have then taken the Samsung PRO Endurance microSD card in order to derive the life expectancy of the microSD card in a Wyze camera. This gives some clues into the controller on the SD card as TLC is generally …

Here is the card I have been using with no issues:
https://smile.amazon.com/Samsung-Endurance-128GB-Micro-Adapter/dp/B07B984HJ5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=RD3U626GTOQ0&keywords=samsung+pro+endurance&qid=1569685231&s=electronics&sprefix=samsung+pro+en%2Camazon-devices%2C203&sr=1-1
Wyze does not officially support any card over 32GB - however i have had no issues with the 128…so far

[franks59]

OK, Thanks. I ordered two.

[franks59]

I forgot to ask, what did you do to format the 128 GB card?

[steve4335]

I put it right into the camera from the package and had the camera format it, its never been in a computer

[Bam]

hey @franks59 glad you figured out the issue. sandisk by their own admission are no good for this type of application. I ruined a few in a dashcam.

give this a read . there is some good info for the future in here.

What SD cards are you using? have you had any issues?

As most of us know from time to time you will read about someone having an issue with the micro SD card in their camera, just a quick search for SD card in the forums will make this abundantly clear. most of these issues are not due to the camera or the software, but the card itself. Because of the abundance of options for cards on the market it is sometimes hard to find the best option when all of them seem to be the same for the most part. I wanted to make this post so that the Wyze communit…

[franks59]

Thanks. I just got my cards.

I stuck one of them in the Tilt/Pan and went to format it but I think it’s already formatted because the Wyze app says “1119.9G/119.19G”

Do I need to go ahead and format it anyway?

[steve4335]

I probably would, just to make sure the cam likes it

[Bam]

I would just so the camera knows it as its own . less room for mistakes that way.

[franks59]

OK, an update. I formatted one card thru the app but left the 2nd card as is.
Today I went to view the history of both. They both went back to 7 days plus 12 hours, so I’m guessing there is no need to format the card if the app recognizes it and has the proper size.

There is one caveat however.

When I viewed playback for the card that was formatted, when I pressed the left arrow to go to the beginning, it took maybe 30 seconds to get there.

On the card that I did NOT format, when I pressed the left arrow, it went to the beginning immediately.

I don’t know if that was due to the format, or if there is something in the software that, when you select a time for one cam, it goes back to that time for all cams.

Frank

[Bam]

the cams work independently of each other, so what happens on one will only affect that camera. mine sometimes takes some time to get to the time I set it to as well. I think that might have a bit to do with hardware decoder being removed mainly although its possible ( depending on your card) that the card just reads a bit slower and takes an extra second to get to the time specified. if the card is working, there shouldn’t be a need to format it, but if you are inclined it shouldn’t hurt anything if you wanted to.

[franks59]

The odd thing is, the card I did not format was the card that instantly went back a week. The card I did format took 30 seconds or more to get there.

Frank