Hi all, I have been trying to ignore this issue but I can’t just help but think what if I needed something important from this camera ( which i have needed it before ), i would utilize the SD card recordings only to find out it didn’t record anything..
Seems to have worked fine until 2025-ish. I contacted Wyze support months earlier, but they were no help. Ive seen similar posts on here but all lead to nothing.
The camera sees the SD card but does not record. Opening the SD card files on Windows shows it hasn’t recorded since 1/17 (it’s 1/24 now). Additionally, the camera never recorded for the entirety of December 2025. Strange. In each of the files, some contains recordings for the entire day, some only contains 30 seconds.
Help me on this. I think its a bad batch of cameras or something. I bought the cam in December ‘23.
I’ve been dealing with this on BOTH my wyze cam pan V3’s. I bought them in a 2-pack in August 2023 (from the wyze Canada store fwiw).
It started with one camera which was outdoors. At first there would be gaps in the recording, then it would just stop the continuous recording (when looking at the timeline). Restarting the camera seemed to get it recording again, so I set up a nightly automation to restart that camera, and that helped it along for quite a while. Meanwhile, the other camera which was indoors took a much longer time to show any issues, but it eventually started doing the same thing.
They each have a different SD card in them, but I think they’re both basic sandisk cards. Obviously the SD cards being related to this issue is a red herring, I have V3 camera that’s been recording to an aliexpress random brand card 24/7 for years with no issues.
Nowadays, the outdoor camera BARELY detects an SD card. It will show “SD card unavailable” or “capacity unknown please format” but the Format does nothing. Tried different cards, freshly formatted cards, factory resets, no difference.
The indoor camera seems to be at an earlier stage of this issue and it still records for a few minutes after a reboot. The SD card can’t be formatted by the camera either, just shows “formatting…” but then nothing happens.
Sounds like yours is a different issue, Either an SD card that has gone bad (have you tried a different one in the problematic camera or at least formatting it in a PC to see if it succeeds)? Alternatively, water infiltration or a dying USB adapter can cause this as well.
The Panv3 is especially susceptible to water infiltration when mounted upside down (cam on bottom), not sure if that is the case with yours.
Like I wrote in my message, I’ve tried a number of VERY different SD cards, freshly formatted.
One camera was upside down, the other one was not. Both have developed the same behavior and functionally the same issue - the inability to correctly interact with any inserted SD card. Tried 3 different USB adapters, also no difference.
This seems to be some widespread hardware/software issue. I don’t like it but a lot of people are referring to a “bad batch” of pan v3 cameras and I’m HOPING that’s not the case, I HOPE that Wyze can do something to fix this.
Your symptoms are different though, with them sometimes recognizing and being able to record to the SD card, then stopping, etc. The issue being discussed in this thread (which doesn’t have a specific known cause yet) is a completely dead SD card slot that happened instantly. Either a total hardware failure of the controller for the slot, or some odd glitch with firmware or wyze back end.
For the one that was upside down, there is a high chance that got water in and corroded. You can use an SD card you don’t care much about (it will probably be fine, but just in case), get some contact cleaner down in the slot and on the contacts of the card, and insert and remove it a bunch of times (20-30 maybe). That has a chance of cleaning corrosion off the contacts, if there is any.
Drying the cam in a bag of rice for 24 hours (worked for mine that was upside down) may be worth a shot too.
I see, fair enough. I guess I’ll make another thread to report/discuss my specific pan v3 SD card issues.
I did try to clean the SD card reader contacts (it obviously didn’t help) but this all feels so pointless since I literally have a “control” sample with the second camera that was always indoors, upright, doing the same thing for the same amount of time and now behaving the same broken way. These cameras have nothing in common aside from being on the same WiFi network and coming out of the same 2-pack box, but they’re both experiencing the same issue.
I’m not sure if it happened instantly or not. But I do know it’s not 100% dead. It CAN recognize the SD card but it is intermittent. All I’m doing is that I’m running it without an sd card now.
There are a few threads on this topic, the fact that yours sees the card seems like it is a different one from the bigger issue also, I just got confused over which thread this is.
Yes, my cameras are the same! Sometimes they CAN recognize the SD card and sometimes even record to it. But they never manage to record for longer than 3-4 hours before they just stop, and after that point it becomes a mess. Maybe you restart the camera and the SD card starts recording again for a bit, maybe it no longer sees the capacity and says it needs to be formatted, maybe it no longer sees the SD card at all.
And no, there is no rhyme or reason about which SD cards are recognized and when. Sometimes freshly formatted cards work, sometimes they don’t. But ultimately none of it matters because like I said above, the “work” only last for a few hours at this point. I wish I could send debug logs to somebody to show them this behavior so they can try and figure out what’s going on and maybe fix it with a firmware update…
I just had this start on one of my Pan V3’s from 2023 (activated 2/10/23).
Camera appears to work just fine it just can’t record to SD card. Sometimes it will recognize cards and when it does it says “Storage capacity unavailable” and can’t detect the card size (shows 0GB/0GB). Since it doesn’t fully recognize cards I can’t flash different firmware versions via sd card. I’ve tried multiple cards (new and old all 64GB/exFAT/Class 10) which all appear fine when using on my computer.
Support wants all the documentation and since it’s this old I doubt they’ll offer replacement.
In the process of troubleshooting this I did find 2 Wyze USB plugs that have apparently died…
In your case it sounds like a possible hardware problem, either corrosion or dirty contacts in the SD card slot, or possibly a power problem has damaged it. Have you tried using a different wall adapter just to rule that out - the SD card can be one of the first things to alert you to a voltage problem when those adapters start to die.
I put another Pan v3 in its place and the new camera is running fine on the original cord/adapter just fine, so far. I have a new cord/adapter on this “bad” camera now and still having the problem. It is indeed out of warranty and they gave me a $10 gift card. I might try to clean the sd card slot and see what happens.
Cleaning those slots is difficult but you can take an SD card you don’t care about (it will probably be fine after, but just in case), get some contact cleaner or at least isopropyl down in the slot, then insert and remove the card multiple times. Clean the card off every 5 to 10 times to help remove anything it scrapes off.
Then a final squirt or few drops to “rinse” the contacts, maybe one more round of 5 to 10 card cycles, then leave the cover open to let it dry. Just don’t go overboard with whatever cleaner you use, it will evaporate out eventually but since the cam is pretty well sealed, too much and it will stay in there for quite a while.
I use Deoxit for stuff that is oxidized or has carbon buildup on it, but WD-40 makes a contact cleaner (not regular WD-40) and CRC makes one too. You should find one of the latter at Home Depot or an auto parts store, they’re pretty similar. I’ve found deoxit to work better on some stuff but it takes longer to dry and leaves a protective residue (good for some stuff, bad for others), and the other two to work better on other stuff and dry faster with no residue. I’d just use whatever you can get locally.
Do it, but it won’t help. Don’t buy any new products to try and clean the slot because it’ll be a waste and just piss you off more. The cameras that start behaving this way have something else wrong with them, I’m guessing something internal has given out due to heat buildup or something else. I had 2 of these from the same pack, both started doing this despite one being outside upside down for 2 years and the other was inside sitting normally, with different SD cards in them. It’s a faulty product sadly.
The RTSP functionality they added could be leveraged to just continuously record their stream on a local server instead, you’ll just have to check histories through another app/program as needed.
Some have had success cleaning SD slots (I have on other devices, but haven’t needed to on my cams). And contact cleaner is like $5 and good to have around for other stuff, hardly a waste and worth a shot. Cheaper than buying an NVR for RTSP…..
The Panv3 is not faulty. There is something going on with SD card slots, possibly bad batches, possibly software issues, who knows. Sounds like they’re trying to figure it out. But the ones that are having intermittent issues, it is going to be either an issue with the slot being corroded/dirty, or as you say, the controller failing, possibly from power issues, possibly from just being a defective batch with shorter lifespan.
I have 3x Panv3, two from 2023 and one from 2024, all 3 working fine recording 24x7, two of them outside directly exposed to elements. Never any issue with the SD cards or slots. Understood it is frustrating for people having issues but it also is not a blanket “faulty product” either. Plenty of people with no issues.
I was pretty clear that I’m only talking about the cameras which start exhibiting this behavior. I understand it’s only in a fraction of units, but if you have one you’re SOL for now at least. And there’s free/open source ways of grabbing the rtsp stream of these cameras, even just ffmpeg (free open source software) can continuously write it to disk.
I now have this issue that my SIM card is not recognized after the last update of the camera. You cannot format it you cannot do anything with it it is now rendered useless. It is a good SIM card. A good high quality brand and now it is worthless. My camera sits inside in my window so there’s no possible way of anything being inside the camera. It worked one day and now it doesn’t. This camera brand is really starting to tick me off with how many problems I have had with them over the years. It’s a good thing they are cheap. Yeah cheap Chinese crap. If anybody can explain this away and tell me that the cameras aren’t the issue you’re probably smoking some pretty powerful stuff. I have seen multiple complaints online about this very issue and that you can take the card out and try and read it wipe it reinstall it after you format it again on your computer and that may work but most people say it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t even matter if you buy a new SIM card that wyze recommends.
For users reading this topic who aren’t already aware, Wyze is requesting information to investigate at least some of these issues in an “official” topic:
