SD Card issue with Pan Cam v3

Cameras
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1

I’ve had a couple of Pan Cam v3’s now since about the time they came out, both indoor cams with SD Cards (PNY 32GB). Both are up to date with latest firmware and running the latest iOS app on my phone.

I recently went to review some footage from one of them, and got a no SD card error. It wouldn’t format in the camera and refused to be recognized. Thinking the card was bad, I tried another with same results. I took that card and read it in my computer – it was fine, I could access all videos, logs, etc. I noticed the last log and event recording was on 12/18/24, so 3 months ago.

I then tried several things, including:

  • Factory restored camera and re-added to app
  • Reset services
  • Tried multiple different 32GB and 64GB SD cards, all known to be working (Sandisk, PNY, and a generic non-branded one)
  • Used the official SD Card utility to low-level format each SD card
  • Cleaned the slot with 99% IPA
  • Manually reflashed latest firmware

Finally I tried some smaller SD cards. It works with an 8GB and a 4GB card, but none of the 32GB or higher cards work in this one camera anymore.

I should point out that the other Pan Cam v3, on the same firmware, using the same type of PNY 32GB SD card is still working fine.

So something has apparently broken in the SD Card controller, or one of the extended data lines that addresses higher memory.

Any suggestions? I’m about to give up on Wyze cameras. These are my last two, all others have been replaced with Ubiquiti cameras and that experience is WAY better. But the Pan Cam v3’s have been working quite well up until now so I wasn’t in too big of a hurry to replace them.

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I’m going to be following this topic with great interest, because of this:

That’s about when I noticed that one of my Cam Pan v3s began exhibiting the same symptoms. That camera has had a 256 GB SanDisk Extreme card set for continuous recording since I first activated it. The card doesn’t appear to have any problems, as it works as expected if I eject it from the Cam Pan v3 and use it in a Cam v4. Unfortunately, I no longer have date or log information on the card itself, because in my troubleshooting attempts I’ve done a full format with the SD Memory Card Formatter for Linux, so I can’t give a precise date of when it apparently stopped recording to the card.

This is a really interesting observation, I think:

I don’t have any cards that small to try, but after I did the full format and tried the same 256 GB card in the camera, it seemed to record until it showed 7.07 GB used (IIRC; I don’t currently have a card in that camera) when I checked the MicroSD Card screen in the app.

What would cause that limit, and why is it affecting only one of my two Cam Pan v3s? :man_shrugging:

I finally got some new cards to try today, but they’re 256 GB SanDisk High Endurance. Hopefully I can do some more troubleshooting on it this week, and I’ll plan to report back what I find and then see if I can get any of the other volunteers to take a look at this.

Thank you for your detailed reporting, @dmorris68!

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There are a number of recent threads on this, probably make sense to review those for information and add any additional information or questions you have to one of those.

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I’m so happy to hear that it’s not just me. I’m having the same issues with both my pan V3 cameras. Reformatt, reboot etc etc. start recording to the SD card for an hour or so, then nothing. This is an unacceptable problem, these cameras are useless as security cameras if you can’t play back the recordings.

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One of the things that’s been so vexing about this issue for me is that it’s affecting a lot of users but apparently not all Cam Pan v3s (only 1 of my 2 is affected), so it reminds me of a similar issue that affected some Cam v3s (not Pan) last year which was eventually resolved somewhere on Wyze’s end, not in the hardware. Hopefully a similar remedy will be available for this at some point.

Welcome to the Forum, @gkrantz! :wave:

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Well my 8GB card that was working since my original post decided to stop working again. Same symptoms. No SD card recognized, no amount of resetting and reformatting made it work again in the PanV3 but it still reads fine from my computer. There’s obviously some issues with SD card support as I’m not the only one that has reported this. I have multiple genuine SD cards that worked for months and months then just decided to be invalid, even though the same cards work everywhere else (including another PanV3). There’s either a firmware bug that triggers based on some time or other variable, or a sporadic hardware fault.

That was the last straw for me. I have replaced both cameras with Ubiquiti cams. More expensive but much better performance and UX, no cloud subscription, just more dependable. I may throw these in a box for use when I need a throwaway livestream view of something temporary but I think I’m done with Wyze camera products. I’ll still use my thermostats, door locks, and scale as long as they work. But it saddens me to see that Wyze is more focused on flooding the market with shiny new gadgets and cloud profits while ignoring their loyal core base and not making sure their existing products and app work reliably and efficiently.

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I’m in the exact same boat as you, I’m giving up on Wyze. I’ll check out the Ubiquiti cams. No support from Wyze on what is obviously a known issue.

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Maybe that’s too little capacity or too old. SD cards are cheap now. I don’t think any retailer stocks those 8gb cards. Even 16gb cards are hard to find. There’s probably a lot of Memorial Day sales going on.

The last time I checked, 16gb SD cards are more expensive that 32gb ones. And I have a need for 16gb cards.

9

8GB with continuous recording will get worn very fast, especially if it isn’t a good endurance rated card.

But if you use an NVR with the Ubiquiti setup as they intend, you won’t need to worry about SD cards.

10

Just be aware that the Ubiquiti cams are meant to be part of their ecosystem so you’d want to at least have one of their routers that supports them (and can have an internal SSD for the video). The Cloud Gateway Max or Cloud Gateway Fiber are the two current models that support them and they are very nice little routers.

11

If you read the OP, I explained that 8GB was the only size I had that worked for me. The 32GB and higher cards refused to be recognized, after working fine for years. This is a known issue that others have reported – cards work fine, then suddenly refuse to be recognized even though they work on other devices, have been low-level formatted, etc. Out of desperation I tried an 8GB card and it worked.

You can still buy 8GB cards though they aren’t entirely common, and after the above incident I bought a couple more to have on hand in case other cameras did the same. But after this same camera did the same thing with the 8GB card, I decided enough was enough.

12

Ubiquiti is great if you’re already bought into their tech stack. I’ve been running Ubiquiti network gear for years, including their Dream Machine Pro router with an NVR drive running their Protect software. It streams camera feeds to a 14TB drive in the router which then backs up to my 54TB NAS.

If you don’t already have Ubiquiti infrastructure, it will be quite expensive and probably overkill to setup just for a couple of home cameras, but if you’re prepared to go all in I can recommend them highly.

13

It is odd that it will take an 8G but not 32G. Above 32G I could understand if it is having an issue with exFAT.

But as you’ve probably already suspected, I think the SD card slot in that cam is just toast. For some reason the pinout, power draw, or file system on the 8G card was still working with whatever the issue is, but either that card wore out (as I would expect it to fairly quickly), or the slot is just continuing to get worse. Maybe the slot is fine but the internal power isn’t sending enough to the slot (which I guess is the same thing in the long run).

14

I’ve been running their stuff on and off for many years, at one point even just a standalone outdoor AP with the config software on my PC. When the initial dream machine first came out, it was pretty bad, but they got their act together on it. I really like the current Cloud Gateway line for the price, paired with even a U7 Lite AP it is a very nice setup. Only issue now is that they seem to be dropping the spatial streams (and thus number of antennas) on the 2.4ghz band down to 2 on all their modern stuff. If you have lots of IOT devices in various places, lots of antennas/streams on 2.4 is a good thing.

I haven’t toyed with their cams at all, I think if I was going to go to a hardwired system I’d want it to be totally independent and isolated from my network stack, but I definitely see the benefit of having it all integrated and managed together.

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