Wyze Cam V3 Not Recording Video to Android Phone?

Hello

Up until about 3 weeks ago I was able to save videos to my phone but now am unable to.

My set up

Wyze Cam V3
SD card installed so can view playback
Latest firmware on V3 (4.36.13.0416)
Latest Wyze app from Google play
Latest firmware on Samsung Galaxy S23

When I try to record video from either playback or “live” the video gets saved into the Wyze album but not onto my Android device.

I am able to take pictures which saves to my device. I also see a screen capture image of when I try to take the video but the actual video itself is no where to be found.

I tried to unplug my cameras and plug it back in no difference.

This is happening on all 3 cameras I have, one has paid subscription.

Reinstalled Wyze app fresh.

I don’t think it’s a permission issue as I am able to save images to my phone.

Weird thing is that if I record a video, completely restart my phone and reopen the Wyze app BAM the video gets saved and shows up on my device.

Is anyone else experiencing similar issues?

Weirdest thing ever

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I am able to recreate this issue on Wyze Android app v3.15.569.

I found a small workaround. For some reason if you have Samsung Gallery app already open then the video will not be available. However, if you force close the Gallery app and open it back and scroll then the video will show itself. Also, every time I record a clip it takes an additional screenshot in my Gallery app some reason.

Below is the list of Android app version which exhibit this issue.
v3.1.5.569 issue
v3.1.0.564 issue
v3.0.5.558 okay
v3.0.0.519 okay
v2.50.9.512 okay

Cam V3
V3 FW: 4.36.13.0416
Wyze Android app: 3.15.569
Samsung Gallery app 14.5.01.2
Samsung Galaxy S20 FE on One UI 5.1 (Android 13)

3 Likes

Just adding the same comment here in case people are looking at this thread and not the other:

The issue is the v3 saves both files with the exact same name in the same folder, one as .mp4 and one as .png. As soon as you rename the .mp4 or the .png to something else, both show up in the photos app. So if they get rid of the spurious still frame, it will resolve the problem.

Both files are saved into DCIM → wyze → Cam v3 → manual for the Panv3 and I’m assuming v3 also.
The OG saves a .mp4 only directly into the DCIM root folder

I’m guessing all the cams using the v3 style interface probably work in a similar fashion and have the same bug.

You can access the video file in the wyze app album, or by using your phone’s file explorer app.

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I’m glad you mentioned this, because I’ve wondered what that would show people who are reporting this issue. I haven’t experienced this, but I appreciate the detailed explanation.

The only workaround I can find (other than using file explorer or the Wyze app album to view the video) is to rename the video (mp4 file) in the file explorer (add a 1 to the beginning or whatever) , then both will show up in the photos app and you can delete the still frame if you want.

Deleting the still frame or moving it to another folder in the photos app doesn’t fix it, seems the phone’s file system is still confused. Maybe deleting then force quitting or rebooting would do it but that’s more of a pain.

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The real question is, why does android apparently ignore file extension when indexing files? If it was just the stock Google Photos app I’d call it a bug with that app, but with people seeing the same issue in Samsung and other gallery apps, seems to point more toward Android itself.

That seems like a good question. Years ago, when there was no default file manager on my first Android device, I used ES File Explorer (long before that one turned into garbage), which had the ability to filter by file type, something I’ve been accustomed to since DOS. That seems like it should be a standard feature exposed to the user in any OS’s file management tools. That wouldn’t necessarily fix an Android issue with file extensions (if such an issue exists), but it would at least give the user some insight, I’d think.

The stock android “files” app on my pixel shows the extension, but for whatever reason the Photos/gallery apps seem to ignore it when creating the index of picture/videos apparently.

Yeah, that’s true about the extension in “Files by Google”, and I guess I can search by “.pdf” or “.gif”, so that’s sort of like a filter. :man_shrugging:

Obviously the gallery app knows if it is a picture or video, almost like it first indexes based on file name, then looks at the extension to determine what it is.

Or maybe it does look at the extension when indexing but when the file name is the same a bug prevents it from looking at the second one. Odd behavior for sure, seems the wyze bug of saving both an image and video (and now naming them the exact same thing, which wasn’t the case in earlier versions of the 3.x app with the same bug) has exposed a flaw or limitation in android.