Camera still taking pics but not texting
I have four GC-Z4Gb Verizon cameras. All set up exactly the same way. Rechargeable batteries internally, Herd 360 solar external setup as well. 16 GB Class 10 SD cards, showing full power. Been working like a charm and then yesterday around 8:00 pm central time they all four quit texting. They still take pictures, and they show up in the Spartan mobile app but no longer receiving texts.
I have 19 available premium credits in my account. Thoughts?
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wirelesscam1,
Verizon is sunsetting 3G service the end of this year. Last year, the clog was with Spartan Camera servers. They have upgraded to servers that adjust for load. The problem this year is with texts to Verizon phones. I have texts from a couple of my cameras going to a friend with an AT&T phone and he’s receiving them but I’m not getting pics but once in a while to my Verizon phone.
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Here's a workaround. Thanks to carr0406 for posting detailed instructions for setting up the filter. I've told people in the past that they could send to email and forward to text but did not take the time to write up the instructions. I changed carr0406's instructions just a little, but those instructions were a huge help for me to document how to do this.
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I’ve been experiencing the same issues and am beyond frustrated about not getting my pictures on my Verizon phone. I’m also extremely frustrated about Spartan not answering their phone, and only returning about half of my calls when I follow up on the latest thing they have told me. I’ve also spent hours of my time collectively on the phone with Spartan, Verizon and US Cellular. With each pointing the finger at the other.
I’ve got 12 go cameras. 4 on US Cellular 8 on Verizon. Bedsides the thousands of dollars in cameras (external antennas, solar, batteries) alone I’m also almost 80$ per month to run the cameras. Add in the 10 full days of my time to setup plus I’ve got hundreds if not close to a thousand dollars in fuel to set them all up at the beginning of this summer. Some cameras are 6 hours driving one way to get to plus an hour or two hike. They are spread out in deer and elk areas all over OR and WA.
I’ve had at least a dozen other cell cams over the years that sent texts strait to my phone. While going away from this gave an extra revenue stream to the manufactures, it was a huge step backwards in reliability and usability. (Some may argue that the app adds a bunch of features, which it does, the number one most import feature is the pictures showing up on my phone) Before each camera came through from a separate number/contact. I could relabel each camera very easily if I moved them to keep track of them. Elk wallow cam. Deer treestand cam. Etc. Now they come in from one contact, quickly burying pictures several hundred deep. My iPhone only loads 50 at a time. As I’m try to load the next 50, and another picture comes in, it scrolls me down to the bottom (most recent) and I have to start scrolling through all over again.
I’d been getting hundreds of pictures each day until this. Sometimes hundreds in an evening. Had several nice bucks and bulls I’ve been watching. Plus bears, cougars and bobcats. Then nothing or the occasional picture here or there. Right before the start of archery season. Spartans answer is to go to each camera individually and change the recipient to an email or go to each camera and switch to premium. And give them more money. This doesn’t work for 2 reasons. First I do not have the extra days to go to each camera individually. I’ve got a young son and my wife works full time as well. I was only able to sell her on this massive investment in scouting, because I could get the bulk of my scouting work done early. Instead of being gone a bunch, right before I take several more long trips during hunting season. Second, both the app and email recipient require good data coverage. I have to use external antennas on my cameras to get 2-3 bars. A data connection on my iPhone for the app or email, is completely out of the question in my hunting areas. SMS is the only option.
Being in the industry, I have a lot of folks call me about gear and cell cameras specifically. Friends. Friends of friends, and other industry folk. I’m (indirectly) selling dozens of these cameras each year for Spartan, and have likely sold hundreds over the last few years. Unless Spartan can get a handle on this quickly, I’m not only going to hit the general hunting forums with this info, but obliviously be in search of a different product. I’m not sure what else is out there, but it’s about time to find out.
Besides answering the phone when their customers are having issues, there is a few other things they can do to help contain the damage this is doing to the brand. First and foremost do a firmware update immediately that allows 2 recipients to minimize the chaos when Verizon starts throttling again next year. That way I can still have my sms photos when Verizon’s not throttling and an email as a backup when they are so I’m not completely blind on opening day. It doesn’t fix this year, but it shows a responsiveness to its customers. Also don’t fall back on the fine print that says email or the app is the only reliable delivery method, if your using SMS delivery as a selling point. Saying there is nothing we can do, knowing that you already have the customers money is a poor business model for repeat customers.
Although it’s been a pain I encourage everybody to call Verizon and keep escalating this up the chain. I’ve been working on it for 2 weeks. Be polite, but firm with the customer service agent, that you are paying not only for this devise to send pictures, but for your phone to receive them. And an answer of this is just the way it is, and to call Spartan is unacceptable. Also stress that Spartan is laying the blame squarely on Verizon and is refusing/unable to do anything else.
Since Spartan is sitting on their hands at this point, I don’t know what else to do.If anybody from Spartan is reading this, I’d love a call back or to have you guys pick up next time I call.
Alex
360 nine zero one sixty-six 82 -
Spartan will not be supporting phone number emails. They’re already being removed from email contacts on the portal when you update contacts. With older model cameras, you used to be able to enter up to four emails but the decision was made to cut back to just one a while back.
Your experience with the old texting cameras was quite different from mine. I used 2013 and 2014 Coverts that worked on GoPhone texting plans. I never knew when the last photo I got was the last photo that camera was going to send until I got back to reset it and try to get it back online while standing on a ladder against a telephone pole, talking to AT&T tech support on my Verizon phone while trying to text with the camera SIM in an old Blackberry Pearl.
Send success was less than 70%. Even in a better signal area, it was 85%.
Unfortunately, at this point, your only non-app option is to use the Email workaround mentioned in the post right above yours. Forwarding from email to text seems to be working for now.Verizon throttling next year will not be a concern because sending to Phone numbers will not be supported next year.
Most other companies don’t offer any option other than their app. Their apps are glorified web browsers that download pictures every time you access a camera rather than downloading on the phone so they are there even if you later go to a non-signal area.
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Talexwood, I can assure you that Spartan is not sitting on their hands, I'm also pretty sure Verizon won't budge on this because they don't want to compromise their spam filters. As Liz mentioned she has created a post with a workaround and I think you'll find it works nicely except if you aren't using premium currently then you'll have to go to the cameras and enter a gmail address if you don't already have one on the camera. Here's a link to the workaround
https://support.spartancamera.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360034852293
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I appreciate the heads up on the work around. I set it up last night and it’s working great. I’ve gone to some of my closer cams and switched them to email. The majority are too far from my house to make the trip out before I head out to hunt. I guess I should clarify, that while I’m extremely frustrated to invest all this time and money only to have it quit working right before the season, I’m more frustrated that Spartan won’t pick up the phone when I call. It’s stretched out the amount of time it’s taken to get a few cams up and running and work through things with Verizon. I judge a company far more on how they deal with unhappy customers vs happy ones. Not answering the phones because you dont want to talk to a customer who is pissed only makes them more upset.
If all these companies are going away from SMS delivery, these cameras just got a lot less valuable to me. If the work around continues to function, then I’ll be good to go. All the monitoring, and ability to change settings is great through the various apps. But I’m looking for a failsafe setup that delivers pictures to me while I’m in camp. Solar panels, external batteries and high capacity SD cards allow me to set it up once and not touch it again till after the season. In one of the conversations with Spartan I was told that there will be an ability to switch between premium and auto remotely. This will also help with the issue. I run my cameras year round because I only save a few bucks by deactivating them in the off season. I move them to my waterfowl spots after elk season, then out for cougars after that. Then elk shed season, and then back to where they started at the beginning of summer. Having the ability to switch to premium without visiting each camera would be a game changer when it comes to diagnosing and fixing delivery issues. I hope this works out.
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Talexwood, they are not going to answer new calls when there's someone who called yesterday that needs a call back, as Liz said calls are returned in the order that they were received. I checked and there's no voicemails left from the phone number you listed above and I do believe that you got an email from a tech yesterday. If this is not the case please let me know and I'll look into it further. Before Verizon started filtering the messages sent to text most of the time when you called someone would have answered the phone. Since then new tech agents have been added and others transferred from other areas to help cover the incoming calls.
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Taxelwood,
First, there is no such think as a “failsafe” setup, so if that’s the goal, you’re going to be dissatisfied no matter what. I use all those same things you mention and I still have cameras go down. SD cards go bad, external power cables come unplugged, coons break my antennas, sometimes an external battery goes bad.
Second, if you don’t want to run your cameras year round, you might check into the Spartan data plans that you can start/stop at any time and not pay activation fees. When calculating the monthly cost, be sure to include taxes and fees. For some people, that’s just a few cents. For my Verizon camera, I’m paying $4.69 per month for taxes and fees on top of the $5/month for the line, so the Spartan 3 month plan is actually a little cheaper.
Third, your accusation that Spartan folks aren’t answering the phones because they don’t want to talk to customers is flat out wrong. You wouldn’t be happy if people who called after you got a callback before you do, would you? This is the busiest time of the year, even without something like this Verizon text business happening. The Verizon situation just adds insult to injury during the busy season. The company just can’t grab random people off the street or hire temps to do tech support, either.
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Liz- I guess fail safe was a poor choice words; low maintenance is what going for. Propper planning will all but eliminate most of the issues you mentioned. My biggest issues have been bears, and have yet to find a way to protect my equipment.
The extra cost of the app isn’t the issue as much as being able to switch back and forth remotely. If I had nothing else to do and no other commitments it would take me four or five long days to hit all my cameras scattered over 2 states. The current SMS work around works great for the close cameras that are within an hour or two, but on several areas, I won’t get back to till a day or two before the hunt. And I risk blowing out the animals before opening day to go retrieve the SD cards. So I’m essentially going in blind unless the Verizon issue is resolved.The email from a tech is on a LTE camera that is shooting night mode during the day and unrelated to the Verizon SMS issue.
I assume Johnny Is Dave?
Are you able to look up the number of calls in the last 2 or 3 weeks? It’s been several times of me leaving a message, them calling me back while I’m tied up at work or busy with the family. Or out of service scrambling to get to one of my closer cameras to change it to email. I call them back the next day, and the process repeats, each time with me at the back of the line. One of the calls I missed by just a few minutes. Then obviously no answer when I call back. This is what has drawn this out so long. I’ve also called multiple times a day without leaving a message, in hopes of catching somebody. Till I realized they just aren’t picking up.
When the issue first started I tried several google searches of forums to find info on the issue. It wasn’t till the other day that I was submitting the camera with the issue, that I found this thread. I certainly understand helping people in the order that they call, but not answering the phone when your customers are in a crisis of sorts is unacceptable to me. At the very least bring somebody in to answer the phones. They don’t need any knowledge of the product. They give a brief explanation of the situation, and take down a name, number, time to call back and what number to expect the call from. Or just do something to preserve a persons original place in line with some sort of ticket number. From an unhappy customers perspective the current system, doesn’t make me feel like they are trying to address the issues, simply being able to say they tried. I understand the situation that Spartan is in, but I feel that it has not been handled well. Especially on something that it sounds like they anticipated to a certain degree.
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Johnny and Dave are two different people. They don’t even live in the same state.
Proper planning prevents none of the problems I mentioned. It reduces them, but you cannot plan yourself out of an SD card that goes bad.
The phone is not being answered because all hands and the cook are handling support calls, returning calls. As Johnny said, even people who aren’t in support are being pressed into service. Leave a message with your phone number, time zone, and a good time to call back or send email to support@spartancamera.com. Using voice mail to collect information is more efficient than hiring people to do it.
Spartan Camera opted not to prevent phone email addresses three years ago when it was known that eventually those would cause problems. In retrospect, the decision maker(s) may wish that phone emails had not been allowed as soon as that was known. Instead, the decision was made to allow phone emails, with the warning that they weren’t dependable and that delivery was not guaranteed.
Had SC known that Verizon would start filtering, they’d probably have shut down phone emails a while ago. It happened with AT&T several times in the past.
Unfortunately, the workaround is what we are stuck with. Surely it’s better than nothing even though it is not convenient. The alternative is no text, no how, no way.
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Guess I don’t spend enough time online to keep folks strait.
To clarify I said all but eliminate issues. Including the SD cards. If you keep them in a wadded up ziplock in your pocket or pack, you are more likely to have a failure. I keep them in a pelican case that protects them well. I also toss any that seem to have problems deleting photos. I have yet to have a failure doing this. My last 4 spartan cams I bought were #49-52 and I have at least 2 cards per cam. I’ve also reused cam numbers when I got rid of a certain brand. I know you’re not new at this but neither am I.
Like you, I also wish they would have taken care of this issue earlier and in the off season, instead of right before everybody heads to the woods. There were delivery issues that seemed to resolve themselves last year. This year should t have been a surprise.
Using voicemail is more efficient for the company, but it does nothing to preserve a persons place in line if you miss the call back, and hence my frustration. In hindsight I should have used email, but always seemed like I did it while I was driving around. Again my frustration was it took so long (2 weeks) to figure out a work around because I kept losing my place in line if I missed a callback. I don’t think you and Spartan fully grasp the impact this has had on some people.
Liz, I feel like your trying to convince me that I had a good customer service experience and Spartan knocked this one out of the park. I don’t feel like Idid and that they could have done much better. Don’t get me wrong, up to this point, the cameras have served me well and Spartan has been great. I hope moving forward they continue to do so. But I am nobody’s fanboy. If things aren’t going well, I’m not going to pretend they are. I will speak out and address what I think is wrong in hopes it will get fixed. If I think they are the best option out there I will continue to use them, if not I won’t.
My main concern, is that this work around quits at the same time next year and leaves me SOL. At least I will have emails as a backup, and can switch to premium if the next firmware update allows switching remotely.
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Last year’s problems (and the year before’s) had to do with the Spartan server and lack of capacity. Last year, the server was upgraded last to a system that resizes itself under load. There haven’t been any problems with capacity this year. There were two short maintenance upgrades recently that had the system down for less than two hours each time but those weren’t related to the server.
The server load problem and this Verizon text problem have nothing to do with each other. Nobody foresaw that Verizon would start filtering messages. If they had, text messaging would have been cut off earlier.The Verizon text messaging isn’t likely to be fixed, at least not the way you want it to be fixed. The workaround is the best we can do. Unless Gmail starts blocking emails from SC and/or Verizon starts blocking messages from Gmail, the workaround should work, but that’s completely out of SC’s control. The workaround is in no way an official, supported solution. It’s on option, offered from a couple of Spartan users to anyone who cares to try it, but there are no guarantees.
I’ve tried to provide you with a workaround that works the way you want your pictures to get to you (and thanks to the customer who provided the “bones” for the instructions, which saved me some trial and error and research). The alternative is for you to figure it out how to do it on your own or to use email or the app because email or the app are the only two options going forward.
FWIW, I just put the workaround together a couple of days ago. If you want to blame that two-week delay on me, feel free. I’ve told people about sending to Gmail and forwarding but I hadn’t taken the time to actually do it and document it until a user here mentioned the steps, which I modified some when I worked through the process and documented it. It’s not an official SC workaround, which is why it’s posted in the support forum and not as a KnowledgeBase article. The official SC position, from the time this started even through today, is to use premium and/or email.
I’m not trying to convince you that this is good customer service or that Spartan knocked this out of the park. It’s a difficult situation for everyone any way you look at it. However, SC is doing the best that it can under the circumstances. You can’t help it if you are running around when they call, but they can’t help it, either, and they have to move on to the next person in line.
BTW, I have had brand new SD cards, used only in one camera, installed when the camera was brand new and never taken out, go bad in the camera. I have had multiple card failures, but I’m running about 30 cell cameras right now so the odds are against me on the SD card situation. I have worked with numerous people who’ve experienced SD card failures for no apparent reason. I’ve had storage failures on every electronic storage medium I’ve ever used, starting with 90 K floppy disks. (Yes, I’m THAT old.) -
Alex even though that email from tech was about something else there's no reason you can't reply and have a conversation about different issues. Maybe reply to that email and try and set up a time that works for them to call you, Jessie is a very good tech and can assist you with pretty much anything you need to know about the camera. As far as the order of returned calls there is a procedure, you have no idea how many people leave a number to call back and don't answer, have no voicemail set up or the voicemail is full. You mentioned Dave, is that Dave S?
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Liz- Soundis like you are unlucky with storage devises:) Or I’m just lucky with them. Thank you for the write up on the work around. I in no way blame you for this. But what your writing, only supports what I’m saying. Spartan didn’t fix this, a user in a user forum did. Maybe I missed it, but I haven’t seen anything on Spartans website or any emails that came out to address the issue. Letting customers know what’s going on and how to fix it. Even if they didn’t include the unofficial work around.
It took me over 2 weeks of scrambling to figure it out, and I just happened to stumble onto the answer in this forum. I was fairly certain early it was a system issue, because all my cameras stopped working at once. I even gave it a few days to resolve itself. Somebody with only 1 or 2 cameras may end up running through the standard troubleshooting steps making several trips to the mountains and burning up a few weekends. Then calling Spartan to leave a message. By going this route Spartan is increasing the time guys cameras are down and making them seek out help individually. When I said earlier that Spartan was sitting on their hands, this is exactly what I was alluding to. We’re almost 3 weeks in. Make an announcement with instructions how to fix it. If they did it on a Friday they’d likely cut down on the number of phone calls they would be fielding the following week. Include links to forum for reference and weekend “support”.
Jonny- I’m sure Jessie is great. All the techs I’ve dealt with over the years have been. The way Spartan is handling this issue is not in line with the previous customer service I’ve received. By not getting in front of it and trying to help people as soon as the issue was recognized, it gives the appearance that they are trying to hide the issue to protect sales. I guess time will tell if it was the right move from that standpoint.
I’ve got this part as fixed as I’m going to be able to this season thanks to the info on this forum. This is a known issue effecting all Verizon customers with SMS delivery. There’s obviously a lot of us, otherwise Verizon wouldn’t be filtering. Some people are still scrambling as hunting season gets closer not sure what’s going on. I know because I’m still getting calls and texts from people. At least I’m able to help at this point. Some people might not even know and think the critters have moved elsewhere. And yes Dave S.
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Talexwood,
Sounds like you don’t have much experience with storage devices if you’ve never had one go bad. I’ve been through thousands (probably tens of thousands, over the years) of 5.25” floppy disks, 3.25” floppy disks, Jazz drives and Zip drives, CD-R and CD-RW, flash drives of various sizes (starting back when MB were expensive), SD cards, and possibly something other forms of storage that I’m not remembering. Bottom line is that they are ALL at risk. It’s not a matter if if, it’s a matter of when.
Johnny and I both have full time jobs that aren’t with Spartan. I’ve been helping out here, on a FB page for Spartan users, on messenger on the Spartan FB page, in my private FB messenger; nights, weekends, and sometimes during the day. Since Spartan’s position is email or app, I didn’t take time to try to figure out a workaround. I’ve been busy trying to help people with all sorts of things that come up. But when a user here shared a workaround, I took the time to explore it, do some testing, make some changes to the procedure, and document it. That was at least a couple or three hours of work by the time all was said and done.
Spartan HAS been dealing with the problem, getting customers to transition to either the app/premium or email. Those are the officially supported methods of picture delivery and have been the officially supported methods for at least three years. All documentation created in the last three years has warned against using text delivery. Anyone using text delivery opted to ignore the warning. Spartan allowed it in spite of the warning. Perhaps they should not have.
It’s not an official Spartan workaround, they don’t want it to be anything official. It’s not sanctioned. They’re not going to make any sort of announcement about the workaround because it IS a workaround. Again, the official position is to use the app or email. They aren’t going to support the workaround, at least not at this point, and maybe/probably not ever.
Your cameras didn’t stop working. They’ve been sending pics all along. What stopped working was Verizon’s delivery of picture texts.
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Please verify that i have the work around correct. Camera is set to phone number@vzwpics.com. Nothing changes. Then i take a gmail account and forward it to the same address that is in the camera.
And now a Vz rant. I had the original unlimited data plan. I was running over on texts so i went to change the plan. Guy says DUDE! Are you sure you want to give this up? I could run my whole house on this plan. I did. Now the texts dont work and i will eventually have to use all my data in my plan for pics. -
Keep in mind that any time you are on WiFi, you aren’t being charged for incoming pictures, regardless of where they are coming from. As Johnny pointed out, the camera uses the same amount of data when it sends the picture, regardless of what that one email address is. It doesn’t send it in text format, it sends it as data. Pictures use very little data.
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