GC-G4Gb Issues

Comments

32 comments

  • Corey Hobbs

    Hunted this afternoon and watched four does it never took a video of, then it missed the 8 pm check in, but then detected two other does at 8:06 pm. No rhyme or reason to it and I’m out of ideas.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    There is a new FW update, made available today. You’ve installed it? If not, I would definitely try it. It’s designed to fix the connectivity issues that some cameras have been having. It’s possible that your camera did take videos (is there a reason you’re not running photo + video?) but just wasn’t able to send because of connectivity. 

    I would update FW then switch to photo + video unless you have a very good reason to run video only. Photos are a lot more likely to be transmitted and then you can request video of “interesting” photos.


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  • Corey Hobbs

    I haven’t installed the firmware update, my app shows the firmware as being up to date as of 9/4. How do I request the update? I’m running it on video since I have unlimited data and a solar panel, so I don’t need to worry about battery usage. Is there a reason beyond data saving and battery usage to use photo + video?

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  • John Lockburner

    I think that 9/4 is the most current for the G4. Is there any chance your batteries are getting low? Missing scheduled events is usually a sign of low power. Is your SD card a class 10 and 32gb or smaller? Also should be a full size card not in an adapter.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Corey, 

    Time saving. Maybe you get just interesting videos, but I get several hundred pictures a night. Even if I had unlimited data, I wouldn’t want to look at that many videos. Photo + video is fast. Pics come in faster than video, camera will be ready to take another picture faster than if you’re doing video. But you may be happy with fewer videos than with more photos.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    John, I dont think the batteries are getting low. I just put fresh batteries in about 10 days ago and set up solar panels on both cameras. SD card is a 32 gig, don’t know if it’s class 10 or not, but I’ve never had issues with either in the past. Elizabeth, that’s a good point about the pictures and the camera being ready to take another picture faster. I’ll use picture + video for a while to see how it goes. Hopefully that solves the connectivity issue. Still not sure about the detection problem on the one camera though.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Corey, can you post a picture or two from the camera that isn’t detecting the way you think it should? You may have to do it from a computer.

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  • John Lockburner

    Corey, also keep your sensitivity set to normal, if you have it on high it can actually decrease detection.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    I’ve now had ten (and counting) false triggers in the last fifteen minutes, after no movement detections all night. I think there’s obviously something wrong with the movement sensor and I’ve contacted customer support about it. There’s also no issues with transmission since it’s blowing my phone up now with the videos of nothing.

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  • John Lockburner

    Make sure that time lapse isn't turned on, is there a T or M on the pics/videos?

     

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    There’s an M on the photo info strip?

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  • Corey Hobbs

    Time lapse is off and there’s an M on the photo strip.

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  • John Lockburner

    Corey, if you want me to take a look at things for you email me your portal log in info, email it to johnny.lockburner@spartancamera.com

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  • Corey Hobbs

    Email sent. Thanks Johnny.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    The saga continues. Went out to the woods on Friday to manually check both cameras and reset if needed. Verizon said one camera was showing as “off” and another was showing as “SIM not registered”. They fixed both issues on their end.

    Got to camera one, turned it off, waited five minutes, and turned it back on again. This was the camera that was showing as “not registered”. Camera connected right away, settings set to picture only, 5 second trigger delay, power saving off. Fast forward to Sunday morning at 8 am and the camera stopped sending pictures. I typically get raccoons and birds intermittently all day so not getting anything was odd. Now it has missed the 4 pm check in, so it looks like I’m looking at the same issue again. Gave Verizon a cal and they said everything was connected and running on their end.

    Pulled camera two and not only would it not connect, but the internal camera screen was jumping around and not letting me select anything. Needless to say that camera is going back to Spartan.

    These cameras have been nothing but trouble since I got them in late August and I’m getting extremely frustrated. I hate to say it, but buyer beware.

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  • John Lockburner

    I would try turning power save on on those cameras

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  • Corey Hobbs

    If this camera ever connects to the network again, the settings change that’s been pending all day will do just that.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Are there any pending commands? If so, cancel them.

    Are you able to get the “jumpy” camera to come up at all? If so, go to the third menu tab and scroll down to Default. Let’s see if resetting the camera might clear the cobwebs so you can start from scratch getting it set up the way you want it.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    The only pending command is the command to turn “power save” back on and change the trigger delay to 10 seconds.

    The jumpy camera has already been pulled and will be sent back this week. Mike at Herd360 has already sent me a new one.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Corey,

    There’s not much reason for a 10 second delay. You usually want pictures either as fast as you can get them (so use 0 seconds) or spread out some (like on a feeder or a location that gets lots of traffic), so you want the camera quiet at least 2 minutes between sending a picture and taking the next, but sometimes 5 or 10 minutes or more.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    Understood. I cancelled the update and changed a new update to only turn power save back on. But still nothing from the camera so none of the settings changes have gone through. There’s another scheduled event at 6 pm but I’m not holding my breathe.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    Camera hasn’t sent any pictures for 12 hours, and this is after resetting it and it working perfectly from noon Friday to 8 am Sunday. I reset it because it did the same thing.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    What is the date/time on the last status report you got?

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  • Corey Hobbs

    10/7 at 1:56 AM. Full service and 4.03V internal battery.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    What about the external battery voltage? You’re using the direct-connect solar panel? 

    What scheduled events do you have set? That time would be from a motion triggered photo. Did you get one about the time on the status report?

    Does the command history show that your setting update completed or not?

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  • Corey Hobbs

    As of the last status report the external voltage was 9.54V. Yes, using a direct connect solar panel. Scheduled events are a status report at midnight and pictures at 6, 7, 8, and 9 am; 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 pm. I didn’t get a motion triggered photo, just the status report. The setting update didn’t go through.

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  • Corey Hobbs

    Correction, the status update came through at 00:01:56, so essentially midnight. Not 1:56 AM.

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  • John Lockburner

    I don't remember, did we try and do a manual firmware update on the cameras?

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  • Corey Hobbs

    John, a manual firmware update hasn’t been done yet.

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  • John Lockburner

    Let's try that, here's a link to the download page. Make sure you use a clean SD card that has been formatted in the camera and that you download the firmware that is for your exact camera model.

     

    https://my.spartancamera.com/download

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