GC-Z4Gb No Longer Sending Photos After Last App Update

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29 comments

  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Check the status report and see what the date and time on that is, please. Are there commands stacked up in command history?

    The app is working fine. I have it running on three iPads and am getting pictures from 30 cameras, give or take. 

     

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    By this, I mean that the app isn’t the problem but we do need to figure out what is happening. Are the pictures on the portal and just not on the app or not on the portal, either.

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  • John Lockburner

    Are the photos getting to the online portal? Have you tried to take and send a manual picture? Where are you getting your data from?

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  • Dean W

    I didn’t realize there was an online portal where images were sent, and I also didn’t know that I could manually send a picture. Where can I access the online portal, and how can I manually send an image?

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    www.spartancamera.com

    To take/send manual photo, camera in setup mode and online, aim it at something, press OK to take pic, OK to send.

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  • Dean W

    Ah crud. The camera’s our in the field about a 40 minute drive from here. Might be a some time before I can get back out there. I can at least check the online portal in the mean time.

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  • Dean W

    Looks like under “Camera Management” on Spartan Cam’s web site there’s an option to “Manage Photos”. When I click that, I essentially get the Camera Management home page. There are no photos showing there at all.

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  • Dean W

    Also, the latest status report request was submitted just under 5 hours ago and hasn’t completed yet. It looks like most commands in my command history take 3-4 hours or more to complete. Is that normal?

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    If there aren’t any photos showing on the web site, the camera is not sending photos to the web site. That’s not good news. 

    Do you have a status report? If so, what’s the date/time on it?

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  • Dean W

    The current status report request is still pending, but a status report before that finished on 9/19 at 00:00:44 . I’m not really sure how to drill down into that status report from the command history though: all I can see from there is that the request did complete.

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  • John Lockburner

    When you make a request it doesn't happen until the camera checks in sending a picture or status report. So if you aren't getting pictures the requests are going to stay pending

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  • Dean W

    How can I actually look at the results of a status report? From the command history, all I can see if/when the request completed.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    The status report is above the command history. It’s the info on signal, battery, etc. The camera sent the daily midnight status report on 9/19 and the camera hasn’t checked in since. No contact typically means dead batteries, out of data (when on an AT&T plan that doesn’t renew, only on a renewable plan if the credit card is no longer valid), damaged antenna, turned off.

    If the camera is on your Verizon account, have you confirmed that it is still on your account? Verizon has been known to do whacky stuff. If it’s on a Spartan plan, have you confirmed by logging on to portal and verifying your wireless subscription?

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  • Kristian Kelley

    A co worker and I have several of the same cameras on a Verizon account.  They all stopped sending photos on 09/16.  Spartan acknowledged an issue with Verizon that their engineers are working with them on and has asked us to re sync the SIM card and that should fix the problem. (That did not work)  Clearly on 09/16 something happened that has affected all of us.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    I am running 6 Verizon cameras. One went down yesterday afternoon just after 5. It had been sending 100-200 pics and videos a day. The others have been churning out photos like crazy. One is on my personal Verizon account, the others are on a mix of Spartan Verizon plans and possibly a regular Verizon account that isn’t mine. 

    Do you know any other Spartan Verizon users in your area that you could check with? The fact that it’s all cameras on one account is suspicious. 

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  • Dustin Parent

    I have 15 cameras at this time, of which 14 are not sending photos. They all stopped working on September 16th. I will randomly get a picture on the app however there is so rhyme or reason. Spartan support has failed to return any of my many voicemails or emails at this time. 

    To date I have tried: 

    -Formatting all SD cards

    -Re-synced all SIM cards with Verizon

    -re started each camera with new batteries

     

    Two of my friends (25 cameras total) all advised their cameras are not working either. 

     

    Has there been any useful information  given to anyone that they can share to remedy this problem?

     

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    I have passed this information along. Hopefully someone will know something. Obviously there’s a problem in your area, but I’m not seeing this on the Spartan Facebook page or the Tips Tricks FB group so it’s not systemic.

    None of the testers have reported problems and we’re in different states. 

    Again, I’m not trying to dismiss your problem. I’m just saying that it doesn’t appear to be widespread at this point. The Verizon text message situation was pretty bad and I personally dealt with lots of complaints but have only seen this one that I’m aware of.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    There are several people in this thread so it’s getting hard to keep track of.

    Each of you who has cameras down, are the cameras still sending the midnight status report or not? IOW, are they still connected to the network, just not sending pics.

    Also, could you include your general area where the cameras are located (city state or general area, like SW MS).

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Never mind about the areas. The engineers are working on it. Those who have either emailed or called and left voice messages are in the queue for return calls. 

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  • Dean W

    Hey Elizabeth, in response to your question about daily status reports: Yes, the latest status report came in at midnight today (9/30). Everything in that report looks normal, including battery and signal levels. And if it helps, the camera is in NW PA.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    Okay, the fact that it is still sending a status report is good. Means the camera is still connected. Could be an SD card problem, could be a damaged (but not completely broken) antenna, could be something with the SIM card (although a SIM problem would usually take the camera offline. 

    Is the camera on your Verizon phone account or did you buy your data from Spartan? If it’s on your phone account, do you have premium credits? 

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  • Dean W

    The camera is on my phone account. I’m not totally sure about the premium credits. Now that you mention it, I do have the camera configured to send photos via Premium. How can I check the premium credits, and could changing the “Send via” mode possibly correct the issue? Btw, based on how the camera has been used and handled, I would think that hardware damage of some kind, whether to the antenna or the SD card seems unlikely.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    On the app, Account tab, Premium Credits, Check Credit.

    If you don’t want to run premium, you will need to go to the camera and change it to Auto. You can get regular thumbnails and won’t be able to change setting without being at the camera. Also, you can’t sent pics via text to your phone. Verizon is “filtering” those. You’ll have to send to email.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    If you want to try Auto, here’s a workaround that you may be able to use if you want to get pics via text, but it’s not guaranteed.

    https://support.spartancamera.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360034852293-Possible-workaround-for-filtered-texts-to-Verizon-phones-Gmail-forwarding-

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  • Dean W

    Oh, I see that I have 0 remaining Premium credits and they ran out on 9/17. Well that seems to explain my situation. So what exactly does the Premium mode do? It sounds like running in Auto mode kind of sucks. If I can’t get photos sent via text, I can at least still see all of the photos and videos in the app, right? And how do I get more premium credits and how much do they cost?

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  • John Lockburner

    You can log on to the online portal and click on shop and buy credits. They are $3 each if you buy at least 10 of them. They allow you to use the app and the portal and have complete control of all your camera settings remotely. Also allows you to view your videos which can't be done if you get the images through text or email.

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  • Elizabeth Swoope

    https://support.spartancamera.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010539473-Premium-Credits-what-are-they-buying-them-and-monitoring-them

    At least there’s a logical explanation and it’s something that’s easily fixed! That’s always a good thing.

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  • Dean W

    Hmm, the article about Premium Credits seems to suggest that once I purchase premium credits, any photos that were captured while I had no credits won’t be sent (Although they are stored on the SD card), but new incoming photos will be sent. Is that right?

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  • John Lockburner

    Yes, that is correct

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