Another issue with no photos
4 of my cameras are no longer taking or sending photos. They are GC-Z4GB models on Verizon. Reading other posts I suspected it was my SD cards which were Class 4. Now I have SanDisk 32GB Class 10 cards but issue persists. New batteries in each. Network connectivity seems good. Hello test worked. I see updated info under Manage Cameras on the portal after I turn camera on and when the daily status report is sent. I have daily limit set to zero. When I first turn the camera on it will take 1 photo but will not send it. It will not take any additional photos after the first one. If I turn the camera off and restart it will take another photo but will not send and will not take any additional photos.
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Yesterday I received a handful of intermittent photos from a couple of my 10 cameras, including one in my possession that would not send anything over the weekend. All 10 cameras posted status updates after midnight today but they are not consistently sending photos, not even manually. I did not receive any reply from tech support yesterday but understand they are busy. I have now invested multiple hours trying to troubleshoot this problem and spent even more money on new SD cards and premium credits. This is incredibly frustrating and appears to be systematic given the volume of posts citing similar issues. Hopefully tech support can resolve this issue soon, but my confidence in the product and support is quickly fading.
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Kevin,
There are tens of thousands of these cameras out there. The problem isn't systemic. However, for the people having the problem, it's awful. Tech support will get back to you. I think you are dealing with a Verizon connection issue that support is working on. If that's the case, all the things you did to troubleshoot have at least ruled the common causes of problems out.
I'm running 31 of these cameras, various models and various carriers. Thirty of the 31 checked in this morning with the 9 AM photo. The only one that didn't is a Sprint 3G model that sent a picture at 7 AM, but not at 9 AM. It's my worst camera, in a class by itself, run it in my backyard.
I'm running several 3G AT&T (ATTb, ATTi, ATTxb), 4G AT&T (A4Gb, A4Gc), 3G Verizon (VZWb, VCTb), 4G Verizon (V4Gb, Z4Gb, W4Gb), 3G US Cellular, 4G US Cellular, 3G Sprint. The two Verizon cameras I have on one feeder sent bunches of pictures last night, and one's on a 5-minute trigger interval.
I am not trying to dismiss your problem but I am saying that there are lots more cameras working as they should than cameras that aren't. The cameras that aren't working do need to be gotten back online. Both the Verizon and AT&T problems have been a challenge to track down because they don't affect all, or even, most cameras but the engineers are working on it.
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Kevin,
I just went through my pictures from last night. I marked everything as viewed after the 9 PM event photo, so this is everything since then. These are my Verizon cameras. Our camp in MS is in a very poor signal area for my cell phone (no signal, 1X, couple of bars 3G). The 3G cameras are showing 1 bar, occasionally 2. The V4G are showing 2 or maybe 3. The other 4G cameras are showing 5 bars.
V4Gb 3
Z4Gb 20
VCTb 39
W4Gb 41
W4Gb 7
VCTb 11
V4Gb 8
VZWb 1
The Verizon camera problem seems to be in particular areas rather than everywhere. The engineers are trying to figure that out. -
I put two new SD cards in both kitchen cameras last night. The first camera to send photos today sent a total of 10 and the other camera eventually began sending a total of 8 photos. To be clear, both cameras should have sent many more photos based on the activity. The lag time between photos per camera was at least 5-6 minutes, suggesting long delay time in sending the photos. In some instances both cameras captured the same motion event. But more often the cameras sent photos of motion events that were 10+ minutes apart, demonstrating that the photos continue to be inconsistent and intermittent. I suspect that the inconsistency of the issue will make ultimate diagnosis and resolution more difficult. Hopefully tomorrow brings us closer to a fix. Thanks Elizabeth and Johnny for your continued assistance which is the only acknowledgement from Spartan that I have received to let me know this issue is being investigated.
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Kevin,
Those long delays between photos indicate to me that there is a connection problem. If your trigger interval is set to 0, those photos should be no more than 2 minutes apart, and more likely closer to a minute apart. The cameras seem to be struggling to send.
I hope the engineers figure out what’s causing the problem. It’s very frustrating for all involved.
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Hey Elizabeth. Yes, that seems to be exactly what is happening. The cameras either fail to send or they experience long delays in sending, both due to connectivity issues. I spoke to tech support today. I learned that this problem seems to be most acute in the northeast (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts) and seems to have begun around mid September, exactly when I noticed my issues starting. At this time they think it is related to Verizon doing tower work in certain areas but this seems mostly theory in the absence of any other evidence. We are going to try a potential workaround when I return home tomorrow by re-synching the SIM cards on a couple of the cameras. Will let you know how it goes. Fingers crossed...
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I took 3 cameras to work yesterday which is about 21 miles from my house and the problem persisted. I spoke with tech support again. We had Verizon re-synch the SIM cards on 3 cameras but this did not fix the problem. I was told that Spartan sent an engineer to my state and experienced the same issue on cameras that had been working fine the day before in another state. Spartan does seem to be dedicated to fixing this problem and hopefully can solve this ASAP..
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I live in central Wisconsin and Dubuque, IA. The exact same thing started to happen to me about 2 weeks ago. Same thing... stopped working about 2 weeks ago it quit sending pictures then status reports. Brought the camera out of the woods to find the batteries dead. Put new batteries in then it would try, retry then fail to send the picture. batteries were dead in less than a week. I am guessing that it kept trying to send until the batteries were dead. The images save to the sd card but it will fail to send test and triggered photos. I spent around 10 hours trying to diagnose the problem and trying everything I came across on these forms. Passes hello test but fails to send photo. This was consistent in central Wisconsin and Eastern Iowa. I just bought the camera September 2019. Disappointed how it only worked for a couple weeks before this problem. Tech support said it was on Verizons end.
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Hey Michael. Curious what camera model you are running out there? I exchanged emails with tech support yesterday. They do have an engineer here in Massachusetts working on this. I understand that the problem is very acute here. The communication from Spartan could certainly be better but I do believe they are committed to fixing the issue. I suspect what is happening to our cameras will become more universal on the Verizon network over time if they don't figure it out and they realize this. I have been using Spartan cameras for 4+ years and have been very happy with them until recently. Hopefully they get this fixed ASAP. I will continue to post any updates I receive and would appreciate if you can do the same. Good luck!
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Micheal, what camera model do you have and is the firmware up to date? Are you getting the pictures to the app or email/text?
Kevin, I just got an update the other day, the engineer and someone from Spartans main office are up there and have been working on the Verizon situation. Hopefully things will be resolved soon.
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I have a GC-V4Gb. The camera indicated the firmware was up to date, but i also updated firmware last Wednesday 10/9/19 both through premium and manually. The pictures don't get sent at all through the app text or email. Yes, I have premium credit through early December. The camera would say setting... sending... setting... sending... failed. Then would started trying to send again, but it would never come through. I tried 32gb class 10 sd card, 8gb sd card, 2gb class 4 sd card. I formatted all of them. Defaulted the settings. Passes hello test. Same thing every time setting... sending... setting... sending... failed. It worked great for a couple weeks then just stopped working. I will also update if I get any progress.
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