@RoyBert 

Do you receive any error when doing the manual recording?

Try to walk across the camera field of view while opening the camera live stream page in the Tapo app at the same time. Check whether the detection and recording functions in this case, when the camera is awaked. 

More advice on What to do if the Detection feature is not working on the TP-Link Camera?

Please share your camera settings (screenshots) and some relevant videos with us so that our tech team can assist further. You may upload the pictures and videos to your personal cloud drive, like a shared album, then send a link here. Or send it to me privately through a message.