Update: I have just noticed the same behavior yesterday on the C310 as well. In my testing of a C520WS, the C520WS captured the footage of a cat entering the field of view. I have 2 units of C310 which have been installed in that area for a few years but they failed to capture anything during that time! Both C310s have motion detection and person detection set on (the C310 doesn't support animal detection but motion detection should have detected the cat).

So I suspect that this is a common problem across all models but it's something that most users will not realize. You will only realize this if you know something happened in the past within the field of view but can't find any recording for the event. I have certainly experienced this before in the past but fortunately the event was not a security threat.

This is a very serious reliability issue that needs to be addressed. It requires extensive testing by the developers.

In the cases that I've seen, a common characteristic is the moving object looks relatively small within the field of view. It's something like a cat that's located about 15 feet away from the camera, or a person who's probably 30 or 40 feet away.

I'm not saying this issue will always happen when a moving object with this characteristic appears within the field of view. I'm also not saying it definitely can't happen if the object looks larger to the camera. I'm only pointing out my own observations in case it may be useful to the developers. 

  @SPFun Agreed. There have been events, like one of my kids leaving or returning to the house, where they weren't captured in spite of them being in the detection zone (which triggered for the other kid leaving 5-10min earlier). It doesn't happen often enough to debug it with support.. it'd take a fair amount of effort to catch it happening. 

  @Solla-topee 

Hi,

1. I have captured the screenshots and will send you the download link separately. Anyway I didn't modify the default detection zone. So it's supposed to detect events in the entire field of view.

2. I didn't enable notification. I remember the default was enabled but I have turned it off.

3. The recording is stored on a local SD card. The cameras are set to record detection video clips only.

4. I will send you the download link for the video clip separately.

Thanks.

This appears to be a very common issue but most users are unaware of it because they won't know if an event is not detected or not recorded unless they know there was a moving object in that area at that time in the first place!

I just noticed another occurrence today: A C520WS capturing a footage of a cat walking into its detection area. Another C310 which would have "seen" this cat from another angle did not record anything! Notification was turned off in both cameras.

In fact, I have also just noticed another (probably unrelated) reliability issue: A C325WB recorded a footage that's supposed to be triggered by animal movement but there's no animal and nothing moving in the recording!!

As it is now, detection recording is VERY unreliable and cannot be relied on to detect every single event that should be recorded or detected. Perhaps a workaround (hopefully a temporary one) is to turn on continuous recording but it will be much harder to locate movement events.

This type of reliability issues are unacceptable for security cameras. It's like hiring a security guard who tends to doze off from time to time!

  @Solla-topee 

I understand enabling notification can be useful for troubleshooting purposes.

The reason I disabled it is there are just too many events that I don't want to be notified and it becomes really annoying. So for practical reasons I will not enable notification.

  @Solla-topee 

By the way, my login id for the tp-link community website is an old email address that I'm no longer using. I know there is no way to change the login id to my current email address, at least I can't do it myself.

Is the website admin able to do this for me or do I have to open another account with the new email address and use the new login id going forward?

I will send you my current email address separately. Please tell your tech team to contact me through that email address.

Thanks.

  @SPFun 

I am having the same problems with my C460. Also, when he records, it is many times way to late. People are almost out of the dectection zone when the camera starts recording.

It looks as if the camera has problem waking up when motion is detected. 

My D235 doorbell however has no problems with recording. Both are on the front of the house so I can tell when the camera is not recording events properly.