Troubleshooting Kasa Camera 24/7 recordings missing and corrupted
I have a 128GB SD card in my camera and I needed video from it to document damage that was done to my fence less than 24 hours before. I could not pull it up on the app so I removed the SD card and followed the directions provided by KASA. When I opened the directory for yesterday there were only three folders (I am using WIN 10) labeled 00, 01, 23. So it was missing the rest of the hours of the day. Inside the 01 folder were only 9 folders all timestamped 5/19/2022 12:00 AM. They were all also 2,065 KB in size. When I tried opening any of these files I got a message that it could not be played and the file maybe corrupt. I had directories on this card that went back to May 5 and each of those directories have 24 subfolders and each of those have 60 files corresponding to the 1 minute mp4 videos that make up the 24/7 recordings. However when I get to May 17,2022 there are only 17 folders instead of 24 and in the folders labeled "00" to "14" there are 30 files instead of 60 and they are seperated by 2 minutes instead of be time stamped every minute yet the video file is one minute long, so I am starting to loose every other minute of "24/7" video. In the next to last folder "15" instead of 60 files there are 520 files with the files time stamped up until 5/17/2022 2:15 PM being viewable and of varios sizes in the 7,005 KB range but at 2:16 PM they are "possibly corrupt" and cannot be viewed and no files stored on the SD card after that are viewable and are all the same size at 2,065 KB. Needless to say that I am very disappointed that the one time I needed the video off my Kasa cam it was not there. I put a smaller 32 GB card in the camera and it has been working so far and I am able to call up 24/7 video from the iPhone app. Does anyone have a similar problem?
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I've had a couple app updates, now on 3.1.2 build 1318. Things seem "better" but I've been reformatting when the cards get full and viewing response gets flakey. I have not seen any firmware updates. I have two 411s with 128G cards and two 420s with 256G cards. All 4 have exhibited the viewing "stall" at some point but the 411s have always performed better. I keep meaning to swap the cards, putting the larger cards in the 411s, to see if that helps the 420s.
Right now I'm more frustrated by the app nagging to use 2-factor every couple uses. And the fact that the latest version doesn't open on the last viewed page. You have to select the camera tab every time.
Viewing performance: better than two months ago but not 100%. App experience, worse than previous design.
Thanks for following up though, I appreciate it.
Update: 411s on 2.3.14. 420s on 2.3.15. Must have been an update without the firmware check page. Last checked in June and 420s were 2.3.13.
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@Riley_S I have 5 KC410S cameras and all are still on the debug 2.3.14 firmware.
One of the cameras had the issue recur with that firmware installed and I notified developers, it then recovered on its own and began recording again. It's still working currently.
The four other cameras are in the problematic state currently and have not recovered (no 24/7 recording).
Whatever they've done, the developers haven't fixed the issue on these cameras or at least haven't pushed the firmware fix to mine.
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Also I'm using the Kasa app version 3.1.2 | Builld 1318 on iOS 16.1.
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When the SD card reaches its capacity, does the camera overwrite the recordings and clips, or are you still required to format the SD card? While it is counterintuitive, many of the reports that we received were in regard to SD Cards that were over 64Gb. This may or may not have been a trend, we do not know. If you are still having problems, you could try a smaller card to see if it allows for a better experience.
For your other recommendations,
- Resume App from Last Viewed Tab
- UI Improvements / Complaints
- Obsessive 2-Factor Invitations
I would appreciate creating a feature request thread so that I can properly track these and report them to the correct team.
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When the camera reaches card capacity, it sporadically overwrites. I'll see a couple recordings from the current day but nothing on the day or two before. Go back 3 or more days and there's fairly normal recordings. Trying to view any of them is mostly just waiting and probably nothing happens.
This was all before though, like I said it's been better tha past could weeks. It stil happens though.
I could use smaller cards but I specifically bought higher capacity cards because they were listed as supported..
Thanks again.
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10/26/2022
My 410S cameras are still on 2.3.14 while my 400 and 420WS cameras are on 2.3.15.
One theory I have had about this but (not mentioned in this thread) was that when I travel and go to a different time zone, I felt like this corrupted recording bug showed up then (something to do with the App/Camera wanting to adjust to my current time zone and screwing up the recording files/directories). But agree this seems likely to be timing of when the cards fill up. In my case, when I pull the card(s) and try to view files, I find only a 00 and 23 directories and all of the files are 2487 KB in size (very small) and won't play anything.
Until the bug fixed is confirmed, it might be best to reformat cards about the time they fill up and start trying to overwrite and/or when you think there's been nothing unusual to go back and look at.
I did just have an incident a few weeks ago I wanted to check and both the front yard 400 and 420WS cameras were not recording anything for several days. That's kind of frustrating but everything turned out okay in this case and reformatting the cards has these cameras working great again. I really like/want the 24/7 recording so that's a key feature that Kasa needs to get right. Hoping the .15 firmware solves this.
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Only as a follow-up. My two 420s on 2.3.15 haven't had any issues in the past month. I turned the resolution down to 1080 about 6 weeks ago and formatted the card. Now it has filled the 256GB card and is continuing to keep new recordings, presumably deleting the oldest ones. My 410s on 2.3.14 seem to have missed a few recordings.
I haven't had any corrupted playback issues recently either.
I've turned it back to 2160 now but didn't reformat the cards. I'll keep watching.
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@RP707 Brief update - all 5 of my KS410S cameras and the single KC420WS have updated to firmware 2.3.15.
All except for one are now working as expected for 24/7 recordings.
A single KS410S has had 24/7 recording stop at some point.
I reformatted the SD card in that one and am waiting to see if the issue recurs.
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I am glad to hear that the devices have started functioning as expected. We really do apologize for the delay in debugging and pushing the new firmware to devices, it really didn't help that the platform was going through a large backend and system change with the release of the new application.
If you have the recordings stop, but the SD Card has not been corrupted as it did way back, then I believe that unplugging and plugging the camera may force the recordings to start again without requiring the card to be reformatted
For your KS410S, was the SD card full when the recordings stopped? If there is a trend of devices stopping recordings and not overwriting, this is something that our team would definitely want to look into further.
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@Riley_S The one KC410S showed the SD card was full at the time the 24/7 recording stopped.
The app indicated 0.00 GB Available/ 226.32 GB Total.
The camera is in a different location than I am, so unplugging/plugging is not an option currently - I'll try power cycling if it happens again and I'm at the location.
Would be nice if one could trigger a power cycle for the camera remotely.
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