Quickly growing log files

WyzeJasonJ · October 28, 2020, 11:02pm

What app version is everyone on that this is happening to?

Seapup · October 28, 2020, 11:10pm

I tried to send the one from today and my device barfed. 84GB file forced my device into limp mode. Android forced display to file manager asking me to free up space.

I’m running public v2.14.35 on all of my Android devices.

Problem has been noted under Android 6, 9 and 10 here.

Seapup · October 28, 2020, 11:56pm

./Internal Storage/log_*

Herohtar · October 29, 2020, 12:07am

I’m on V2.14.35 on Android 11.

It’s the top level “internal storage” folder. On my Pixel device the “real” path is /storage/emulated/0. In any case, it’s the folder that typically contains subfolders for ringtones, apps, etc, so if you’re in the Wyze folder, go up one and that’s the place the massive log files are.

Customer · October 29, 2020, 12:09am

Okay thanks. I have no such logs there. Found some 3 year old ones from VLC though.

nkf · October 29, 2020, 2:01am

I am running 6.0 Android Marshmallow on phone and using Wyze app version 4.9.6.199 (latest version). Never noticed the massive file size until last 2 firmware upgrades. Have 4 Wyze Cam v2 cameras in which 2 are using a 128GB microSD - if that matters. Like I said, never found a problem until the last 2 firmware upgrades and also possibility it occurred when Wyze was having the issues with cameras disappearing from the app awhile back. I also submitted a ticket but only response so far is they are busy and will get to it or something to that effect. Seemed like a robotic response rather that anyone actually “reading” the issue I was having.

WyzeJasonJ · October 29, 2020, 2:02am

That is the firmware version, the app version will be found in the app under Account > About

nkf · October 29, 2020, 2:04am

Also should note that the files were originally downloading to the internal memory on my phone but after deleting them several times they got “smarter” and started downloading to my sd card memory so they don’t seem to have a solid place that they download to if that makes any sense.

nkf · October 29, 2020, 2:06am

v2.14.35

fiftys · October 29, 2020, 9:17am

Yeah… uh. Same problem. Come on guys. Fix this nonsense.

nato · October 29, 2020, 10:39am

I am having this problem with app version v2.14.35

Chat support suggested installing the beta version, (currently v2.15.11) so let’s see how that goes.

nightmayor · October 29, 2020, 12:54pm

I’m on App version 2.14.35
I have 2 cameras on firmware .156 and 1 camera on firmware .193

I notice in firmware version .191 (which was pulled shortly after) one of the updates was:
“Improved the logs for error analysis”

Was this included in firmware .193 as well?
I would guess that is where the logging went wrong.

nightmayor · October 29, 2020, 1:20pm

I’m doing some more experiments.
The log file seems to grow only when I use the App to view the cameras.
It grows when viewing the camera on v.191
But it also grows when viewing the cameras on v.156

So maybe the App is the root cause.

surfer26th · October 29, 2020, 5:24pm

I have the Wyze app on three different phones, all Android. My app and my wife’s is the latest v2.14.35. The third phone is used exclusively for Wyze and is using an old version: v2.7.19

First, the phone using the old version v2.7.19 shows no logs in File Manager. I couldn’t find any log txt’s whatsoever. Good thing, since that phone is operating 24x7 and I have the Wyze app open to view only one camera. That phone is used by our caregiver to keep an eye on an elderly person.

Second, my phone just this week was beeping me to tell me that I was running out of internal memory space. I couldn’t figure out why until I found the log_iotc.txt file which had blown up to well over 25 GB. I then did a google search for “log_iotc.txt”, which brought me to this web page. I deleted that log file and things have been operating just fine. But I am monitoring that file, which grows daily, since I do use my phone to open the Wyze app daily. I have it opened to my Wyze camera for around 2 hours each day. I just deleted the file again today, since it grew to over 1 GB.

Third, my wife’s phone is also using the latest Wyze app version v2.14.35, but the log_iotc.txt file was only in the hundreds of MB. That’s because she only rarely opens the Wyze app, I assume.

My conclusions after reading peoples’ comments and from my own observations:
(1) The old Wyze app version does not have this problem. It does not save to any log files as far as I can tell. This suggests to me that the logging code was probably for development, but got published with the final code by mistake (as someone on this board has already speculated)
(2) The current v2.14.35 log file size is a function of how long you keep the Wyze app open and trained on a camera.
(3) This is a bug that Wyze needs to address and quickly, as everyone on this board knows.

surfer26th · October 29, 2020, 5:43pm

I have the Wyze app installed on three different Android phones and TinyCam Pro installed on my Chromebook (unfortunately, Wyze app does not support Chromebook native, but Tiny Cam does). I can attest that TinyCam works great. I think it’s worth the small price to upgrade to Pro.

However, I do want to say that the Wyze app has one advantage over TinyCam: When our internet goes down – we use Comcast – the Wyze app continues to operate using our local WiFi. So does TinyCam if you keep TinyCam open. However, if you close TinyCam and open it while your internet is down, then you cannot gain access to the camera. At least that’s what it seems to me. That, I speculate, has to do with an initialization procedure that requires the internet to initialize to the TinyCam backend in the cloud. But once things initialize, then the internet can go down and you’re still connected to the camera over Wifi. This initialization requirement does not seem to be the case with Wyze. The internet can be down, and if your Wifi is up, you can still initialize the Wyze app connection to the camera. This is a big deal if your internet provider goes down often.

Customer · October 29, 2020, 6:41pm

Not quite. There is no TinyCam back end, unless you’re paying for their optional services.

It’s just that TinyCam is authenticating to Wyze’s back end, and can’t reach it. Apparently your Wyze app isn’t bothering to reauthenticate when you open it.

Also, if you switched to RTSP firmware I think your TinyCam would not have this problem.

nightmayor · October 29, 2020, 7:31pm

I contacted Wyze Support today via the Web Chat and had a long talk about this issue. Hopefully now their development team are aware of it.

I can see some weaknesses in Wyze’s support model which is proving to be frustrating. I’m fairly new to using this forum so I don’t know if this is normal:

When I raise a ticket via the App, I have no way of checking the status of the ticket or updating it unless one of the developers reaches out to me first (so far, they haven’t).
These forums are for the customers only. There appear to be no developers actively monitoring them or providing feedback.
The Support team have no visibility of the tickets/logs I have raised through the App.

Basically, there could be a thousand people on this page giving out and Wyze would be completely unaware.

If you have a problem and cannot find an answer in these forums, you’re going to have to talk to Wyze Support (via phone or web chat) and encourage them to escalate it within Wyze.

surfer26th · October 29, 2020, 9:44pm

Thank you for taking the time to talk to their Support people!

lowe.brian · October 30, 2020, 2:18am

As a developer, this looks like someone released the latest update with the log level set way too high.

UserCustomerGwen · October 30, 2020, 3:01am

Hi, everyone! I escalated this to the team as well and we’re talking to the devs about it. Thanks for all the info!