Here’s what I found…
When beta 4.36.5.58 was announced, all of my v3 cams were running beta 4.36.3.19 with no issues. I decided to update half of my v3 cams to 4.36.5.58. When I ran the individual firmware updates (not bulk update) on each cam, 4.36.5.58 was directly applied to 4.36.3.19 (no incremental staging). All of my v3 cams running 4.36.5.58 except two immediately experienced time stuttering, rebooting multiple time per hour and severe live stream issues. These issues occured only between sunrise and sunset. All affected cams ran perfectly between sunset and sunrise. Some of the affected cams autoswitch to night vision after sunset, some have NV mode off. Some run IR on at night, some don’t. All cams are running Cam Plus.
At sunrise this morning, all affected cams began having issues so I decided to flash two affected cams back to 4.36.3.19. I live streamed both cams for 3 hours with no issues encountered.
I decided to update both cams individually and found that instead of jumping to 4.36.5.58, the update applied was 4.36.4.4. I live streamed these cams for 1 hour and they were stable with the only problem encountered being that the time wouldn’t sync.
I decided to update both cams again, this time to 4.36.4.20. I live streamed the cams for an hour with no problems encountered. Time sync worked under this 4.36.4.20 update.
I decided to update both cams again, this time to 4.36.4.24. I live streamed the cams for an hour with no problems encountered.
I decided to update both cams again, this time to 4.36.5.58. I tried live streaming the cams, but both immediately suffered time stuttering, rebooting multiple time per hour and severe live stream issues.
After an hour of issues under 4.36.5.58, I decided to go back to 4.36.3.19 and incrementally update both cams up to 4.36.4.24. They have been running flawlessly for the past 4.5 hours.
It’s 15 minutes past sundown here and upon checking my problem cams that are still running 4.36.5.58… they are back to running perfectly… because it’s past sundown.
What have I learned?
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The issues are somehow tied to sunrise/sunset. No issues surface between sunset and sunrise.
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The issues are not related to heat. It is in the low 70s here at sunrise climbing into the 90s during late afternoon. Half of my affected cams are located indoors where it is a constant 72F degrees. The other affected half are outside in shade. Cams that I never updated are running 4.36.3.19 and in direct sun and have no issues. The 2 cams that I updated to 4.36.4.24 this afternoon ran flawlessly in direct sun at 95F degrees.
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Other than being in the middle of a boot cycle, all affected cams write to the SD card fine and playback is not affected.
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Other than being in the middle of a boot cycle, uploading Events and AI processing is not affected.
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I have no idea why 2 of my cams are running 4.36.5.58 with no issues whatsoever.
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The last known problem-free firmware version is 4.36.4.24.
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When 4.36.5.58 was 1st pushed, we were at 4.36.3.19 so the update path was: 4.36.3.19 > 4.36.5.58
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Today the update path is: 4.36.3.19 > 4.36.4.4 > 4.36.4.20 > 4.36.4.24 > 4.36.5.58
Summary of today’s testing:
- 4.36.3.19 stable
- 4.36.4.4 stable, but time sync fails
- 4.36.4.20 stable and time sync successful
- 4.36.4.24 stable and time sync successful
- 4.36.5.58 severe time stutters, rebooting, live stream issues
Hopefully, you find something meaningful in this. I’m leaving all cams as is until the next update. I have indoor and outdoor v3 cams running 4.36.3.19, 4.36.4.24 and 4.36.5.58. If there is some scenario you’d like me run to help debug, please let me know. I’m online every day multiple times per day.