Error message: microSD card is not working

#1

Both of my Eufy HomeBasses are now giving me this error message: “microSD card is not working. Please re-insert it or restart HomeBase.”

Neither of those options works. I’m unable to gain access to footage I needed after someone robbed one of our stores. The thumbnails are visible but no recent videos will load. Nothing short of re-formatting the card seems to work.

I’ve contacted support a few times and was offered a free SD card, which I guess nice but also not really the point.

Worse, this seems like a known bug that their support did not mention. So even if I had taken them up on the free SD card, I’d have run into the problem again.

At this point, I’m done with Eufy for now. Until their storage management matures, it’s effectively useless as a security system for me.

I’m not really expecting an answer here. I’m posting this for anyone who does a Google search for the error message.

#2

All i can say is, that i had some of this issues too in the past.

It happened from time to time, that - without any obvious reason - the message appeared that the SD-card can’t be read or isn’t insert … something like this. Happened about half a dozen times in several months. But even after restarting the Homebase and or taking the SD-card out and back in … nothing worked for me. The Homebase respectively the app even told me that ther is no SD-card plugged in, even if this was not true - the SD-card was correctly inserted. However…

The only way to get it run again and getting rid of the error message was, that i put the SD-card in my PC-sd-card-reader, formatted it in exFAT oder FAT32 … dont remember exactly, and then i put it back into the Homebase. The Homebase itself then notifies me that the SD-card needs to be formatted (by the homebase and in the correct way the homebase needs it) … and then it worked again.

Very annoying, because all recorded videos are LOST in this case! (But at least the system is running again so for me, myself, i could live with some lost videos) … But lost videos are a 100% NOGO for a safety-relevant system. So i understand what you mean with “Until their storage management matures, it’s effectively useless as a security system for me.”. True, a security system should work 100%, 24/7/365, no question.

After the sixth or seventh time round about 2-3 weeks ago, this annyoing bug/issue pisses me so much of, that i finally kicked the ass of the crapy industrial standard SD-card which is delivered with the homebase and ordered an expensive high quality “Extreme Pro V30 Class” SD-card.

SD card Wikipedia.png885×338 27.5 KB

So i switched from the standard industrial “crapy quality” SD-card with 16 GB, which is delievered with the Homebase, to a 64 GB V30 Class PRO SD-Card and hope this will solve my SD-card problems and issues with the eufy cam.

To clarify:
The SD-card delivered with the eufy cam isn’t THAT bad i guess and also from a well known brand, but just “industrial standard quality” - which may or probably will fit most eufy cam users needs. But as my eufycams at my main homebase are 24/7 recording about 300-700 videos daily(!), i guess the stanard delivered SD-card is kind of overstrained in my setting/situation. Thats what caused the problems i guess.

For the most users of eufy cam, who maybe have 10-20 events daily or even less, the sd-card delivered with their homebase will fit their needs and work fine.

So since i have switched the SD-card to a much bigger and better one, for me the issue havn’t occured again till yet.

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Replacing SD-card homebase eufycam
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#3

I still use the same 16GB SD card came with Homebase, touch wood, still working fine. For my use case, it is more than enough to store a year worth of events.

#4

Yeap bro, as said … for 95% of the users the “standard industrial quality” of the SD-Card is probably ok and more than enough.

See the difference … my original 16 GB (15GB) SD-Card stored events for about max. 2 weeks, instead of 52 :grin: … But size wasn’t really the problem as i am formatting/deleting all recorded data anyway frequently, even on the 64 GB SD-card which is use currently. At latest after every update.

The problem was the “quality” and that the amount of “sd-card crashes” and the excessive demand of the card with so many cams and nearly 24/7 writing data and hundreds of videos daily.

So let’s see if my bigger and faster and better and much more expensive SD-card will survive the torture! :smiling_imp: … Waiting anyway day by day that my main homebase burst into flames :laughing:

https://media2.giphy.com/media/QhnNjR767zN1C/giphy.gif(image larger than 4096KB)

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#5

Need to use RTSP streams to a server with local Disk failure tolerance for better safety of data!

#6

True and correct … but stay realistic please :wink:

In my case i already invested several thousand Dollards in my eufy cam cosmos and infrastructure and all the stuff around to make it useable and like i want it … and most likely and sadly i will even be forced to buy one or more range entenders (as soon as available in 2031) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: to make my eufy cam cosmos useable and comfortable as i need and want it!

(Remember: i had to move the homebase to a room and place at my house where i do not want it to be, just to be able to use the eufy cam and have range at all!)

… i just can’t afford, and even if i could i wouldn’t, invest another 1000 bucks for a RAID 5 or RAID 10 NAS or server … :laughing:

I am not shitting money bro :wink: … even if i would like to :grin:

Besides this … if someone buys a eufy cam … it should be a “all included and ready to go” package, if you know what i mean … without the need to do this, and this … and watch this … aby buy this … to make it run and useable.

#7

Relying on a single point of failure for a security device isn’t realistic though. A higher quality SD card is a nice band-aid but at the end of the day, it will degrade, it will fail, and it can corrupt at any time. This is going to be the same case for any of these security camera systems that use a localized SD card for storage.

If someone breaks into your house and steals your homebase you would no longer have the footage of who did it even if the homebase had built in redundant SD cards. That’s not a fault of Eufy, that’s a fault of a system designed like this.

A cheaper solution then having a separate server would be to take advantage the cloud service provided. This gives you off-site backup of your files.

Its all about risk. Do you accept the risk of your single point of failure or do you mitigate the risk by moving to cloud based storage at a higher cost over time but with the benefit of data redundancy or do you mitigate the risk with an onsite data NAS at a lower cost but without real redundancy.

I am faced with this question on a daily basis but for systems that cost a little bit more than a home security camera system. The question is, how much of a lose will you face when your single point of failure (SD Card) fails and is the extra cost of risk mitigation (cloud storage / NAS) outweigh the lose risk. For a home user, its probably fine if you lose all of your footage 99% of the time, but for a business footage backup is almost always a must.

@monsterartandclothin depending on your budget I would 100% be looking at a solution that provides secondary footage storage for a business no matter what system you go with. This is something Eufycam offers via Cloud storage or RTSP to a local NAS. If you do move away from Eufycam that is still going to be a feature you should have for a business.

Also, what happens when you try to put the SD card into a computer? Is it recognized at all?

#8

Yeah, that’s other ummmm “interesting” choice Eufy made. They must be using their own custom file system or something bc the cards are not readable on a Mac or a PC. Idk - maybe they should have used an existing format and these other problems wouldn’t exist?

I’m realizing too late that this is a terrible system to have spent money on.

I was under the impression it would “just work” I could give it a decent size SD card and it would manage the rolling deletes. So unless I needed an old video, I’d be fine. And sure, over time, the card would wear out and I’d need a new one. I can handle that.

But, as we’ve seen, the system isn’t handling rolling deletes correctly. The system just stops saving videos. Ok, that’s fucked but solvable. I buy an extra SD card and swap them back and forth.

But also not being able to copy the videos off the SD card? Are you serious?? I’m guessing they’ll eventually sell us some kind of buggy ass “management” software?

I’m done with Eufy and telling everyone I know to stay away. Unfortunately, my money is already spent on this useless system. So I guess I’ll check back from time-to-time and see if they ever make it a reasonable system.

Eufycam stops recording
#9

Hmmm that seems kind of silly to use a non standard format, did you ask support what format the homebase uses? If the card got corrupted it may not be readable so that could be happening, but a nonstandard format is always possible too.

You could try a live USB / CD of Ubuntu desktop and see if its readable there.

Curious to see how things go for me in the next few weeks. I am setting up a eufycam system next week for my moms. I’ll have to keep an eye on it during the return window.

#10

Correct, but the target group of eufy cam, even if its not really cheap, is the private home user and the main focus is NOT at the business clientel. They can use it too, sure, but then they have to take care of the backups and redundancy themself!

For the business and high class security system users are other systems available with other solutions included.

In my case … i frequently save videos i NEED and wanna KEEP to my cellphone and from there to my PC where is automaticall will be in my backup routine included. So even if my SD card crashes or fails or @Ice1 is breaking into my house and steeling my homebase :wink: … then only the latest videos are lost.

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#11

LOL…it’s a long flight for me to take before breaking into your house and steal that homebase… which may not be worth the effort at all…:joy:
I hate to save videos to my phone then transfer to PC… rather have a web portal access so I can download the videos I need to my hard drive. Hope it is coming soon…

#12

Hello! @monsterartandclothin Thanks so much for your valuable feedback! Sincerely apologize for all inconvenience caused by the microSD card. We’ve forwarded this issue to our engineer team and they are looking into it seriously. If the new SD card still fails to resolve this problem, could you please try contacting the eufy support again? Our associated staff will forward your device information to our engineer team for further analysis at their back-end server. Again sincerely apologize for all inconvenience caused! We’ll also continue forwarding this concern to our engineers for an expectation of further product improvement by following firmware upgrade.