So.. 

 

I purchased 4x C320WS + 4x PNY Class 10 32GB SD Cards. The cameras wouldn't accept the cards - unable to format them without telling why. 

TPlink / TAPO technial support were to no help at all .. 

 

So i found my 16GB Samsung SD card and put it into one of the cameras. 

 

the Camera was successfull at "formatting" the card - so now im investigating whats actually going on. 

 

1. The card is formattet with FAT32 

2. Then the camera initialize the card with 3 Binay files (storing settings and configuration) 

3. Then the camera created dummy MP4 files at ~256MB filesize up to around 14 GB (out of 16 GB = 90% full) - with some space left for picture snapshots. 

 

After recording some stuff on the sd-card i've noticed the following: 

 

1. The camera ALWAYS record, no matter if you select fulltime recording or event recording. 

2. The camera stores information when events occur so that it can browse to the position in files that events happened. 

3. The recording roll-over when there is no more time 

4. The mp4 files gets renamed if there are events happening on them.. (need further investigation) 

 

I'm now trying to initilize one of the PNY cards myself and see if the camera will accept it.. 

 

So i'm guessing that the camera fails to "format" the PNY card, because it's not able to allocate the MP4 filespace fast enough. (Bad coding from TP Link... ) 

 

will update this post as i do more findings, and if the camera accepts my PNY card anyway.. 

 

Note 1: I think that TPLink / TAPO should release a program that can initialize an SD Card offline (in the computer instead of the camera) That way more cards could be used instead of only the cards that support fast allocation.. 

 

Update 1:

- Formatting the card with FAT32 / 32KB allocation size + transfering the BIN files + some MP4 placeholders actually worked. 

- The camera didnt complain - but now only reports that the SD card size is 14~16 GB instead of 32 GB (i suspect that the BIN files contains information about the SD Card size) 

- So in order to "hack" a 32GB SD Card - i need the BIN files from a 32 GB card. 

 

Update 2:

- Recoding on the PNY32GB DOES WORK. after "hacking it". 

 

Community Questions:

- If someone with a 32, 64 or 128 GB could please tell me : how many BIN files does your card have ?

- Could someone please send me their BIN files ? 

 

Update 3:

- I booted up the camera today after having it off for some days. The LIVE view didn't work so suspected that the SD Card was at fault. 

- I formatted the SD Card to make it void again, rebooted the camera and now it could show live view again. 

- Apparently this hacked SD Card makes the camera go funky...