Advice Request: GoPro in Unattended Location

[pavlosharhan2]

Hi there 👋

I’ve been working with GoPro Cameras for about three years, using various devices to control them—starting with Raspberry Pis, then Nvidia Jetsons, and finally Android/iOS smartphones. Throughout my journey of experimenting with them, I’ve experienced Ups and Downs in terms of reliability, but wasn't able to find a 100% stable workflow that guarantees camera working for days without problems

The main issue I’ve consistently faced is the GoPro entering an unrecoverable state, requiring a power cycle to resume transferring or capturing clips.

The use case is always the same: Recording 500 and more 5s clips with 20-60 sec interval with or without long breaks in between ( Imagine capturing 5sec videos of delivery in cricket game) The goal is to record 5s clip and transfer as soon as possible. Or record using bluetooth only and transfer later with wifi/usb is connected. The gopro is powered from external power source and is configured with TUSB and WAKE settings.

The problems begin at a random point of time can be categorized in few categories:

1. GoPro Wifi: GoPro Wifi disconnects and not visible anymore. restarting gopro wifi via bluetooth command may help, but not always
2. GoPro Wifi: GoPro Wifi stays connected, capturing videos without issues, but gopro/media/list returns Error 404 therefore cannot transfer clips.
3. GoPro Wifi - GoPro is recording clips, but clips on camera status field is not increasing until power cycle, and gopro/media/list returns 404
4. GoPro Wired: at some point GoPro starts responding with {} to start recording, and the recording doesn't start. Pressing shutter button manually doesn't start recording either. Only physical power cycle helps
5. GoPro Wired: GoPro is not visible among network interfaces on the host, and has to be reconnected/power cycled and reconnected
6. GoPro Wired: at some point gopro/media/list starts returning 404 or something like {"error_msg": "Unable to establish communication with settings controller"}. Only power cycle recovers it

I've tried investigating each specific problem and ask for advices, but It seems like the debugging is not very efficient when you don't have specific steps to repeat the problem. On some days everything works, on other day it just breaks and can't be recovered until power cycle. The only workaround i see is adding a relay with some microcontroller that can cut the power via bluetooth command.

I would appreciate reliable advice that could help me achieve the most reliable workflow possible, or simply knowing if something similar has been done before and how the setup and communication are structured. It would also be helpful if you could share examples of integration tests conducted in-house, so I could align my workflow more closely with those.
If there is a way to enable debug logging on the SD card, it would be great to try that as well.

I have few hundreds of gopros laying in front of me and don't want to give up on them, I still have some hope.

If anyone had similar experience, please share it here!

Thank you.

[sT0v]

@pavlosharhan2 you alluded to

using various devices to control them—... iOS smartphones

What tools did you use to accomplish this? I am currently attempting a-Shell, is there a more suited option?