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SawMaster

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I'd be pulling my hair out right now but I don't have any to spare. JooVuu replaced my old cam with a new one and I'm still getting nowhere. Now before you suggest I go to the JooVuu forums that didn't help before and it won't help now so it ain't gonna happen. This will get sorted right here for all to see (and not by just a few over there).

I bought a new Transcend 64GB card of the 300x Class 10 recommended type. It was formatted to FAT32 in my Mobius as W8.1 won't run any of the card formatting freeware, The card works perfectly in Mobius and G1WHc cams so the card is good. Don't suggest another card; I've been down this road before and that ain't the problem.

I opened the card on this laptop ("J" drive) and deleted the existing files, folders, everything I downloaded the latest firmware as .bin and 'sent' it to "J" drive and on checking it had been transferred. I put the card in the cam and plugged it into my 2.5A wall-wart PS with a known good cable which works with every other cam I've got so don't suggest a new cable or PS; I've been down this road before and that ain't the problem.

The cam gives a solid green LED then the wifi LED begins flashing blue as it is supposed to. 10 minutes later it's still flashing blue. I unplug the cam and a few seconds later the lights dim and stop. I put the card in the laptop and delete the files, then I download the oldest firmware as .bin and get the same results. I try again but this time with newest firmware in .elf and it opens with VLC player which shows an error. Ditto for .elf on the oldest firmware.

I've followed the posted instruction to the letter, double-checking everything to be certain I'm doing nothing wrong. I tried an in-cam card format but it won't switch to standby mode so that's no good. I tried a reset to no avail

After going round and round with the first cam which also did this I was too PO'ed to fool with it after the replacement was sent for so long that it's out of warranty now. It's the longest odds in the world that both cams I got were duds so either I'm doing something wrong or JooVuu is doing something wrong with the PC-based program. I honestly don't know which. I checked out the "Unbricking" thread on the other forum but for the life of me I can't understand how to use it.

I need someone who will take me through the process of making this cam work with this W8.1 laptop as my only input one step at a time with each step verified on my end as working correctly before we go to the next step. That way whatever the problem is will become apparent and it can be fixed to get me to a working cam. I'm not a techie, just a casual PC user so please be explicit about how to do things.

I'm truly at my wits end. I can make Mobius work, I can make G1Wc and G1WHc work, so I can't understand why I can do that here.

Phil
 
I haven't played with one of these so just some thoughts

I would have started by formatting the card in camera rather than in another camera, particularly as it's a card greater than 32gb as different solutions often have different ideas about file handling when it comes to converting exFAT cards to FAT32, not all do this the same way, this could be more relevant than ever when also trying to run firmware updates

I have heard that the PC program can be finicky on some versions of Windows, not sure how Win8.1 is for that

If truly stuck maybe have a word to Jon @Street Guardian USA as he has done quite a bit on these and may be able to assist in getting it working, I'm sure as you're a regular here he'd be willing to help get you sorted, worst case scenario you might be able to post it to him and have him unbrick it and set it up for you and post back, if there's some type of hardware issue at hand he might be able to get Dan @JooVuu to arrange a replacement once he's checked it out, they still have some contact, they are generally pretty hard to brick though so I don't think it would come to that
 
I could only get the unbricking procedure to work on a Windows 7 (32bit) laptop.

Send me a private message and I'll make arrangements for you to get a brand new JooVuu X (latest September 2016 batch)
 
Jon, that didn't work the last time around and as much as I appreciate it, something is wrong and fixing that should be the goal here even if that means having Dan remove the claims that this cam is programmable via any Windows PC or fixing the software so it can do that. We've seen the "X" perform with others who use the phone app so it is possible to make this cam work very well indeed, but apparently not with a W8.1 PC as it claims to be able to do.

If getting it working right here turns out to be impossible then I'll return the cam again and you can see if you can see if you can get the published solutions to work. In the meantime I want all this in the open in hopes that it will help someone else avoid the problems I've experienced with both of the X cam's I've had.

Windows was once a decent OS but all that changed after W7. I will not go to W10 because of it's numerous security issues which haven't all been fixed and according to MS's last press release you will no longer be able to select the updates you want with any Windows OS- you'll have to take them all no matter what they do. It is clearly their intent to control every aspect of your computer and I can't abide with that. I've got this machine pretty secure now and I'm not changing it. There's nothing wrong with this computer at all so as I said there's an error in the cam or with me- let's find that and make it right.

Phil
 
the challenge with the issue you have, is the issue Win 8.1, or just your Win 8.1, it's a minefield with this kind of stuff as there's so many variables on the client end that can cause a conflict
 
My PC is Windows 8.1 64-bit.
The first time you try to use the .elf file (DirectUSB) for unbricking it's a chore to find and modify the PC settings but after doing it once I find it's just as easy to use the .elf as it is to use the .bin and I often use the .elf for FW updates because of its high success rate.
 
The one and only time I've had to use the .elf process it worked okay (well the direct usb software side of things at least). It did take a little bit of setting up with the whole unsigned drivers saga that is Windows 10 but it only needs done once. Haven't tried the JooVuu PC Program under Windows 10 yet, it worked fine before I upgraded (foolishly) from Windows 7 (both versions 64-bit).

I was downgrading from 6th Sept. to 16th Aug. due to random stops in recording. Was told my SD card was to blame (it wasn't). I tried the .elf 'update' without an SD card in the slot as per one of the beta testers instructions, that didn't work too well, had some wierd behaviour from the buttons, beeps, lights, etc. Tried again with memory card in (as per posted instructions) but no change. So, I dropped the same firmware's .bin onto it which, apparently, is not recommened as it can cause bricking, yet that got things working back to normal. I haven't touched the firmware since and the camera's been flawless. I think you need to pick one firmware version and keep at it until you get that version behaving properly, rather than failing with one and trying another straight away.

1. Try .elf update without memory card. Test camera.
2. If above fails or gives wierdness, try again (.elf, same firmware) with blank memory card in camera. Test camera.
3. If that fails, drop the same firmware's .bin onto a blank memory card and update. Test camera.

Just to reiterate the warning on step 3, someone has said somewhere you shouldn't do this (can't remember where, sorry) but it did fix things for me. If after those 3 attempts it's still not playing ball, I'm not sure. I usually just experiment until something works.

I agree about Windows 7 being alright, I could have happily lived with that. It can't hold a candle to XP though, but that's getting old now, it just seemed so much easier to use and live with. Whatever laptop or desktop I end up with next is going to run Linux exclusively, whether I understand how to use it or not. I upgraded to Windows 10 after, ironically, seeing how good it ran compared to Windows 7 on both my mam's laptop and my brother's all-in-one, seemed to make both of them much more responsive. Now though, Windows 10 just seems busy all the time, my dad told me this too before I had chance to metion it to him.
 
Well things are less busy now I'm back home from an emergency road trip, and I'm a lot calmer. I've got a computer savvy friend who is going to play with this thing soon and see what is going on. He's got a smartphone to access the thing with too should that be needed. I'll report here what we discover but regardless I've made up my mind that I don't want this cam. I have arranged a trade with another member here for a Mobius-1 if I can get it working, and if I can't I'll have the pleasure of bashing it to pieces with my hammer so it harms nobody else.

Jon, you've been excellent throughout all this and I'm looking forward to buying a SG from you someday- at least there's a certainty that it will perform correctly. I won't be asking you for another "X"cam though I'm grateful for the offer ;)

And me? Never again will I support or buy a product till it's proven and I'll accept my fault for trying it with this one.

Phil
 
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