Stealth Cam Troubleshooting: All You Need to Know

written by

Doug Stevenson

updated February 16, 2023

I experienced some display and SD card issues while using my Stealth Cam and went online to figure out how to fix this.

I found some solutions online but it was difficult to find reliable and helpful information.

So I decided to compile all the troubleshooting tips I learned during my research that can solve common issues with Stealth Cam.

Some troubleshooting tips for Stealth Cams include checking the status of the battery and power, power cycling, checking the network status, updating the Cam and App, and formatting the SD card. If none of these work, factory reset your Stealth Cam.

This article will cover the common issues with Stealth Cams, the leading surveillance camera on the market that is capable of capturing low-light images with features like reflex technology and the quickest trigger speed.

Common Issues with Stealth Cam

There are a few common issues raised by users about Stealth Cam functionality, such as Battery and Power issues, Camera and Display issues, Command App issues, and SD card issues.

Read on if you are facing any of the problems mentioned above.

Battery and Power Issues

The Stealth Cam battery can be affected by a variety of factors including the settings you have chosen and where you have placed the camera.

Some of the settings that are affecting your Stealth Cam Battery performance are Photo burst, Photo delay, and Photo quality.

If you have set your Stealth Cam to Photo burst, a single detection will trigger your Cam to take a series of photos. During every one of these captures, the battery is taxed.

During the night, the battery is even more burdened due to the necessity of recharging the flash backup every time a shot is taken during this series of shots.

Photo delay is the duration set between two consecutive image captures. If set to a very low time, during every spike or detection, your Stealth Cam will take a large number of shots of the same object. This will cause your SD card to fill up with multiple shots of the same object and tax your battery to execute this task.

The photo quality that you have set in your settings can also have an impact on your Battery life. The higher the quality, the more processing power is drawn each time an image is captured.

This results in a quicker battery drain if you have set your photo quality to high along with low photo delay and photo burst.

Another factor that is affecting your Battery life is the temperature. It is a generally known fact that colder temperatures lower battery life.

So if you have set up your Stealth Cam in a particularly cold place or during winter, this will put additional strain on your Battery capacity and performance.

If you are using a Cellular Cam, the signal quality can be a big factor affecting the Battery life. If your signal is poor, this could result in your Stealth Cam taking longer to share images.

The longer your Stealth Cam takes to communicate, the more taxing it is on the battery. Especially if the photo quality is set too high, it really taxes your Cam battery.

Good signal strength can result in quicker data transmission and less strain on your Stealth Cam battery.

Keeping the number of transmissions low works in your favor if you plan to leave your Cam functional for a long period of time.

Camera and Display Issues

A commonly reported issue with Stealth Cams is their Camera and Display issues. Users have reported issues like Stealth Cam not working, and trail cam pictures being entirely black.

There are reports of Stealth Cam repeatedly shutting off and also failing to turn on. If you are using rechargeable batteries, your Stealth Cam might turn off even before the batteries are completely drained.

This happens because your Stealth Cams are designed to read the voltage level of the batteries in use.

As rechargeable batteries have lower voltage than non-rechargeable ones, your Stealth Cam will tend to turn off, even when there is still a charge left inside your batteries.

Command App Issues

The most notorious of all Stealth Cam issues are the problems with the Command App issues. Stealth Cam rolled out the 'Command Pro' app for complete control and customization of Stealth Cam settings.

On iOS, the app for Stealth Cam is called Stealth Cam Remote.

The cellular preferences allow changes to settings like photo resolution, transmission times, management of your cellular data plans, and more from your phone.

However, users claim that the app is unreliable and buggy. There are reports of syncing issues with the camera and the app, thereby making its utility redundant.

If your Stealth Cam app is showing a black or white screen on launching and then subsequently crashing, then you might need to hard reboot your phone.

This issue is common with android phones. If rebooting did not fix this issue, try uninstalling and installing the app again.

It could also be due to the Stealth Cam Command Pro app server issue caused by too many users accessing the server at once. So make sure you check your network connectivity and try again after some time.

There are also reports of accessibility issues with the Command Pro app. On opening the app, prompts of internal errors block users from accessing their photos from Cellular Cams.

Some users also complained that cellular cams do not reflect the changes made in the app.

If you are having transactional issues with Stealth Cam remote app, make sure you wait 24-48 hours for transactions to reflect in your account.

If your issues persist even after 48 hours, you can raise the issue with the developers using this contact: info@gsmorg.com

Make sure you clear the app cache and data to clear temporary files stored on your device. This could potentially solve the bugs you are facing with the app.

SD Card Issues

Several users have faced prompts from their Stealth Cams saying 'SD card error'. There could be a number of reasons why this is happening, such as a corrupted SD card.

It could also happen if your SD card was formatted to a different camera previously and contains files unsupported by the new camera.

Another potential reason for SD card errors is poor connectivity. There are 8 pins in the SD card slot that the SD card needs to fit snugly against. If this fit is not sound, you could have errors.

Damage to these pins can be difficult to fix. If you have set up your Cam in harsh terrains or tough climates, use an aerosol spray to clear out any debris blocking the slot. Simply blowing on the slot should also dislocate any debris blocking the slot.

If you are not facing any errors with your SD card but the photos and videos captured by your Stealth Cam do not show up on your SD card, this could be due to improper formatting.

Try to not use the same SD card on different cameras. This is because when you use an SD card for a camera, it creates a permanent file on that SD card. So, when you mix and match SD cards and Cameras, it creates clusters that make it difficult for your camera to place files in the correct location on the SD card.

Common Troubleshooting Tips

This section of the article will explore some of the common troubleshooting tips that you can try on your Stealth Cam to resolve bugs and issues that you face.

Check the Status of the Battery and Power

You can check the overall status of your Stealth Cam using the 'Sync' button below the battery tray. There are 3 LED indicators for Battery, Network, and Account each capable of producing Green and Red lights.

Pressing the sync button will take a test photo and your Stealth Cam will attempt to upload it. If this process is successful, you will see the image on your App.

Successful Connection Sequences

Below are the successful connection sequences:

A flashing green battery indicates that a check of the hardware status is underway.
A solid green battery and flashing green network indicator mean that the hardware check is complete and positive and that a network status check is underway.
A solid green battery, network, and a flashing green account indicator mean that the battery and network status are sound and an account check is underway.
If all three indicators are green, it means that the account has been successfully registered.

Once these checks are complete, the photo upload will begin and all three indicators will flash green.

When the upload is complete, the LEDs will turn off indicating that the Cam is asleep and ready for deployment.

Unsuccessful Connection Sequences

If there are any errors in your sync process, one of the following indicators will be shown.

A solid red battery indicator means that the battery is low or that the SD card is not being read.
A solid green battery and red network indicator indicate a low signal, or that there is no SIM card or data plan to transmit the images or videos.
A solid green battery, network, and a red account indicator mean that an account was not found by the Stealth Cam.

Power Cycle Stealth Cam

Power cycling your Stealth Cam will resolve most minor bugs that you are facing with Stealth Cam.

Power cycling a device is the process of doing a soft reset of the device which reset its configuration.

The best way to power cycle your Stealth Cam is to take out the batteries and wait for a few seconds before putting them back in.

Update Stealth Cam and App

There are two ways you can update your Stealth Cam. Updating the software can be done over the air using the cellular data of your Stealth Cam or through an SD card local update.

To use your Stealth Cam to maximum potential, always check if there are any available updates. You can do this by using the Stealth Cam Command app to check for new product updates.

Over the Air Update

You can update your Stealth Cam over the air granted there are no network connectivity issues.

If an update is available that is relevant to your product, all three LED indicators will alternatively flash between red and green.

Pressing the 'Sync' button on your Stealth Cam will begin the software update process. The confirmation of the same is indicated by the three LEDs flashing red.

Do not disturb your Camera or press any buttons during the update process. When the three LEDs are showing a solid red light, this means that the software update is complete.

Remove and reinsert the batteries to complete the update process.

SD Card Local Update

You can update your Stealth Cam without using data by employing the method below.

Clear all files from your SD card. Download the latest software update released for your Cam here. Copy the downloaded software onto your SD card.

Then insert the SD card into your Stealth Cam. The Cam will automatically detect the software in your SD card and the process will begin as mentioned above.

If your Stealth Cam does not detect the latest software that you put on your SD card, remove the SD card and verify that there are no other files on the SD card besides the software update file.

Format SD Card

The SD card that you choose to use for your Stealth Cam is a crucial factor that affects the functionality of your Stealth Cam.

If you have doubts regarding which class of SD cards to use, keep reading to figure out which SD card is best for your Stealth Cam.

It is recommended that you use an SD card carrying at least a class 10 mark.

A class 10 means that the SD card has the capability of transferring 10 MB worth of data per second. This translates to faster performance when your Cam is transferring the image captured onto the SD card.

A note to remember is that using SD card adapters in order to use micro SD cards in slots of full-size SD cards is not a good idea. It could result in performance issues or worse, data loss.

It is recommended that you use the appropriately sized SD cards that your Camera is designed for.

It is always best to format your SD card from the device you intend to use the SD card on. This allows the camera to format your SD card in the proper manner.

To do this, check below for steps.

Insert the SD card into the Camera and slide the switch to the custom setting. Press Menu and the Up arrow once.

You will see the following in the display 'Format Card - No'. Press the Enter button. This will cause the 'No' beside the Format Card to blink.

Press the Down arrow to change the 'No' into a 'Yes' which will also blink. Press the Enter button to delete and format the card. The display will read 'Format Card - Deleting...'.

Once the card has been formatted, the display will go back to read 'Format Card - No'. Press the Menu button to go back to ready mode.

Factory Reset Stealth Cam

Factory resetting your Stealth Cam will reset your Cam to its initial configuration and set it as designed by the manufacturer.

To factory reset your Stealth Cam, follow the instructions below.

Press Menu to access the configuration menu. Using the Down arrow button, you can cycle through the options in the configuration menu.

Pressing Enter button will select the listed setting you are currently on. Cycle through till you find the 'Factory Reset - No' option using the Up and Down arrow.

Press Enter button to access this option and press the Down button to change the 'No' into a 'Yes'. Once the selection is on 'Yes', press Enter button to confirm your choice to reset your Stealth Cam.

Your Cam has now reset all changes you have made to its configurations to the default value.

Additionally, you can program a four-character alphanumeric security code to restrict unauthorized access to your Stealth Cam settings.

Final Thoughts

All electronics undergo regular wear and tear. But these devices, keeping the terrains and conditions they are subjected to in mind, suffer through tough scenarios.

The troubleshooting steps mentioned in this article are likely to solve most of the problems associated with Stealth Cams.

I hope this article has helped resolve the issue with your Stealth Cam.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I lose my settings and images if my Stealth Cam battery dies?

You will lose your settings if your Stealth Cam battery dies. However, your images are stored in the Stealth Cam SD card soon after they are captured. They will be safely stored even if your Stealth Cam battery dies.

Why is my Stealth Cam taking pictures with nothing in front of it?

Stealth Cams are triggered by motion. If you have placed your Stealth Cam in such a way that there is a moving branch or river in the frame, this can cause your Cam to capture the frame.

Can I use rechargeable batteries in my Stealth Cam?

Yes, you can use rechargeable batteries in your Stealth Cam. However, using rechargeable batteries can cause your Stealth Cam to report an inaccurate battery percentage.

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