What to do if your GoPro action camera isn’t working?
There is nothing eternal and ideal in our world. And technology is all the more because it is no exception.
Every year GoPro is better and better at solving the issue of quality control in production: the degree of rejection is simply scanty, in comparison with other manufacturers.
But still, let’s be honest and admit that in one case in a hundred, there may be some kind of problem with the camera. And the purpose of our today’s material is to help users diagnose at home. This will save a lot of time on the train to service centers, sellers or searching for information on the network.
We looked at the tricks that any user can do. We will make all the manIPulations with the camera from our material, you can fix it, or be sure that this is a warranty case and feel free to go to the service center or to the seller.
1.) Memory cards
Slow memory card. These are 80% of GoPro problems. Never save on memory cards and use only original cards of class 10 or higher.
Memory card for GoPro. It’s not just some kind of “flash drive”. This is a full-fledged part of the camera and it must fully comply with the characteristics declared by the manufacturer.
Be sure to format the card only in the GoPro action camera itself and in no way will it format by other devices or a computer.
Selecting the “correct” memory card. This is the guarantee of a long and loyal service of your GoPro action camera, as well as quality without “brakes” and other surprises. You can learn more about memory cards for GoPro in this material.
But what if you bought a camera without chargers? Our users often use any chargers that are available “at hand”. And here there is an important feature in that the camera can be charged with a charger from 1 to 1.5A, all other chargers can cause irreparable damage to both the camera and the battery itself.
Always carefully study what is written on the charger. Phone chargers, computer USB port. All this is completely suitable for charging GoPro batteries, which should last no more than 2 hours. Charging for more than 3 hours is NOT recommended, as well as a full discharge of the battery and its prolonged stay in this state. This can lead to its complete failure.
Do NOT use any tablet chargers. They are valid at 2A or more. This kind of charging will be harmful not only for the camera, but also for any mobile phone.
Often Apple product users charge their IPhone with an IPad charger. This cannot be done: after 2-3 months of such constant charging, you will feel that the phone began to “keep charging” much worse.
So, if the camera began to work from a full charge for only 5 to 15 minutes or does not work at all. Try replacing the battery. You can learn how to properly charge a GoPro action camera from this material, and how to increase the operating time of an action camera here.
3.) General reset
It often happens, especially when you just bought yourself a GoPro action camera, that all the settings are set to “full” and it is not clear how. This is normal, but all this can lead to freezing of the camera, and if this happens, then simply:
Press the upper button to start and stop recording (release):
While holding the top button, insert the battery back:
While holding the top button, press the power button and wait for the camera to turn on:
These steps will allow you to reset all camera settings to factory defaults. You can see how to reset the settings here.
4.) Camera software update and flashing
If you have an outdated software version, especially for owners of Hero3 and Hero3 Plus action cameras, then we strongly recommend updating the firmware in your camera.
We have described this process in detail in this material. It will only take you 5-10 minutes and does NOT require any special skills. View the firmware update process for your GoPro action camera here.
General conclusions
If you followed all the steps from our tutorial and none of this helped you, then, unfortunately, your camera is subject to warranty replacement with a new one.