PTZ Tour failing now on IP2M-866E as "Status Locked"?

[GomezJr]

I noticed sometime in the past two weeks my IP2M-866E dome cam no longer follows a wide PTZ Tour of two Presets across my property. This is the only Tour I have ever defined and if I start it via Live > PTZ Function in web GUI, I only see a "Status Locked" message in the upper-left video window. Or if I try to start it from Settings I get a "Operate failed!" error. Yet I can initate a move to each Preset to PTZ function itself seems fine.

So I deleted and created new presets and new tour, still fails. Factory reset the entire camera and first recreated presets and tour, STILL FAILS with same error. No f/w updates done or anything since I last saw this work two weeks ago. Obviously plenty of manual resets during this troubleshooting. Nothing useful in logs. All other camera functionality seems fine, only Tour feature fails all times.

So what in the world does "Status Locked" mean? I see nothing in Live or Settings GUI or in docs about "locking" a camera. The cam is only managed via the Amcrest Chrome extension.

Not being able to sweep my property during recording is a showstopper here. Not only am I going to file a warranty replacement but revise and drop my Amazon review.

[Revo2Maxx]

Hello and Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about this issues. I have not had any issues like that with my Amcrest PTZ cameras. Now I do have some others that have PTZ locks in areas that have schedules. However in them cameras I get a message with ability to unlock to make the change if you will. I don't own the 866 maybe it is something like that? However from your post my guess is that it isn't. Because after a Reset and setting up again as you have said you have tried already it fails again right away so maybe if it is an older camera maybe it is a Life lock to help reserve the life of the motors and or belts if they are belt driven like 90% of my PTZ's are.

I would make a ticket on the camera and that can be done by going to this address.
https://amcrest.com/amcrestsupport

[GomezJr]

Because after a Reset and setting up again as you have said you have tried already it fails again right away so maybe if it is an older camera maybe it is a Life lock to help reserve the life of the motors and or belts if they are belt driven like 90% of my PTZ's are.

Correct, complete factory reset of the unit and immediately set up the two Presets and Tour without any schedules defined, etc, yet. Lost a lot of time setting back up all of my custom settings.

So you are saying there may be an actual "odometer" of motor usage/cycles (which apparently does not also clear with factory reset)? Wow, that would seem to be something that MUST be documented to warn the user. I have had this dome camera for five months now and, sure, it has been Touring back and forth between two Presets every 30 secs since Day 1. That would seem to be simple math for the software interface to calculate and warn the user a warranty threshold will be exceeded after so many weeks/cycles.

[Revo2Maxx]

I would agree. From the sounds of it, if it is still in warranty I would get a ticket in with Amcrest and see if you can get things worked out and get a replacement RMA if able too.

[Revo2Maxx]

That camera may or may not but if you log into the cameras WebUI, then setup, information does it have Life Stats? I know some of the newer then my 850 camera does not sure if your does It would be interesting to know the life history just for the idea of what one might be working within that camera?

[GomezJr]

Does it have Life Stats?

Total Working Time: 198 days ... so far (a bit over 6 months) so still in the 1-yr warranty.

[Revo2Maxx]

Yeah I would for sure get a Ticket in, There is no need for this camera to be locked out after only 6 months of use. Looked on the Web and found others that were taking about full time use locked out after 4 years so my guess is that either this is a Fluke and Amcrest has something they can do to recover the camera back to full use or get you a new one either way. Thanks for the update in use time.

[jack7]

@GomezJr
You wrote "Touring back and forth between two Presets every 30 secs since Day 1."
I think that's the most intensive thing you could do to use up PTZ cycles 24/7, pass the camera limits, and get locked out.  Likely 2+ million PTZ cycles in your 159 day period.
I suggest you look for another camera strategy to watch your property.  Or it will happen again at some point with PTZ cams. 
One method used with PTZs is to have a spotter camera that can direct the PTZ to where to look, but that typically takes other software like Blue Iris.

[Revo2Maxx]

564,480 in full time 2 times a min. I have older PTZ cameras that I have had doing same type thing for years before buying some static cameras to do like jack said. This I will admit I have replaced my belts 2 times in ten years but the motors still going strong. Now working in guard with preset and motion/IVS to preset. I have made videos of same idea using AI recorders for less false alerts.

[GomezJr]

I think that's the most intensive thing you could do to use up PTZ cycles 24/7, pass the camera limits, and get locked out.  Likely 2+ million PTZ cycles in your 159 day period.

Two shifts/minute between two Presets works out to more like 458K in 159 days or ~1M/year. OK, fine. But it is irresponsible for a mfr to not give notice of that to the customer in the software while configuring Touring or at least document that in the manual (and I argue also somewhere in online tech specs before purchase).

We'll see if Amcrest honors my warranty report given this negligent omission. If they balk then I guess I'll have to warn other customers via my current posted reviews.