GoPro Hero 2 Warning

[Scattcatt]

With the excitement and buzz of the new Hero 3, some people out there are looking at the Hero 2 for their camera of choice for the price drop potential. I felt it necessary to forewarn those people out there thinking about doing this though.

I've had my Hero 2 now for some time and it is an excellent camera, however, after GoPro produced their latest firmware update adding ProTune to the camera, I've had nothing but problems. If you do a quick google search of "Hero 2 Freezes" you'll see that there are lots of us out there with this problem after the latest firmware update.

I now am unable to change the settings in my camera at all, and it randomly switched from 1080p at 30 frames per second to the 960p or whatever it is at 30 frames per second. It's stuck there, permanently for now. I've tried various things like changing SD cards, pulling batteries and the like, but nothing is allowing me to even access the menus in my camera anymore.

Thankfully I have the camera set up to auto record after turning on, so I can still sometimes record when the camera decides it wants to (often times it just stops within the first 9 seconds of recording and turns off though)

So! If you do get the Hero 2, just don't apply the firmware update. If you already have the firmware update and have escaped problems so far, then lucky you! And I'll happily take your Hero 2 off your hands if you choose to get a Hero 3

I sent GoPro an email about the problem and am waiting for a reply. Hopefully I can just get a hold of the old firmware and get rid of the ProTune update.

[Alex]

Wow! That is a nasty one. Wasn't aware that GoPro's have had such impactful firmware issues. The 3 will be my first one.

[Scattcatt]

Finally heard back from GoPro today about my little recording problem, this is the email that they had sent to me:

Update for Case #391958 - "Recording Freeze Up"


Hi Cycle,


Thank you for contacting our GoPro technical support.


Could you try to directly download the latest firmware file and install it following the procedure below:


http://software.gopro.com/Firmware/HD2/HD2-firmware.bin


-Be sure that you are using a USB 2.0 port
-Save the file to the SD card Root
-Remove usb cable and power off
-press and keep holding shutter button
-Press Power/Mode button once, then 3 more times
-Firmware icon will show on frontal LCD
-Release shutter button
-Front Led will light 3 times and camera will power off automatically


Let us know how it goes.


Best Regards
Mary-Anne S.
GoPro Support
http://www.gopro.com/support



I couldn't figure out which folder was the "Root" folder, so I ended up copying that firmware file into every folder in the GoPro SD chip thinking I'd hit it no matter what.

This didn't change the camera's behavior at all, I tested and tinkered with the settings which I now have access to again (thankfully) but they all turned out the same, I was unable to record for more than a few seconds.

I decided to try formatting the SD chip within the GoPro itself and this actually worked. I recorded a 1 minute video and shut it down manually figuring I had solved it from there, but I'm expecting the problem to come back. It seems to happen at least once every time every charging cycle.

[Jiggles]

root is probably hidden

[Scattcatt]

Good idea, but nope. Didn't show up after displaying hidden files.