User Manual - Factory reset

←

⌂ Home

→ Software recovery

Background

A factory reset replaces all the user configurable settings to the values when the camera left the factory. These settings are also called the camera's default setting. Most users only change camera configuration settings using the web user interface, so in this simple case, it is similar to using the button when the settings modal is displayed (but the reset button doesn't change network settings).

A more detailed description of what happens when your perform a factory reset is all the configuration files are replaced with files containing default values. This includes configuration files controlling multicast trigger, Network Time Protocol, and other advanced features.

In software release v2.5.1 up to v2.5.2rc30 there was a defect where the updated version of the default configuration file was not installed even if the user didn't modify the configuration file. The work around was to do a factory reset. A better solution is to update to software version v2.5.2rc31 or newer.

Factory reset using the Multi-Function Button

To perform a factory reset, remove power, press and hold the multi-function button when power is applied, and release the multi-function button when the system LED starts blinking yellow.

A factory reset, returns the camera settings to the values set when the camera was manufactured. In order to allow the camera to properly reset, close the camera's browser tab. Reopen the browser tab anytime after the camera LED starts blinking green or is steady green.

As the camera continues to boot, you will see the system LED blink white and blue for several seconds as the factory reset is being performed.

A factory reset changes all the camera settings to their default value and deletes any Configuration Files you have installed in the camera. Captured video files and metadata files are untouched.

Factory reset using CAMAPI

You can use the CAMAPI method factory_reset(wait=True) to reset the camera settings to the values the camera used after leaving the factory. The camera will reboot to activate the factory default settings. This also resets your network settings. If you set wait to False then the camera will not send an HTTP response before rebooting.

You can also browse to the following URLs to perform a factory reset.

http://10.11.12.13/factory_reset	Returns an HTTP response before performing a factory reset.
http://10.11.12.13/factory_reset2	Used if the camera is not behaving behaving properly. Does not return a response, thus causing your web browser to display an error message.
http://10.11.12.13/factory_reset_keep_ip	Reset all configuration values except the network settings. Does not return a response, thus causing your web browser to display an error message.

Factory Reset using telnet

You can telnet into the camera to perform a factory reset. The user name is root and there is no password.

The camera supports around 366 commands you can run in a telnet session. Here are three helpful commands:

reset	Causes the camera to reboot. Very similar to a power cycle.
factory_reset	Causes the camera to reboot and as it reboots, the camera will perform a factory reset.
factory_reset_keep_ip	Causes the camera to reboot and as it reboots, the camera will perform a factory reset, but leaving any customized the network settings intact. Specifically the /etc/network/interfaces file is preserved.

Technical implementation notes

The edgertronic camera micro SD card has 3 different partitions holding 3 file systems. The first partition contains a FAT32 read-only file system used by the uboot bootloader. If you happen to plug the micro SD card into your computer, this is the file system you will see. The second partition contains a large EXT3 read-only file system containing all the software to run the camera. The second partition is mounted as the Linux root file system. The third partition contains a FAT32 read-write file system that holds the user-modifiable configuration files. For each configuration file, the root file system contains a symbolic link to the read-write file system. A factory reset simply copies the default version of each configuration file to the read-write file system. The default version of each configuration file is held in the root file system and uses the same file name with.default appended to the end.

This means, for example, you are replace the current version of the lighttpd embedded web server configuration file with the default version by telneting into the camera and running the command:

cp /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.default /mnt/rw/etc/lighttpd.conf

which is the manual way of doing what is done during a factory reset.

←

⌂ Home

→ Software recovery