Resetting WiFi on a GoPro Hero 3 White Edition

Wanted to do some underwater photography. Bought a used GoPro Hero 3 with its waterproof case for 20€ on the second hand market. In perfect condition. Previous owner took really good care of it or barely used it. But when I tried to connect it to my phone over Wifi, it asked for a password. And previous owner could not remember it. This sent me in a longer quest than I wanted to in order to reset the little camera to its factory settings.

So, yes. You’re right. I can just take out the SD card from the GoPro and put it in my computer to access the photos and videos. But I was on the move. And sometimes, it’s just quicker to connect to the device and import the photo you just took, instead of waiting to get home, take out the GoPro from its waterproof case, extract the SD card, find the SD card adapter for my laptop and edit the photo or video in my desktop editing software. There is a convenience with the tools that we have on our phones these days. They are design for easy file manipulation and offer three buttons to do basic image editing. Desktops are much more powerful but can feel so complicated at times for such simple tasks.

So, how do I get this Wifi password? Can I guess it? Can I reset it? Can I reset the GoPro to its factory settings? All these questions came up as I was slowly getting down the rabbit hole of trying to find good documentation for a device that’s more than 10 years old.

There are literally an near infinite number of webpages that explain the multiple ways to reset a GoPro. And I guess I’m just adding to the pile with this article, but hopefully this one will increase SEO for the right solution. So here is what I tried and that did not work and, most importantly, point 5, what worked.

A Hero3 White Edition was released in 2012. So it’s so old that a lot of the options you find in more recent versions of the software don’t exist. For example, some website suggest you go through the software menu to find the “factory reset” option. And you should probably check for that first. But on that model, it does not exist.

The default WiFi password “goprohero” probably doesn’t work (more on that later)

The “Press shutter and maintain shutter pressed while pressing power button and turning the device on” is not a way that works to reset the Hero3 White edition to factory settings. Taking the battery out before doing that won’t help either. And there is no “secret” reset button hidden in the battery area either. Any other key combination did not work either.

GoPro official documentation to update the HERO3 is also absolutely rubbish, so I won’t link to it but here is the url if you really want to go there: https://gopro.com/en/us/update/hero3 It will just not work. Even if you don’t follow the instructions and put the content of the UPDATE folder directly in the root folder of your SD card, the update will also fail.

What saved me is Owen McCrink’s personal website that has an archive of the firmware update that works: https://www.om.id.au/blog/software-update-reset-gopro-hero-3-and-4 I got tipped to that website thanks to a Reddit comment from a person who probably went to the same trouble as me. https://www.reddit.com/r/gopro/comments/16uuosm/comment/k89d687

One thing to note though with this working archive, it will indeed upgrade the firmware and reset the WiFi to its default SSID and password of “goprohero”. But you have now a new problem on your hand: the official mobile app from GoPro to connect to your camera does not allow using a password like “goprohero” anymore. Geniuses at GoPro force you to have good security practice and have at least a numerical character in your WiFi password (This default password is literally in your documentation. Have you heard of backwards compatibility?)

So, you’ll need to edit the settings.in file with a text editor and add a numerical character before proceeding to do the update. Like this for example:

{
"current_password":"",
"token":"",
"wifi_ap":{
"ssid":"goprohero",
"password":"goprohero3"
},
"wifi_networks":[]
}

Took me two evenings of websearching and testing these different options to get to a working solution. There are so many of these devices floating around and available on second hand market for cheap that you’d think GoPro would update its documentation to provide working solutions.

All of this would not be possible without the patience and resilience of these individuals who maintain their own little websites in the corners of the web with precious information to keep these systems alive.

Thanks Owen, this page is dedicated to you.