RIP Meadowcam V1?

I had held out some hope that the Coolpix would still be
useable. While the new circuit for the Canon is being finished I thought I would
have a go at filming the snow melt (when it does). I have managed to acquire a
256Mb card which does write and would have lasted between 40 to 60 days on the current
setup. But strangely it would not write to the card when tested on the snow,
only relatively close subjects. It took too long to write to the card. I tried
changing the image size and resolution and then discovered that the camera now
does not save any of its settings when turned on and off. I tested it to see if
using a 128Mb card but this suffered from the same problem So I am limited to a
maximum of 314 images, which will make for a pretty short film! I may set it up
in the garden, where I can change the cards regularly. I assume that the auto focusing
it confused by the snow, although I did try using more complicated views and
the same problem occurred. Alternatively if I can get the processor to be
reprogrammed to enable it to stay open it might work elsewhere.