Listen. This comes up more than any other topic in GoPro forums.
GoPro’s overheat. OK. We know. And if yours is, it is not a fault with your particular camera, OK? It’s a design issue I am sure GoPro are VERY aware of and have their best boffins trying to sort out. I mean, DJI have managed to somehow evade the issue with their OSMO Action cameras, so obviously it is possible.
But if you have an existing GoPro, I understand that is little comfort, with the camera shutting off at the most inopportune moments.
So why does it overheat?
In essence, you have a very clever little processors and a few ancillary ones on a teeny-weeny circuit board doing a shitload of work. I would even suggest the first Moon landing computers were not doing as much computational theory as your little GoPro is.
And this causes heat. Lots of it.
Because this is all housed inside a body designed for ruggedness and waterproofing, there is little room for margin for that heat to escape. So the camera overheats, and to protect itself it shuts down.
What a pain in the arse.
But!
There are things you can do to minimise this happening, and even potentially, eliminate it all together.
It is quite simple really; if there are features and functions you are NOT using, turn them off. Examples include Bluetooth, GPS (in all models except the 12 where GoPro has removed that function anyway to try and help with the heat issue), Voice Control, the front screen, Wi-fi and so on.
Make the camera operation as minimal as you can.
Get familiar with the dashboard menu in YOUR GoPro where all this happens. It will save you a lot of grief and as a benefit to everyone else, people posting the same question in the forums over and over and over and over …
And finally, do yourself the biggest favour you can. Download the PDF manual, and read it, cover to cover. And get very familiar with it. You’ll find things you did not even know.