GoPro video is sped up!
A potential firmware update being the cause was a red herring; no fault was introduced via any FW update. Nor were any settings incorrect. The &quot;fault&quot; was in fact a &quot;feature&quot;:
Answer:
If you long-press the &quot;Record&quot; button on top of the GoPro for 3 seconds it initiates &quot;Time Lapse&quot; with &quot;Quick Capture&quot; and overrides the manual settings.
This is why you clearly see &quot;Time Lapse&quot; is active in the videos, but you can't see any evidence of it when you check your settings: Long-Pressing only sets it non-persistently making it difficult to troubleshoot.
Since the GoPro is in a protective case, when reaching up on top of my helmet activating it with gloves on, I was mashing the button down for too long because the camera doesn't give immediate feedback that it's actually on. Be warned...
That devil was buried in the &quot;Using Quick Capture&quot; section of the GoPro Manual on page 44 of the GoPro 9 PDF User Guide.