Alerts Unreliable

NathanUCR

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I have alerts set up on a camera on the front gate of our property. I have the alert set for zones with push notifications to my phone. I set this up a couple of weeks ago and it worked EXACTLY as I wanted. Got notified just like I wanted to. Then, kind of stopped working. I rebooted the server and camera multiple times and didn't get any alerts in BI let alone to my phone. Then it looks like it started working again after an update, now it seems to work MAYBE 25% of the time. Any ideas?
 

mikeynags

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There are a ton of reasons as to why. You haven't really explained what your setup is. Keep in mind that Apple push notifications AND SMS messages are delivered via SMTP mail messages. There could be all kinds of issues preventing the sending of those messages. I periodically have issues with AT&T where the message either doesn't show up or it shows up hours later. There have also been some firmware updates that have broken that email delivery as well. There are many posts on it. Post what you are using for your setup on alerts, your email settings etc. and maybe we can help you figure it out.
 

NathanUCR

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Thanks for the reply. I do not believe the problem is with my Android, SMS, or email settings. When I look at the cameras alerts, it doesn't even show it as triggered. Here are the settings of the camera.

Alert.jpg

MS.jpg

OD.jpg
 

beepsilver

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Should be easy enough to troubleshoot:

What's the camera type/model?
Normal display or corridor mode?
We need to see the image of your zones setup--from what I see you're using two zones, A and B.
Get rid of ",B-A" in your last screenshot. The "A-B" rule has you covered.
Next, test reliability of alerts by unchecking your filters and then adding them back one at a time.
-Uncheck "Wait until triggered"
-Uncheck "Object travels..."
-Uncheck "Object size exceeds..."
 

NathanUCR

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Awesome, Thanks!

Camera - Amazon\ Foscam 98xx compatible
I dont think I have a choice for normal/coridor? I dont see anything on the camera settings either.
Im using 3 zones, A, B, and C that is an overlay of everything.
A.jpg
B.jpg
C.jpg

Filters = Zones?
I removed the other settings. Thanks!
 
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beepsilver

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Your cam isn't in corridor mode, so no worries there (my Dahua in corridor mode misses triggers when I use multiple zones unless I uncheck object travels and object size exceeds--but then I get too many false alerts).

With filters I meant Object travels, Object size exceeds, etc.

You should know rather quickly if those setting changes made a difference. If you're consistently getting the alerts now, you can add back those settings one at a time to see which one (or more) was preventing triggers. Keep in mind, zone A is rather thin at the end of your driveway, so if an object enters that area first, you'll need to have your minimum object size rather small for BI to detect the motion...especially at night (at night you'll want the contrast to be lower too--you may have to setup a different profile for night time). Trigger boxes can get larger than the actual target when it moves (especially at night), so it might be wise to increase the 'Object size exceeds' to 50% or leave it at the default of 67% (at night, headlights will create a BIG trigger box, so you may want to leave this setting unchecked if you have a separate profile for night time).

I've made the mistake of misdrawing zones in the past...not sure how I did it, but I did. For instance, I drew zone A, zone B and zone G (my catch all to link zones A&B). During troubleshooting trigger problems, I've found on more than one occasion where I had a stray zone square not connected to anything...so check your zones carefully.

If by chance you're recording 24/7 on this camera, you can make changes to the trigger settings and re-run the video with 'test run video with motion detector' to see if BI registers the previously undetected motion as triggers.
 

TL1096r

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What is the setting to have a few seconds after the alert to show? I find alerts show but having 3-5 second before that alert allows you to see where the person was coming from.
 

beepsilver

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What is the setting to have a few seconds after the alert to show? I find alerts show but having 3-5 second before that alert allows you to see where the person was coming from.
Time before the trigger is set in cam properties > record > pretrigger video buffer.
Time after the trigger is set in cam properties > trigger > break time (30-60 seconds is optimal).
 

NathanUCR

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Thanks so much for the information. I'll go through my zones and watch. Will report back in a couple of days on how it goes.
 
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