BI Doesn't Record when Router is Down

TheWaterbug

TheWaterbug

Getting comfortable
Oct 20, 2017
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Palos Verdes
I have an issue with my router where it shuts itself down about 1x/day. This is annoying, but it's covered under warranty, and I'll have a replacement in place in a couple of days..

Meantime, I'm seeing an unexpected side effect where, if the router is down, BI doesn't record. You can see gaps in the recording during the times when the router was down:

BI_Recording_Gaps.png


It's the same for all cameras. When I RDP into the BI server and look at BlueIris.exe console, I also see no video when I skip back to those time periods.

I don't understand why BI stops recording when my router is down, because my network is entirely flat, and the BI-to-camera links are LAN only. In fact the DHCP reservations for the cameras don't even give them a default gateway:

BlueIrisNetwork.png


If I restart the router (but I don't touch the BI server), then the recording starts up again.

Is this by design? I would think not. Or maybe I have something configured wrong.

All cameras get their addresses via DHCP from the pfsense router, but if the router goes down those address should persist for a few hours.

All cameras are configured in BI by their IP addresses.

Anything else I should look at?
 
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No that is not by design.

Some routers have EVERYTHING route thru them if they are on devices connected to it even if different IP addresses are there and the router isn't actually "routing" the data.

Either that or the dumb switch is passing it up and thru the router.

The other thing it could possibly be is when BI made the switch to looking for MAC addresses and it was changing people's IP addresses. Maybe it is now touching the router via MAC address and that is what is causing it to go down with the router?

Is there anyway you can dual NIC it or VLAN instead of dumb switch?
 
Not sure the same and it was many versions ago but I had this happen in a little different way when switching over to Pfsense. In BI, look under Settings > Web server > Local internal (LAN) access. Make sure that the IP is correct and that the adaptor is bound exclusively to the right adaptor. Even with a static address, mine would change when the router wasn't available.
 
Mike A. said:
Not sure the same and it was many versions ago but I had this happen in a little different way when switching over to Pfsense. In BI, look under Settings > Web server > Local internal (LAN) access. Make sure that the IP is correct and that the adaptor is bound exclusively to the right adaptor. Even with a static address, mine would change when the router wasn't available.
Click to expand...

Mine was bound to the correct adapter, but Bind Exclusively was not checked. But I only have one adapter in the box, so I'm not sure what effect that would have.

But now it's checked, just to be sure!

The BI server's address also was a DHCP reservation, but I've just now changed that to a true Static IP.
 
looney2ns said:
Best to always set static IP's in the cameras themselves, outside of the DHCP range.
Click to expand...
Amen.
If my router is 192.168.1.1, then I set the DHCP pool so that 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.199 is for DHCP and 192.168.1.200 to 192.168.1.254 is for me.
 
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TheWaterbug said:
Mine was bound to the correct adapter, but Bind Exclusively was not checked. But I only have one adapter in the box, so I'm not sure what effect that would have.

But now it's checked, just to be sure!

The BI server's address also was a DHCP reservation, but I've just now changed that to a true Static IP.
Click to expand...

My router blipped out on me again about 2 hours ago, and my recording did not get interrupted this time, so one of those two changes may have fixed it.

Thanks!
 
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The issue went away because you set a static IP address for your computer. The cameras should really be on a second NIC that does not interface with your network or router and all IP addresses should be manually assigned with a static IP address. Your current setup is reliant on your network to be up and running which is not the best setup. In my opinion, BI and all cameras should be able to function independently of your network. If you don't want to invest in a 2nd NIC then you should assign DHCP reservations to the BI computer, and all cameras in pfSense. Then each device should be programmed for a static IP address using the IP address you reserved in pfSense. This way, if your network goes down, BI will continue to function normally. Right now it looks like the cameras only have DHCP reservations, so when your network goes down, the cameras will eventually disconnect because they will not be able to grab an IP address.

If you decide to go the 2nd NIC route, uncheck "Bind Exclusively"
 
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smiticans said:
If you don't want to invest in a 2nd NIC then you should assign DHCP reservations to the BI computer, and all cameras in pfSense. Then each device should be programmed for a static IP address using the IP address you reserved in pfSense. This way, if your network goes down, BI will continue to function normally. Right now it looks like the cameras only have DHCP reservations, so when your network goes down, the cameras will eventually disconnect because they will not be able to grab an IP address.

If you decide to go the 2nd NIC route, uncheck "Bind Exclusively"
Click to expand...

Until yesterday the BI computer had a DHCP reservation, and now it's a true static.

I just now checked my DHCP Server settings in pfsense, and I saw that I'd left the DHCP default lease time unfilled, which leaves it at the default 7200 seconds. This now all makes sense. If the router went down for only a few minutes, nothing got interrupted. But if it was down for a few hours, everything fell apart.

I just changed that to 86400 seconds (1 day), so that I have a little more robustness along with the flexibility of using DHCP reservations instead of client-side static IPs.

I really prefer using DHCP reservations over static IPs, except for "infrastructure" items like routers and servers.

But yes, at some point I will try to isolate all of my cameras and "things" onto a separate VLAN, as soon as I can educate myself on VLANs. I can't do a completely separate physical network because of the way my house is cabled.
 
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That's fine if you want your router to handle the IP's of the cameras. Just understand by doing so you're intrducing an additional unnecessary point of failure into your security system (As you've found out the hard way). Putting the cameras into a VLAN will not fix that issue unless they have static IP's assigned to them. I'm not aware of any con of using static IP's for the cameras. I would never allow my system to be setup in that manner.
 
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Yep, I would consider cameras as infrastructure. And not assigning static IPs to them results in these issues.

DHCP always runs the risk of it assigning a device to an IP that was previously used for something else.

One day everything works. The next day you have no cameras or the cameras are all out of order as Front camera was originally assigned X.X.X. 192 and Back was assigned X.X.X.195 and when they repopulated they were assigned the other camera IP.

On my isolated NIC, my cameras are streaming non-stop between 280Mbps to 350Mbps depending on motion. This is full-on, never stopping to take a breath. Even if someone has a gigabit router, a 3rd of non-buffering 24/7 data will impact its speed.
 
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+1,000 to @smiticans ^^

FWIW, I've been using static IP's that are OUTSIDE of the router's DHCP pool for years, never used reservation feature because so many earlier ISP-furnished router/modem combos belonging to clients didn't have the res feature anyway and many, many years later and many installs / static IP's set I have never had an issue....never.

If my router is 192.168.1.1, then I set the DHCP pool so that 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.199 is for DHCP and 192.168.1.200 to 192.168.1.254 is for me...and of course, I can log into the router and change the size of the pool any time. :cool:
 
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