blue iris - random "failed to connect"

[RWDM3]

so noticed today 3 of my cameras at 1:17pm went black, "failed to connect"
the doorbell kicked back in at 1:25pm, the other 2 are still black " failed to connect"
nothing was touched in network, no power outage, no issues
i tried to unplug from switch and plug back in , restart BI,

when i ping a good camera it comes back with same IP received
when i try to ping the 2 that went black, it replies back from different IP address for some reason ? not sure if thats normal

 

[wittaj]

Sounds like you have cameras going thru the router and the cameras on DHCP handing out IP addresses to the cameras.

Best practice is to assign static IP addresses so that they remain the same.

If so, then maybe you are caught in this that comes up from time to time when a device reboots like the router and BI is trying to resolve cameras based on MAC addresses:

One of the updates that was trying to make life easy for those that don't understand IP addresses and was tying the camera to the MAC address instead and then would potentially give you a different IP address that BI didn't see.

In theory it should be a good feature because many people use DHCP. Most consumer cams are dhcp by default.
So blueiris is able to follow the camera if the dhcp lease get revoked, but it can also cause problems.

Make your camera a static IP address and then check the Skip Initial MAC, HTTP, DNS reachability tests

Here are a few threads that discuss it.

https://ipcamtalk.com/threads/5-6-2-september-23-2022.65807/​

Blue Iris is changing IP addresses randomly

BI changed camera IP addresses

New BI doesn't return the signal for some cameras after router/switch reboot, gets stuck at no signal, was fine on old BI

 

[Flintstone61]

You can run Amcrest IP config to locate the wandering cameras. then type the Ip they reside at into a browser. login and have your allocated/previous IP you assigned in BI. click on " static"
and enter your IP you want the cam on.
I had this happen when I thought for sure I had IP's all set up as Static at the Condo job.
you may be able to click the " e" in the column " operate" on the wandering camera and arrive at it's login page.
this way you can reassign it to Static and check BI for what IP you used to set it up.
Worst case,
you delete the old cam
and do a new Add Camera
with the new Static IP
it's confounding.

 

[TonyR]

+1 to the above.

To clarify some of that info, use the subnet that your router's LAN and the Blue Iris server's LAN is on.
Assign each camera with a unique, static IP in that same subnet but OUTSIDE of your router's DHCP pool.

It seems you've had similar issues since October 12, 2024 as you stated below. If you have not performed the above static IP configurations AND configure Blue Iris as mentioned by @wittaj in post #2 you will likely continue to have issues.

R

Thread 'Camera System - Multiple camera randomly failed to connect'

Oct 12, 2024

Wanted to run through this for my ref and anyone elses in future
I have a system with multiple cameras, was functioning fine for long time.
Now randomly at ~ 9pm (no internet down, no power down, no updates, nothing changed)
2 cameras went "no signal - failed to connect"

i tried

• reset switch
• reset blue iris
• reset entire network (router, modem etc)
• right click - camera setting - video - configure - find/inspect ---> result = Timed Out
• on back of switch both yellow/green lights are lit up just like all the other cameras
• i cannot connect to camera by typing it into web...

• RWDM3
• Replies: 18
• Forum: Troubleshooting

 

[RWDM3]

skip initial mac... was not checked off, i just did that for all the cameras thank you

looks like they are all on static from what i see, i checked remaining working cameras and they are all Static
is it possible that the ip can change with this being set as static? all cameras are plugged into a switch

I tried entering the camera IP it was set to, i cannot connect, i also tried the default, no camera available at that ip - > 192.168.1.108

i am unable to login to camera from the IP address it was under (does not find camera in, config tool, amcrest config tool, or directly

so this is a bit weird..
i pinged all the working cameras, they come back as correct ip pinging back
the 2 that are not working
pinged back from .138 instead of .109 as its set up
when i try pinging .138 it replies
but when i try entering .138 on browser, or through config, it does nothing

 

[TonyR]

the 2 that are not working
pinged back from .138 instead of .109 as its set up
when i try pinging .138 it replies
but when i try entering .138 on browser, or through config, it does nothing

Disconnect one of the two that are "not working".
Ping .138 again
If it replies, try hitting .138 with a browser.

 

[RWDM3]

so when i unplug the camera
i ping it directly, now shows host unreachable
i ping the .138 it still pings
however i downloaded angry IP, and its showing .138 ip is hostname "the pc im using"
both cameras unplugged, still pings .138 so i guess must be my pc