Cameras momentarily disconnect -- with a cadence

[Saltwater Soul]

I have two cameras in my system that each momentarily disconnect and then reconnect to Blue Iris. They do this with a cadence, one after another, and have been doing so for some time. I periodically try to chase this down but have been unsuccessful. They are connected to different switches in my network, and I have tested the cables with different cameras, so those seem sound. The other cameras on the same switches seem fine.

While I have tried searching up some clues, I've been unsuccessful. I am guessing that I am probably missing something obvious that the veterans around here know. I'm hoping someone might point me in a more productive direction. Any hints?

 

[fenderman]

How long is some time? there is recent update that affects the watchdog reset when the cam doesnt receive audio....if you enabled audio for a cam that does not support audio then you must disable.

 

[jrbeddow]

I agree, it could be the new audio watchdog settings, but you might also try enabling the "Decoder compatability mode" checkbox. See this thread, where that setting resolved a similar issue:

IPC-Color4K-T180 Intermittent 'No Signal' in BI

I won a IPC-Color4K-T180 in Andy's last lottery and it's been installed for the past couple months. I’ve been having issues getting intermittent “No Signal” errors on BI. It appears to happen randomly and averages about every 10 minutes or so. The issue is only with the IPC-Color4K-T180, and...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Evroul]

I had the same problem with one cam and rolled back to last stable ver. and my issue disappeared.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

How long is some time? there is recent update that affects the watchdog reset when the cam doesnt receive audio....if you enabled audio for a cam that does not support audio then you must disable.

They disconnect and reconnect for duration of about 5 seconds or so. Each does this pattern every two or three minutes.

Both cameras have audio capabilities that work. I have experimented with turning it off with no change in the disconnects.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

I had the same problem with one cam and rolled back to last stable ver. and my issue disappeared.

I have had this same problem with multiple versions over the last six months or more, so I gave up trying this tactic. I am running 5.8.5.3 now.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

I agree, it could be the new audio watchdog settings, but you might also try enabling the "Decoder compatability mode" checkbox. See this thread, where that setting resolved a similar issue:

IPC-Color4K-T180 Intermittent 'No Signal' in BI

I won a IPC-Color4K-T180 in Andy's last lottery and it's been installed for the past couple months. I’ve been having issues getting intermittent “No Signal” errors on BI. It appears to happen randomly and averages about every 10 minutes or so. The issue is only with the IPC-Color4K-T180, and...

ipcamtalk.com

OK, this shows promise. I turned off Digital Watchdog entirely on one camera to test. I have not had a drop on this camera since, while the other camera continues to have the signal drops. I'll leave it like this for a bit to see what happens and then check out less drastic measures like just turning the audio off and enabling the decoder compatibility mode. Thanks for pointing me toward something I may never have found.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

Enabling "Decoder capatability mode" by itself did not solve the problem. I did this on the other camera that was getting drops and still had Watchdog enabled for video and audio. Watchdog seems to be the issue.

 

[wittaj]

To be clear, you disabled in Watchdog the checkmark to notify you on audio dropouts and it still occurred and didn't stop until you disabled Watchdog completely?

If so, please send a note to BI so he can work on fixing it.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

To be clear, you disabled in Watchdog the checkmark to notify you on audio dropouts and it still occurred and didn't stop until you disabled Watchdog completely?

If so, please send a note to BI so he can work on fixing it.

Your statement is a correct interpretation of what I said, but I cannot declare victory yet as apparently, the root problem is not solved.

I noticed that my "test" camera of the two with the same issue that I turned Watchdog off in, had stopped or frozen after a bit. With Watchdog turned off, no signal loss was detected in the logs -- seemingly curing the problem I have but the reality seems to be that Watchdog was just reporting the symptom and with it turned off I was not recording the signal losses. The problem is that now I noticed the camera was stopped and not recording. It seems that with Watchdog turned on, the camera reconnects after 5 seconds or so. With Watchdog turned off, the camera did not reconnect and stayed "frozen." Note that I do not have any actions to restart the camera set in the Watchdog under the Fire actions after: On loss... configuration, it must do this on its own.



As that camera is set for continuous recording and the other with the same problem records only on alert, I wondered if that was the difference. Turning Watchdog off on that camera resulted in the same outcome -- no signal losses in the status or logs but a frozen camera.


So is seems that I have something else very strange going on in my network or with these two cameras or configurations. Looking for more clues.

 

[Evroul]

Have you by any chance set your max fps in Bi lower than your encode set fps on the camera? Just shooting in the dark here

 

[Saltwater Soul]

Have you by any chance set your max fps in Bi lower than your encode set fps on the camera? Just shooting in the dark here

All are set at 15 fps in camera and BI.

 

[Bruce_H]

I have not been following this thread closely, but it sounds similar to a problem that I had about 6 months ago, it turned out to be a faulty camera that was rebooting on a regular basis, in my case I looked in the camera log and it showed a sequence of reboots that were taking place.

 

[Saltwater Soul]

I have not been following this thread closely, but it sounds similar to a problem that I had about 6 months ago, it turned out to be a faulty camera that was rebooting on a regular basis, in my case I looked in the camera log and it showed a sequence of reboots that were taking place.

Thanks, this was a reminder to check my camera logs again. I confirmed that there are no anomalies in the camera logs for the two affected cameras. I did notice the time was off so I fixed that.