Foscam Snapshot settings

Sep 16, 2024
9
2
NY
Hello All,

I‘ve had numerous Foscam cameras over the years, mostly 19821, and now an R4. The cameras have always been port forwarded. I use the snapshot feature to relay an image to my website. It’s a live view of the lake I live on, and it’s very popular. The snapshot url is embedded in the index page of my website and immediately displays the camera image when someone accesses the site.

Sometimes I cannot get a still image for hours and it suddenly resumes, no matter what the camera.

Today I can get the image on my iPad but no other devices, and others cannot get the image at all when visiting my site.

I read somewhere about there being a limit to the number of people accessing the camera at the same time. Does this go for the snapshot?

I can access the snapshot url directly just fine. When using my website link I get nothing.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Are you FTP'ing the snapshot from the camera directly to a directory on your web site host, then in that index page's HTML embedding that image as below ?
Code:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="content-type">
    <title>FlagCam</title>
  </head>
  <body>
      <img src="http://www.winstoncounty.net/webcam/Cam3.jpg" width="960"
     height="540"/>
      </body>
</html>

This works for me and there's not a sharing issue, users only access the flagcam page.

URL =>
EDIT: 9/17 @ 1141 CDT: changed above URL to point to HTML with embedded image.
 
Last edited:
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Thank you Tony! I'm in the process of getting the ball rolling on that. I use a WordPress site, so FTP is tricky. I reached out to the company in town I use for hosting to see if they can activate it on my domain.
 
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Ok, so I have FTP set up, but my Foscam R4 will not allow a static filename to be uploaded. I cannot generate "Webcam.jpg". It generates filenames based on the time the snaps were taken.

Is there any other way to get this image on my website? You'd think this would be simple!

I'm not running extra software and keeping a computer turned on 24/7 just to change a filename.

What could be my problem? Directly clicking on the camera URL gives me a picture.

http://XXXXXXXX:XX/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&amp;usr=guest1&amp;pwd=guest1

When I put the code into my website I get no image. It suddenly stopped working.

<img src="http://xxxxxxxx:xx/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=guest1&pwd=guest1" alt="webcam feed" width="1280" height="720" class="img-responsive"<br>
<p style="font-size:20px"><p></p><p style="font-size:20px">
 
Last edited:
Ok, so I have FTP set up, but my Foscam R4 will not allow a static filename to be uploaded. I cannot generate "Webcam.jpg". It generates filenames based on the time the snaps were taken.

Is there any other way to get this image on my website? You'd think this would be simple!

I'm not running extra software and keeping a computer turned on 24/7 just to change a filename.

What could be my problem? Directly clicking on the camera URL gives me a picture.

http://XXXXXXXX:XX/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&amp;usr=guest1&amp;pwd=guest1

When I put the code into my website I get no image. It suddenly stopped working.

<img src="http://xxxxxxxx:xx/cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=guest1&pwd=guest1" alt="webcam feed" width="1280" height="720" class="img-responsive"<br>
<p style="font-size:20px"><p></p><p style="font-size:20px">
If that's a private IP for your camera on your LAN then no way can your web page HTML on a public domain server (accessed via public IP) see it without some more calisthenics.
 
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If that's a private IP for your camera on your LAN then no way can your web page HTML on a public domain server (accessed via public IP) see it without some more calisthenics.

The port is forwarded on the remote modem. It was working fine all week. I can pull the image up on a browser just fine from 20 miles away. Website stopped working.
 
The port is forwarded on the remote modem. It was working fine all week. I can pull the image up on a browser just fine from 20 miles away. Website stopped working.
OK, so you DID do the "calisthenics"....it was not apparent.
Port forwarding may be the issue and someone has hacked in and killed your FTP upload.
 
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Why would my iPad be getting a live image from the camera then?

I am logged in through the VMS app and nothing is wrong on the remote end. Settings are verified.
 
Why would my iPad be getting a live image from the camera then?
You're opening the page with the embedded URL as in your post #4 using a browser on the iPad?

I just don't see that displaying an image file on a web page that exists on a server (as on my page) equating with displaying a image on a web page made from a snapshot CGI/API.
 
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You're opening the page with the embedded URL as in your post #4 using a browser on the iPad?

I just don't see that displaying an image file on a web page that exists on a server (as on my page) equating with displaying a image on a web page made from a snapshot CGI/API.

Ipad displays the camera image just fine, I even created a separate page on my site with that camera and another camera using the same code. iPad sees both cameras fine, no other devices work. I also set up the device on ipcamlive for a few minutes with their free package and the video works fine on their site.
 
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I use Blue Iris to FTP an image to my web page every 10 minutes.
The filename remains the same so it overwrites/replaces the existing image.
The image is embedded by HTML on my page.
You open that page with any browser on any device and it is displayed.

That's what I use, it works, sorry I was not able to help you.
Good luck! :cool:
 
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I very much appreciate your time on this today with me, Tony.

Keeping a machine running to do what is needed just doesn't seem necessary yet. I've had this webcam going for 12 years, and I've used the same code that I'm now having issues with for 8 of those years. I used to use a program called Yawcam before that. Back in that day, the webcam was at my house.

For more context, my website displays a live image of a lake and it's quite popular in our community, especially to the sailers and rowers to determine conditions. I no longer live there and my neighbors agreed to install the camera on their house. I still pay for the site and replace the camera when needed, but I live miles away. When I first started it was just a cheap Logitech USB camera pointed out a window.

If I can access the camera image directly into a browser something else is preventing it from displaying on my website.

I have a programmer looking at the code to see if it can be re-written.

I may post to the gerneral forum to get a bigger set of eyes on this issue if I don't find anything soon.
 
Ipad displays the camera image just fine, I even created a separate page on my site with that camera and another camera using the same code. iPad sees both cameras fine, no other devices work. I also set up the device on ipcamlive for a few minutes with their free package and the video works fine on their site.
Hi, if you need any further support with IPCamLive or information on benefits of partnering with us, please feel free to send me a message.