Told it was because Reolink cams are junk. So upgraded one cam to Amcrest IP5M-B1186EW @ 3.1mp 15fps and it's no better. They all hold 15fps/1.0 keyframe in main and sub per the status screen. Is it reasonable to expect 0 counts in the "no signal" column?
Is a few dozen / day "no signals" in status normal?
- Thread starter markn62
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The bigger question is - is the camera really losing signal or is it perceived by BI to have lost signal?
It appears that BI errors on the side of caution and would rather throw an "error" to alert the user of a potential issue.
For example, the T180 camera seems to throw No Signal for a lot of people even though they are not missing any video.
As long as you are not actually losing the video feed, I would consider it more of a caution than an error.
It appears that BI errors on the side of caution and would rather throw an "error" to alert the user of a potential issue.
For example, the T180 camera seems to throw No Signal for a lot of people even though they are not missing any video.
As long as you are not actually losing the video feed, I would consider it more of a caution than an error.
I do see infrequent but occasional lost feeds but they come back in about 1-2 seconds. It seems to be more of a BI thing than the cameras. Perhaps the lost signal response time needs to be 1-2 seconds not one packet or 100ms. Like you suggest, it seems BI is over reactive and somewhat unstable. When one camera restarts BI occasionally restarts one or two more of them in short succession. Cams are PoE & CPU 13% avg with 30% peak during AI triggers. The other thing that seems to drop feeds is accessing via the mobile app but not every time. Perhaps once every dozen or so connections (opening the app). Is BI known to be a bit unstable? Appreciate your response.
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
Sounds like you have issue's with either wiring to the cams, or your network has issues.
Did you make the cables? Did you use solid copper ethernet cable and not CCA cable?
No flat or small guage cables? Cables should be at minimum of 24awg in size.
Have you tested the cams with short premade factory cables to see if that solves the issue?
Did you make the cables? Did you use solid copper ethernet cable and not CCA cable?
No flat or small guage cables? Cables should be at minimum of 24awg in size.
Have you tested the cams with short premade factory cables to see if that solves the issue?
I don't think it's wiring or network issues. Never had an issue with Sighthound or any indication of dropped packets with VLC. If there is a Win diagnostic test app I'd be happy to try it. Cables are molded one piece solid copper 5e if I recall. I haven't tested with short cables because of the aforementioned facts. Only upgrading from SH to BI a few weeks ago did the problem begin. Same cables and network gear.
Since the cams are hardwired, make sure you have unchecked the 'Interpret monochrome video as a loss of signal'
What version are you on?
What is your 'Timeout period'? May want to increase it a little.
What version are you on?
What is your 'Timeout period'? May want to increase it a little.
Interpret monochrome is unchecked, timeout is 30s, version is 5.9.9.21. Good suggestions though thanks. Maybe I'll just have to live with a bit of instability. Works 99.9% of the time and recovers rather quickly so I don't expect to miss much. Trying to gauge how other user's systems are in terms of stability. I find opening the mobile app occasionally causes a camera or two to loose signal which points to BI instability again. Acts like insufficient CPU but the numbers don't indicate a constraint. No GPU used. I intend to upgrade all cameras next week to see if it helps as it brings other benefits to the system.
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I had upgraded to 5.9.9.14 and was having crashes so I went to 5.9.9.21 and they continued. I rolled back to 5.9.7.4 and have not had any issues since.
What did the crashes look like? Did it loose all cams, restart itself and mobile had to reconnect, or did it lock up and the service had to be restarted?
BI would abort. No restart. Just disappear. Never had that happen before.
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Exception code: 0xc0000005
I just posted a tip that might help you guys. For me it was my spin drives going to sleep. Installed a cheap 512gb SSD. No more lost cams or alerts.
What does your log show? I get this a few times a day, and it does match what I see on BI's UI where the signal disappears briefly. One camera is color, the other is IR (monochrome). Like you, I also do not see signal drops when I watch directly via rtsp using a browser. I'm on the latest version of BI, running win10 on nvme drive, all hard wired.
I wasn't satisfied with possible instability not knowing what other issues these errors may be causing. So I went ahead and bought more cameras and upgraded them all. Now getting zero "no signal" count. Seems to confirm what wittaj said, that BI is a bit over sensitive to dropped packets or slight drift in fps, like more than +/- 0.5fps. Thanks for everyone's help.
I started getting no signal from a camera that never sends no signal with the latest .25 version.