long time issue with cams dropping fixed

[Gswanson74]

Just wanted to post some information about an 18 month issue I've had which seems resolved. I have 9 Wansview cams, 3 models, the k1, q1 ptz, and outdoor (k3 i think). I know some have do not like them, but they have great quality and reliability for the price. i have them all wireless (again, i know, not recommended). i rent my house, so i was limited there. My problem was at least 7 of the 9 would drop throughout the day. sometimes 2, sometimes all of them... it was a real PITA. However, rebooting the cams would only restore the connection sometimes. The wansview software would stay connected and never drop... So, logically, figured my issue fell into one of two items... my network or BI settings. I replaced my router with the best commercial router i could find.... no change. About three weeks ago there was a BI update concerning direct to disc recording bug fixes. i updated, and changed 4 settings at the same time. So, not 100% sure which did the trick but here is what i changed: 1. disabled all watchdogs (this was just rebooting my cams in a loop) 2. unchecked send rtsp keep alives in video settings. 3. unchecked use rtsp stream timecodes. 4. unchecked skip http dns reachability tests. Over the last 3 weeks, the cameras licked once (all of them froze). Rebooting the server quickly resolved. Hope this may help someone.

 

[srglassw]

So, not 100% sure which did the trick but here is what i changed: 1. disabled all watchdogs (this was just rebooting my cams in a loop) 2. unchecked send rtsp keep alives in video settings. 3. unchecked use rtsp stream timecodes. 4. unchecked skip http dns reachability tests. Over the last 3 weeks, the cameras licked once (all of them froze). Rebooting the server quickly resolved. Hope this may help someone.

I've had similar issues and tried your fixes with success so far. I did turn watchdogs back on and things are still good.

I'm wondering if there may be disconnects that go unnoticed with watchdogs turned off. I did have two cameras disconnect while watchdogs were off but wouldn't have known without reviewing clips. So does turning off watchdogs help with the issue or just not report when it occurs, I wonder?

 

[looney2ns]

Exactly what watchdogs are you referring to?

 

[srglassw]

Exactly what watchdogs are you referring to?

The Camera Properties Watchdog tab -- Signal Loss section

 

[Gswanson74]

I've had similar issues and tried your fixes with success so far. I did turn watchdogs back on and things are still good.

I'm wondering if there may be disconnects that go unnoticed with watchdogs turned off. I did have two cameras disconnect while watchdogs were off but wouldn't have known without reviewing clips. So does turning off watchdogs help with the issue or just not report when it occurs, I wonder?

Not quite sure... yet ;-). I believe the rtsp keep alives identify when loss of signal occurs. I had a few cams freeze (in BI only) and would have never known without the timestamp. I turned it back on to see what I get. In any event, rebooting my server resolves the issue 100% of the time. If RTSP does report loss of signal, I'll set the watchdogs to reboot the server via a powershell or command script. That's my plan... at the moment.

 

[Gswanson74]

Not quite sure... yet ;-). I believe the rtsp keep alives identify when loss of signal occurs. I had a few cams freeze (in BI only) and would have never known without the timestamp. I turned it back on to see what I get. In any event, rebooting my server resolves the issue 100% of the time. If RTSP does report loss of signal, I'll set the watchdogs to reboot the server via a powershell or command script. That's my plan... at the moment.

Oh, and I turned on keep alives for the main instance of each camera, not all of them. I have duplicates (or triplicates) of each cam. The keep alives should only need to go to the main instance, this way I am not flooding the camera multiple times. That's my logic anyway.

 

[Gswanson74]

Looks as if the video freezes without notification of connection loss. I switched to channel 2 of my cams, which is a much reduced bitrate and everything seems to be stable. I am still not sure why the web interface for the cams stay up and running at higher resolutions and BI craps out, but lowering the quality seems to be keeping BI online. I re-enabled rtsp keep alives, because it appears this is necessary for the watchdog (which I can't get quite right yet either).

 

[Gswanson74]

Just an update. All my cameras were wireless. I wired in one camera and the reliability of all of them has increased tremendously.