Weird Dahua Bullet IPC behavior - taking autosnapshots?

[Maciej]

Dear All,

This is my first post here so I'd like to say hi to everyone! I just recently bought two dahua cameras, very simple/basic ones. One is a in-house nanny model, second is a cheap bullet exterior camera - IPC-HFW1235S-W-S2 . I am having issues only with second one.
May basic setup is that IPC-HFW1235S-W-S2 is mounted outside and connected via wifi to my Qnap NAS where I use Surveillance Station for recording.

I think I configured everything according to my needs and basically enabling video recording during certain hours via Surveillance Station and taking motion snapshots (configured directly on cam settings)
I played around two days running cam settings via webgui and disable cam's own recording and left turned on motion detection snapshots only. I also established FTP connection from the cam to my NAS to send motion snapshots.

Problem is, the camera is generating two kind of snapshots (why?) everything is uploaded in real time to my NAS at "snapshots_nvr\<camera_serial_number>\2020-12-11\001\jpg\08\48" example folder.
Those two kinds of snapshots are:
1. "33[M][0@0][0].jpg" - my understanding is that 33 stands for second, M for Motion and the rest is irrelevant I guess
2. "47[F][0@0][0].jpg" - here I have no idea what F stands for.

Now, I thought I have disabled all general, non event or non alarm related snapshots, confirmed and I did....also all schedules at the camera settings are switched off except motion detection events.
So I have no idea from where those F snapshots are coming from, during daytime I have a few of them but last night when the camera switched to IF I literally had an F snapshot every 10-12 seconds...so for 10pm folder for example, I have inside 192 F snapshots....not a single M one, those auto F snapshots are meaningless and create a lot of noise.
Maybe someone had similar issue? I think that file naming convention is generic so maybe someone can give me a clue what that F means?

All the device information from webgui is below:
Device Type IPC-HFW1235S-W-S2
System Version V2.680.0000000.22.R, Build Date: 2020-10-24 (i have upgraded recently, system says it is most recent firmware)
WEB Version V3.2.1.969796
ONVIF Version 19.12(V2.7.1.917204)
S/N ..........................
Security Baseline Version V2.1

Any hint or guidance is very much appreciated.
Thank you and regards,
Maciej

 

[Sphinxicus]

Could they be for "Alarm" snapshots? I dont know what the letter 'F' would correspond to. If i look in my Dahua web interface there is the option to enable Alarm on the schedule as well as motion.


Then if you look in the Alarm section there are lots of options to chose what I guess constitutes an alarm. Do you have any of these enabled?



Completely guessing as i dont record in this manner but may prompt some ideas if I'm way off base

 

[Maciej]

Hey Sphinxcus, thanks a lot for quick reply. I have everything disabled in the Alarm section. Here are all my relevant settings and how this mess look like in FTP folder after last night...sorry for tons of screenshots but maybe you or someone else will notice sth. Thanks!

 

[bigredfish]

Could 'F" be for Fulltime recording? Sounds like full time snapshots and about the right interval....Try unchecking "General"

 

[Maciej]

hi bigredfish, It was unchecked all the time....please see above screenshots, just uploaded this post moment before you

 

[Sphinxicus]

View attachment 76647

What if you remove the ticks for scheduled and Alarm on the "Snapshot" section on the right of this image? It should at the very least mean that only motion detection snapshots are configured for FTP?

 

[Maciej]

What if you remove the ticks for scheduled and Alarm on the "Snapshot" section on the right of this image? It should at the very least mean that only motion detection snapshots are configured for FTP?

well, I can try...will test it and let you know I have a feeling there are bugs in this firmware...

 

[bigredfish]

Seems like unchecking both of these should stop snapshots for general recording,


I also wonder if "F" may stand for Disk Full..? Which of course it always is...

 

[Maciej]

Seems like unchecking both of these should stop snapshots for general recording,
View attachment 76652 View attachment 76653

I also wonder if "F" may stand for Disk Full..? Which of course it always is...

I did that and I think it helped, although I still get one or two of those F snapshots a night but not hundreds... Very weird. Another think what might have led into that is total mayhem of fast moving white specs like bugs... But here are no bugs at -5C in the winter...i did some reading and it seems cheap IR sensors tend to capture such phenomenon. It kinda makes motion capture useless...but anyway cheap camera... I did a lot of tuning, see what I currently going on here on attached screens it seems this phenomenon is getting intense after midnight when humidity changes...i literally live in a forest.






How are you guys dealing with this? I guess only aggressive tuning but then I will miss potential activities during daytime....

Regards,
Maciej

 

[bigredfish]

That looks like fog..... Nothing you can do with old fashioned pixel contrast based motion detection. Dahua's IVS pretty much eliminates it though..

 

[Maciej]

That looks like fog..... Nothing you can do with old fashioned pixel contrast based motion detection. Dahua's IVS pretty much eliminates it though..

yep, I live in a pretty humid part of my town, a lake is nearby and forest, very little sunlight during daytime so there is significant moisture during nighttime. I've been to Georgia and Florida (Savannah, Atlanta, Macon Daytona Beach and Kennedy Space Center) in 2016 but it was Nov, very nice, loved it despite humidity but went to Cuba in 2019 in yearly Sep just bypassing Dorian and almost died there due to heat + humidity combination

Going back to the subject, seems the camera is pretty much useless after midnight or 1 am where those foggy artifacts appear, forget the motion detection, I watched few recording - can't see a sh.t. Maybe it will be better during spring or summer.
Are there any consumer / mid range ipcams that don't have such problems and don't cost a fortune?

 

[bigredfish]

Dahua models with IVS

Or if you can add enough white light to run it in color mode...

 

[looney2ns]

yep, I live in a pretty humid part of my town, a lake is nearby and forest, very little sunlight during daytime so there is significant moisture during nighttime. I've been to Georgia and Florida (Savannah, Atlanta, Macon Daytona Beach and Kennedy Space Center) in 2016 but it was Nov, very nice, loved it despite humidity but went to Cuba in 2019 in yearly Sep just bypassing Dorian and almost died there due to heat + humidity combination

Going back to the subject, seems the camera is pretty much useless after midnight or 1 am where those foggy artifacts appear, forget the motion detection, I watched few recording - can't see a sh.t. Maybe it will be better during spring or summer.
Are there any consumer / mid range ipcams that don't have such problems and don't cost a fortune?

purchase and install an auxiliary infrared illuminator. Such as the Tendalux brand from Amazon. then Mount that illuminator 3 to 4 ft to one side of the camera. Then turn off the built-in infrared in the camera. The camera should no longer see the fog.

 

[Maciej]

thx looney and bigred, much appreciated. Last night was ok, only my cat snapshot ed so no fog. Maybe there is still some light in the tunnel. This all stuff is just for fun more than security, I live in a very quiet town where hardly anyone have been robbed or vandalized but....better to be prepared, for same reason I am visiting a shooting range to learn how to use firearms despite owning one is almost impossible where I live.