Remote Patrol & Camera viewing drop outs?

tlutrick

So for my Christmas present I upgraded to a new Mac Pro, 8Tb storage, Trendnet 24port Gigabit switch. The POE switch for the cameras is still 10/100 with a gigabit port to the 24pt Trendnet switch. All Cat-6 wiring. Using 3 Hikvision HD POE cameras (don't remember model, but can find out if needed when I get home). I have 100Mb Down/25Mb Up Xfinity Internet service (works great). I have 1Gb symmetrical internet service here at my office.

So here is the question...when I'm viewing in SecuritySpy browser the cameras (individually at different times) will simply drop out and reconnect after a few seconds. In Remote Patrol, same thing, with a refresh sometimes only enabling a frozen view. Not always, but enough to ask...why? What's making my cameras constantly drop in and out? For a moment I thought the POE switch was the culprit, but even at 100Mbps, it should be plenty of bandwidth. Right now, nothing else is running on my Mac Pro while I investigate this.

Ideas?

Trey

Ben

Hi Trey,

Is this something you see in the "All cameras" video in SecuritySpy? Do they go blue for a few seconds and then come back online? If so then there is a network problem somewhere (but probably not a bandwidth problem - you're right that 100Mbps is probably plenty).

The first thing to test is different ethernet cables between the two switches, and between the Mac Pro and the switch that it's connected to. If you are using a cable rated for 100Mbps, it may very well fail in a Gigabit environment. And sometimes you just get a bad cable.

The second thing to test is to eliminate the TRENDnet switch from the network - i.e. connect the Mac Pro to the PoE switch, which is connected directly to the cameras.

If you still see the dropouts after trying the above, then do a test where you connect everything to the TRENDnet switch and eliminate the PoE switch completely (you'll have to power the Hikvision cameras by other means - if this is a problem just do a test with one of the cameras).

Hopefully the above tests will pinpoint where the problem lies.

gerard

I see this as well.
When scrubbing video in the browser the camera previews will stop updating and the video feed will go blue for the camera I'm viewing footage for first, then all the cameras if I don't stop scrubbing.

I know 100% for a fact that this is not a network issue as I can have the camera feed open in a web browser, talking directly to the camera and the video does not stop or pause in the web browser, just the video preview windows within SecuritySpy.

I also have a Mac Pro (2010) so maybe the Xenon class chips are doing something different than the Core chips in all the other Macs?

Ben

Hi Gerard,

If this happens only while scrubbing in the browser, this does indicate a possible bug in SecuritySpy, we'll investigate this.

HikCamGuy

Sounds like Ben said, a SecuritySpy issue, but here are a few things to consider:
1. How many cameras are you powering with your PoE switch? Some switches may have 16 active ports but not enough power to power 16 cameras at once.
2. What time of day do you see the drops? Night vision requires more power and if your PoE can't keep up, it might be the issue.
3. Are these indoor or outdoor cameras. When the temperatures drop below -30 degrees, mine start to drop out.
4. How long is the PoE/patch cables from the PoE switch to the cameras? It might be a power attenuation issue.
5a. What is your CPU utilization at when you see the dropouts? I use BlueIris and I get a few dropouts when my CPU hits 90%. I turned down the Frame Rate on the Video/Audio section on the configuration web page on the camera.
5b. Are there any other programs running when you see the dropouts?
6. What firmware are you running on the camera? Are all your cameras running the same version?
Hopefully with this information, we can figure it out.

tlutrick

HikCamGuy,

I think the more I investigate this, I am seeing a similar issue, but can't say if it's a HikVision or SecuritySpy issue. I've only got 2 POE HikVision DS-2032 with the V5.2.0 build 140721 firmware and a D-Link DCS-7110 POE on an 8port POE GigE switch. The D-Link has never dropped out and runs fine. I set up web browser access and the cameras never drop, yet they go blue screen and reconnect about every 13-15minutes in SecuritySpy, and that's after I reconfigured them to 25fps. They were dropping so much that SecuritySpy would disable the camera, but so far the 25fps has stopped that. Time of day is irrelevant for me because it's day/night. There was a Twonky/Plex server running, but they have been disabled with no effect.

Any other ideas to look at. Ben has been trying to help me with this for some time. I bought a 4th POE camera nearly 6 months ago, but haven't installed it, as I am afraid of what it will do until I figure out the current issue.

I'm needing 8 camera's, but don't know if SecuritySpy can handle it. Any ideas to fix this will be appreciated.

Ben

Hi @tlutrick - I've just replied to your other message in a different thread asking for you to email over a few log files for us to have a look at.

SecuritySpy can definitely handle 8 high-res cameras, what you are experiencing sounds like network problems. With a fast Gigabit switch you certainly shouldn't be getting such problems, but from time to time we do see this. Do you have any other switch you can test instead? Even if it's a slower one - swap it out with your current one and see if that makes a difference. I'm assuming both the cameras and the Mac are wired to the switch using ethernet cables? Do you have any different cables to try (swap them out one by one) to see if this makes a difference?

Finally, is your 4th camera (the one you haven't installed yet) the same make/model, or is it from a different manufacturer? If the latter, I would say go ahead and install it to see if it behaves differently in your environment.