Help - poor Wifi camera performance

earleyksig
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Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 1:32 am

Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by earleyksig »

I've got two inexpensive wifi cameras I purchased from Amazon that are constantly freezing and dropping signal in Blue Iris but stream perfectly fine through the camera's app on my phone. They will stream for 30-40 seconds, freeze for ~30 seconds, then back and repeat. The dropouts aren't in sync, one may drop 15 seconds later, etc. I can watch the stream freeze in Blue Iris while simultaneously watching it stream without issue via the app. Has anyone ever experienced this issue? The cameras are setup via ONVIF, here's what I have:

https://www.amazon.com/Outdoor-Security ... B07VPPV65C

I should also mention I'm running a Samsung SmartCam with no issues, it streams solid at 15/1 ~225kB/s with no dropouts. CPU usage is low, generally ~30%. I've also pulled the cameras up in ONVIF Device Manager and they also drop which leads to me believe it's not Blue Iris specific. Both cameras have strong wifi signals (according to their own app) but at least one should be somewhat accurate as it is less than 10 feet away from the router. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!
louyo
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by louyo »

Anything in the BI message log? We have one that gets blocked out by large trucks making deliveries, about once a day. See attached.
Screenshot at 2020-09-01 12-57-09.png
Screenshot at 2020-09-01 12-57-09.png (5.65 KiB) Viewed 16439 times
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kayfersmum
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by kayfersmum »

I read your post with interest as we have similar issues. We’ve been running inexpensive wifi cameras from Amazon for about 4 years now and have been using Blue Iris to manage them for most of that time. They have had their issues, but on the whole have been fairly stable for the price of them. The number and setup has grown organically over this time and we now have 18 cameras, 4 of which are hard wired via power adapters. About 6 months ago we started to get regular drop outs, just as you are experiencing. They will go off on Blue Iris, but when I look at the dedicated camera app on my iPhone they are online. We can restart them from the app then they reconnect with Blue Iris. There’s no consistency to which cameras are going on and off and we’ve replaced some of the older ones to see if that was the cause.

Also, when we ran the microwave many of them would go on and off!

We’ve recently replaced the ISP router with a TP Link router to see if that’s the issue and added their M9 Mesh system. It’s not a wifi signal deficit as they are receiving good signals in our small garden.

A few days ago we took all the cameras offline and unplugged them from the mains. We are now gradually re-introducing them one at a time. When these stay stable for a period of 5-6 hours, we add another one. When they start to flick off, we remove the latest added camera and so on. We are currently up to 10 cameras with stable connections 🤞 Even no flickering when we nuke dinner! So far, 4 of the cameras we added have been taken off again as the loss of signal started happening. We will continue until we’ve added all the cameras to see if there’s any common reason. Currently there doesn’t seem to be as 2 of the cameras were new last month and two were 3-4 years old.

Will continue to follow this post and provide an update if we come to any conclusion. It maybe that we have to look at how to hard wire directly from the router as we are expecting too much from our set up.
earleyksig
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by earleyksig »

louyo wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:07 pm Anything in the BI message log? We have one that gets blocked out by large trucks making deliveries, about once a day. See attached.Screenshot at 2020-09-01 12-57-09.png
BI message log shows a loop of "Signal: network retry" and "Signal: Restored" for the two troublesome cameras.

I've spent some time monitoring the cameras and interestingly enough they appear to be on a ~1 minute loop of connected and disconnected. They also appear to alternate back and forth every minute. After 35 minutes of being up just now (after a BI update), they each have had exactly 35 No Signal counts in the camera stats. I've also tried running one camera at a time and it still drops out every minute or so.

The other thing I found interesting is the bitrate never drops below 45-46 kB/s, even when the camera is showing no signal (and FPS/key both reading zero). It may just hold the last reading but I would think no signal would equate to a bitrate of zero.

As I mentioned in my initial post, the cameras appear to have no issues when streaming directly from the camera's app. At this point I have upgraded my system and network with no change in performance (other than a huge drop in CPU usage). I have a mid range i5 system with quick sync and am running an Orbi with two satellites. The cameras are also getting good signal (per the camera app).
Last edited by earleyksig on Wed Sep 09, 2020 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
louyo
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by louyo »

Any way you can run Ethernet cable to them for testing, to rule out WiFi? Most of the older cameras only do 2.4G which is subject to interference. Maybe try different channels. If the app is solid and is connecting via WiFi versus cellular you would think that rules it out. My very uneducated guess would be that they are not fully Onvif certified. There is a way to display video from them, using Python, but this may be what the device manager is telling you. My copy of the device manager is quite old but seems to be pretty solid. I found a way to validate Onvif with a program I found. Before it was done, it reset my camera to factory. So much for that.
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kayfersmum
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by kayfersmum »

Here's an example of the messages I'm seeing on one of the cameras where we are currently seeing losing signal

Blue Iris Wildlife Pond Camera Going on and off.PNG
Blue Iris Wildlife Pond Camera Going on and off.PNG (15.3 KiB) Viewed 15647 times

We aren't seeing any signal loss or messages for the cameras that are connected via ethernet cable
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TimG
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by TimG »

Also, when we ran the microwave many of them would go on and off!
I believe microwave ovens operate at 2.4Ghz as well, so no surprise if you lose wifi cameras while it is operating.

If rf noise is an issue, does your new router show a graph of the channels used for your wifi ? It is probably set to "Auto", but can be manually moved up or down on the router if I remember correctly. My present router is a Asus RT-AC86u and it has a lot of diagnostic stuff for both wifi bands.
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kayfersmum
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by kayfersmum »

I use wifiinfoview on one of our PCs to see which wifis are in the area and what channels they are using. Our routers are kicking out on channel 1 and the neighbours that it's picking up are on channels 10 and 11.

Will check out the new router capabilities
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TimG
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by TimG »

Your other option may be to add more powerline ethernet devices :!:

You can add more slave devices to your existing set up.
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kayfersmum
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Re: Help - poor Wifi camera performance

Post by kayfersmum »

We are going to look into running ethernet cables via a TP Link Ethernet Switch. We wanted to test one of the cameras at the front of our home to see if it made a difference. We ran a very long ethernet cable to this camera, turned wifi off on the camera, yet still this morning we are getting some picture freezing, stuttering/sticky/lagging when watching BI live (sorry, don't know the correct techie terms!). I've checked the recording and this is also the case on the captured video footage. Another camera that is on wifi and is 8 foot away from it isn't experiencing any of this :cry:

I've loaded a short clip here to explain the footage if that helps.

https://youtu.be/srAlVxjTX4A

Something just occurred to me :idea: Maybe it's the ringing of the Ring Doorbell causing the problem, but on reviewing the footage again the footage starts to stick before the delivery driver approaches our porch, so that's not going to help. The footage from midnight, all other footage was fine, including foxes, milkman, post lady, etc, etc). It was only this visitor that the footage and picture went sticky. Any ideas why it would be this camera that is affected when it's on a wired connection and is further away than the one right above the front door that is focussed on the drive. Both the cameras are same Wansview make and model.
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