Web Cams constant router freeze

Hi, I am administering two webcams at two different locations with different routers.

The problems I am having are the routers are invariably freezing up and disconnecting making me visit the two sites and reboot the routers, The router logs give no indication as to what is wrong.

Are Webcam router throughput prone to this sort of thing or am I just facing a coincidence of routers crashing?

I have replaced the routers twice.

Thanks for reading

They may be running out of memory, especially if the line is not fast enough on the upload side. This would explain why there is nothing in the logs. Try reducing the frame rate and/or resolution of the webcams. Also, consider switching to monochrome if colour is not essential.

Hi, Thanks for replying,

Neither of your solutions are an option I'm afraid. They are tourist webcams published on a local government website. They have to be hi res and colour!

I am interested in your comment about Memory. How does this work in a router? Can you explain this?

Is a more robust (expensive I presume) router perhaps an answer?

I cant remember seeing Memory quoted in Router specs?

Thanks.

Could be a million things. I'd say first and foremost, get a better router. Something like a Draytek will do nicely.

It is more likely the cameras tbh..

Just a guess. I'm no expert. How are the webcams connected to the routers, and how are the routers connected to the Internet? Does anything else use the routers? Are they connected to a local government network? They can be notoriously slow at times. Knowing what routers are in use would be useful. If they are ADSL routers, knowing the line stats would also be helpful. What are the webcams? Resolution? Frame rate? How much data do they pump out? Also, how are the feeds being broadcast? Are the routers doing it all?

As you have provided no details to go on - make of router, make of webcam, type of connection, static IP, DHCP assigned IP addresses, nothing, it's can only be guesswork.

I guess you are using dynamically assigned IP addresses and they have changed.

I hope the webcams are actually just feeding the video to a more powerful centrally based video server somewhere, otherwise the issue is most likely to be number of visitors causing issues.

Yes they are fed to a centrally based video server.
They are on two different (cant remember the exact models) Netgear mid-priced routers the IP cameras are Ethernet coupled, not DHCP but assigned IP and the routers are on static IP address ADSL. The routers have wireless enabled but only I access the routers that way when I take my laptop or tablet to the locations.

They are stand alone routers, no pc attached. Nothing else attached, not even a telephone, straight to adsl socket.. One of them is live on a website the other is not yet on there but functioning ok. as I can access them remotely as I can the routers. NOTHING shares the two separate telephone lines. Only I and the video server company can access them, the routers logs show no other intrusions. The ISP (BT) have done their line tests and say they are fine (don't they always...). and they are on separate lines at separate locations within the town. It cant be number of visitors as they feed to a central video server and in any case one of them is not live yet.
The cameras are Panasonic WV-SC384 H.264 compliant. They are on a separate mains socket from the router and have given no trouble. I fitted time switches to the two routers so they go off for five minutes every night (OFF 01:00h ON 01:05h) so if they have frozen and when I cant get there, they reboot that night anyway. This works ok as I can see the reboots in the logs. Gut feeling is that I need more robust routers? What does the "team" recommend for such an application?

Edited by deleted (Mon 18-Apr-16 22:07:31)

What netgear router do you have specifically, netgear devices generally do not crash in my experience... All seems a bit odd, you should be able to support one video stream unless it's crazy quality.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 18-Apr-16 22:21:18)

I can't remember the models, but they are different. I am comfortable with Netgear, I even have one at home. I have been installing them for years.

What video stream would you rate as crazy?
From camera settings:

H.264 transmission On
Internet mode (over HTTP) On
Image capture size VGA
Transmission priority Constant bit rate Best effort
Frame rate* *30fps *
Max bit rate (per client) *1024kbps Min 128kbps
Image quality Normal Fine(Image quality priority)
Refresh interval 0.5s

What are the line stats at the locations?

That doesn't seem "crazy" to me. When you say the router crashes, you mean if you arrive you cannot browse the internet or access the router admin page right?

I mean they BOTH, on different random occasions, lock up, freeze, LED's on, not flickering, cannot access them wired or wireless.

Only thing to do is physically power them down then up (hence the time switches that cycle every night for when I cannot get to the router locations). Then they are fine for a random amount of time/days. could be hours, could be weeks. They are not getting hot. The cameras are fine and have not crashed. I also administer them remotely, but of course, not if they have crashed!

Router 1:
Connection Speed 8867 Kbps DWN 1146 Kbps UP
Line Attenuation 35.5 dB DWN 21.3 dB UP
Noise Margin 6.2 dB DWN 6.0 dB UP

Router 2:
Connection Speed 10326 Kbps DWN 1136 Kbps UP
Line Attenuation 26.6 dB DWN 15.1 dB UP
Noise Margin 12.3 dB DWN 5.9 dB UP

I use this http://www.technotrend.co.uk/pages/ss_products/phone...

Martham

When the devices are working at the constant 1024Kbs upstream any other bits for any other purpose ( router synch etc) may exceed the upstream rate, over an indeterminate time this will overload the router and cause the freeze. The Upstream rate may be affected by line conditions over the course of a day and actually be below 1024Kbs, this may be atmospheric condition related or line related.

There may also be other network related things that slow the transmission down between the router and the distant server ( Including the server and it's immediate local network). This can also build up the effect over time.

Your daily reboot should normally overcome these issues but on odd days 24 hours may be enough to cause the issue.

Can you limit the stream to something under 1000Kbs. Otherwise a move to FTTC if possible with it's bigger upstream budget should cure the issue.

( Don't think you can get a bigger upstream with ADSL2+)

Upstream is very close to the max upstream of the webcams.

I would limit webcam upstream to 512Kbps if possible. It's likely the webcam is outputting higher than the connection speed, hence router runs out of ram and crashes...

Even a torrent user, it's unlikely to max out the connection for 24 solid hours on upstream, there's gaps where the demand is much lower.

Can you get a fibre optic service at these locations?

Also encoding systems while aiming for a capped maximum don't always hit that to the exact byte, i.e. the encoding of live material can sometimes exceed the cap, since in live encoding you do not have the time to go and resample a frame that does exceed the cap.

So yes I'd agree with others that trying a lower cap in the 500 to 800Kbps region would be a good idea

Hmm. This is all VERY interesting. I have never had to consider throughput before.

I will access the cameras and lower their bitrate. to something like 512Kbps and wait and see if they stabilise, increasing this over time until the routers fall over.

By the way I can't recall seeing much about RAM in router specs. I wonder if there are routers out there that are designed with live video streaming in mind?

Thank you ALL very much for sharing your knowledge. I will keep you posted over the weeks.


Kevin

Video streaming should have the same impact as any other TCP based task, or UDP depending on the protocol used by the stream. So should not need a router with massive CPU and memory, the issue may be more about whether the firmware is totally bullet proof and has no memory leaks or bugs that cause it to fall over.

Yes, very true. And judging by the number of customised firmwares out there I suspect many manufacturers firmware are poor.