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[GandalftheWhite]

First post, hope someone here can point me in the right direction.

I went all nutbar getting into this camera thing after having my computer laptop stolen and the possibility of my address being gleaned from it, decided to protect the premises with my own setup, no monthly fees. Lady at FutureSHop told me this would fit the bill. Currently i have:

DIR-615 n300 router (with dlinkddns enabled)
DCS-930L (wireless connected to Linksys extender)
DCS-932L (wireless connected to Linksys extender)
DCS-933L (ethernet over powerline)
DCS-2332L (wireless connected to DLink 1320 extender)

All camera's were setup easily and successfully, are accessible through mydlink cloud, and setup with port forwarding to allow remote access to the camera's from outside the lan.

All camera's have the latest firmware except for the 932L which i just put in today. Will do the firmware update tomorrow.

All camera's are set on DCHP reserved IP's.

So here's my issue.

I currently am sitting offsite by my other computer running dviewcam (3.5.0) with all 4 camera's inserted properly. I see all 4 and they are operating. However the current pattern seems to be that my 930L,932L and 2332L keep going down with big red DISCONNECT every so often. I haven't timed it but it feels very random. Sometimes 2 cameras will go down simultaneously, most times just 1. They usually reconnect extremely quickly (within 10 seconds) after seeing the CONNECTING.. on the screen.. but sometimes it painfully fails many times over before finally reconnecting.

Sometimes they seem to remain connected for only a minute before dropping out. Other times they'll be up for 5-10 minutes. It's so random...

The 933L has not gone down all night. So one would assume the 933L being cabled does the trick? Well, i've seen it go down before quite often too, just seems to take a really long time before it goes down, but i know it does because my phone app actually gets a message in the notification bar that DCS 933L disconnected at 00:34 02:11:2014 or something similar.

Wow.. my 930L and 932L went down as im typing this.. just sad. And frustrating.


I have no clue what to make of it. I only have 2 guesses so far.. (now the 2 cams came back online and the 2332L went down... god help me)

1. It has something to do with 'internet sessions' but i have no clue what to do with it? I noticed the IP's of the camera's inside of the internet sessions along with a number counting down. I assumed it was some kind of timeout, idle or disconnection timer of some sort, and appears to be the case as the one camera ip i was monitoring, once it hit 0, disconnected on me) Again, i have no clue what to do about this. As i said, i've put all of them into dhcp reserve mode. Same as the range extenders. Should the extenders be set to a static IP? Sort of seems moot, i still had this problem when the camera was directly WPS'd to the DIR-615 so that kind of eliminates the extenders as a problem.

2. Bandwidth.. the house that has the camera's doesn't have the best broadband, only 512k UP.. so is it possible that it's kicking camera's off due to bandwidth overrun?

Unless anyone has anything else to add... my hunch is it's the router is disconnecting the wireless camera's based on sessions.. but i am at a loss as to how to either increase, or omit the camera's from being served with such tiny timeout stats. At least the 933L (plugged in via ethernet) goes on for hours at a time, the quick disconnect reconnect is forgivable. The other not so much. It appears that the 933L is given the maximum timeout of 7800?

Anyways, im done.. my brain hurts and im off to bed. If anyone can figure this out for me, you'll be my hero. Thanks in advance!

[update]
when checking the recording log, it appears that the 3 wireless camera's disconnect exactly every 10 minutes, as it apparently 'records' for a few seconds at the moment of disconnect as if it were motion (i have it set to record only on motion for 1 second pre / 5 seconds post motion).

Also, ever since installing the 932L, my router has on 2 occasions now completely lost the wlan signal. Everything runs well for a few minutes/hours, then bam, all 3 of my wireless camera's get big red X's in mydlink lite app. The router is still running, my 933L connected via ethernet is still showing up, and the internet is still running, but all wireless goes down. Even tho i log into the router and it says wireless enabled.. no wireless devices show up and the SSID does not show up on any of my wireless devices. (it will show my SSID but say it's not in range, even tho im standing right next to it)

When i get back to the location i am going to update the firmware on the 932L and the router to remove that from the troubleshoot list. I have also read that the dir-615 is not good at handling multiple connections. I have also read about the 615 running on dd-wrt and the atheros driver being known for dropping the signal, but it seems odd that the router functioned well overall until i introduced the 4th camera into the network.

Too many variables, this is bloody frustrating. If the firmware updates don't fix it, im going to trade up to a better grade router as it seems the router seems to be the overall problem here.

I will update this again when i'm done but i don't think anyone is in a position to help since no one is replying to this thread...

[aowald]

Sorry for the delayed reply.  I only came into owning one of these cameras, a DCS-933L, just recently but I'm seeing this issue that you're seeing.  I have a suspicion about this that I'd like anyone to look over with me having this same problem.  What I'm noticing is that my router's DHCP table, is generating an IP conflict of some sort.  When I set up the camera initially, it was through wired means. My router gave it an IP address of 192.168.1.50 while it was connected via Ethernet. I then had it set up for wireless.  My router gave the camera the same IP address on the wireless interface of the camera.  It's like it created an IP conflict for the same device, just on different interfaces as seen by the starting of the MAC addresses for the camera.

I'm on FiOS using an Actiontec router, model number MI424-WR with firmware 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.14.4.  I'm not sure if it's the fault of my router or something about the camera because I've not seen this type of error happen before.  In fact, this wasn't even an issue until I had set up options to use the Extender with a different SSID on the camera.  I may consider turning this off to see if this disconnecting stops.

[FurryNutz]

Some other devices like bridges or AP also use a 192.168.#.50 default address for set up reasons. I recommend setting a Static IP address ON the camera. I use 192.168.0.93 for my 933L. Setting Static IP addresses should be out side of the default routers IP address pool, i.e. 192.168.#.100 thru .199. Most cameras, printers, sensors and controllers, items that don't need much or any router management can use Static IP addresses:
DHCP

Sorry for the delayed reply.  I only came into owning one of these cameras, a DCS-933L, just recently but I'm seeing this issue that you're seeing.  I have a suspicion about this that I'd like anyone to look over with me having this same problem.  What I'm noticing is that my router's DHCP table, is generating an IP conflict of some sort.  When I set up the camera initially, it was through wired means. My router gave it an IP address of 192.168.1.50 while it was connected via Ethernet. I then had it set up for wireless.  My router gave the camera the same IP address on the wireless interface of the camera.  It's like it created an IP conflict for the same device, just on different interfaces as seen by the starting of the MAC addresses for the camera.

I'm on FiOS using an Actiontec router, model number MI424-WR with firmware 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.14.4.  I'm not sure if it's the fault of my router or something about the camera because I've not seen this type of error happen before.  In fact, this wasn't even an issue until I had set up options to use the Extender with a different SSID on the camera.  I may consider turning this off to see if this disconnecting stops.

[aowald]

Yeah, I'm familiar with .50 being utilized by some appliances.  In my case, that was not the case, AND I was able to resolve my issue with a factory reset.  I'm not sure what caused the problem; it may have had to do with my setup.  I did the setup a bit differently this time where I used the cloud based setup utilities first, then accessed and tweaked through the Advanced options.  So far, it seems to be working pretty well; this is me saying this roughly 5 days after resetting the device and monitoring it's progress.

So, that being the case, when a situation like this comes up, reboot your device, copy the settings in the device, factory reset it and re-run the setup.

I'm noticing my device not locking to the .50 IP address anymore.  I can't really think of a best guess as to why this was happening, but it really doesn't matter as much considering the device is working.

[FurryNutz]

Initally when you set up a device and the default is .50, and you run thru the set up of the device, usually after a reboot, the FW will change the default set up IP address and cause a DHCP Dynamic handshake to happen, this will ask the main host router to give out a new IP address from the main host routers default IP address pool. So look at your routers DHCP connected clients table and see if you notice the device there. There should be a new IP address. Use this new IP address to access the device.

[loy1068]

OK... u got the same problem that i have ... and i solved it... it will cost you some extra.
My setup was 6 units of DCS-932L and 1 unit of DCS-5020L and a recording server (With Wireless N connect to router) . Every 10 or so minutes some cameras will disconnect and will have trouble getting back online.

so to solve it, the server need to connect to Router with LAN for better bandwidth. avoid using Wireless Repeater, the rate will divide by half from the extender to those camera and will further divide the bandwidth with the numbers of cameras connected to the repeater.

make it simple
Powerline A - You can get those without WIFI preferred 500MB type
Powerline B - Get a Built-in WIFI 500MB type

Router -> Connect Powerline A thru LAN
Find 1 of the camera which you think if you place a powerline B will be able to reach out to other cameras with wifi coverage. 

Using powerline wifi extender the bandwidth will not be divided. I used it and i never have disconnection occurred. It seems that the router cannot handle too many WIFI connections at 1 times and too many bandwidth taken by wifi to cameras.

Well 512KBps at most i think can stream 1-2 cameras, but 60 seconds time out usually happen as default. This is preset by Dlink to have 60 seconds timeout for low bandwidth remote viewing.

Don't put your server offsite.. as it will need upload bandwidth from cameras to remote server. Else it will get disconnected. I run on local lan and the rate is around 1.5-2 MB/s.... so imagine if it is off-site

yeah.. i done the DHCP reserved.. so no issues on it.

And 1 more thing, router play a huge rule too. I have 1 router provided by my ISP.. it can only support 4 cameras , 1 server and 1 iphone.... so i ditch it and get a better router and run the powerline concept (cause i made a mistake on the new router as that router still not high end enough to get everything on wifi as it's own wifi bandwidth management is poor)...

hope it help you .

[FurryNutz]

PLs may or may not be needed in some cases and is not recommended for general use in WiFi configurations. It's preferred if any additional WiFi is needed that LAN wired configurations should be used along with any 2ndary wireless APs to help extend WiFi coverage if needed. PLs could be used if LAN wire is not available for installation in some buildings.

The preferred way to maximize a LAN configuration with PLs might be:
ISP modem>DIR series router>external Gb LAN switch><NAS and wired PCs connected to switch
                                         >PL connected to back of router><2ndary WiFi AP connected to PL

PLs would not be ideal between the ISP modem and main host router in most configurations. Traffic between the ISP modem and main host router is a crucial configuration which needs the best possible connection between them. Shortest length LAN cable between the ISP modem and main host router is preferred using CAT6 cabling.

Cameras should connect to any main host router and remain connected. If the camera(s) are not connecting or fail to reconnect, then troubleshooting of the environment and surroundings for configurations issues and or interferences should be performed before the assumption of additional wireless or PL devices is needed. If the environment is not ideal for wireless devices, then adding additional wireless would not resolve the problem and add to the problem.

Troubleshoot the problem first to find out what is really wrong. 

OK... u got the same problem that i have ... and i solved it... it will cost you some extra.
My setup was 6 units of DCS-932L and 1 unit of DCS-5020L and a recording server (With Wireless N connect to router) . Every 10 or so minutes some cameras will disconnect and will have trouble getting back online.

so to solve it, the server need to connect to Router with LAN for better bandwidth. avoid using Wireless Repeater, the rate will divide by half from the extender to those camera and will further divide the bandwidth with the numbers of cameras connected to the repeater.

make it simple
Powerline A - You can get those without WIFI preferred 500MB type
Powerline B - Get a Built-in WIFI 500MB type

Router -> Connect Powerline A thru LAN
Find 1 of the camera which you think if you place a powerline B will be able to reach out to other cameras with wifi coverage. 

Using powerline wifi extender the bandwidth will not be divided. I used it and i never have disconnection occurred. It seems that the router cannot handle too many WIFI connections at 1 times and too many bandwidth taken by wifi to cameras.

Well 512KBps at most i think can stream 1-2 cameras, but 60 seconds time out usually happen as default. This is preset by Dlink to have 60 seconds timeout for low bandwidth remote viewing.

Don't put your server offsite.. as it will need upload bandwidth from cameras to remote server. Else it will get disconnected. I run on local lan and the rate is around 1.5-2 MB/s.... so imagine if it is off-site

yeah.. i done the DHCP reserved.. so no issues on it.

And 1 more thing, router play a huge rule too. I have 1 router provided by my ISP.. it can only support 4 cameras , 1 server and 1 iphone.... so i ditch it and get a better router and run the powerline concept (cause i made a mistake on the new router as that router still not high end enough to get everything on wifi as it's own wifi bandwidth management is poor)...

hope it help you .