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Camera Troubleshooting
Camera Troubleshooting

There are many reasons why your camera may not be recording correctly. This guide describes the most common ones how to troubleshoot them.

Roman Gaufman avatar
Written by Roman Gaufman
Updated over a week ago

Check if your Camera is Online

Your camera may be offline, you can check this by going to the Cameras page. Pay attention to the Last Heartbeat column (you may need to scroll across to see it), it will show if the camera is online or not:

Providing the camera was previously set in Monitor or Record mode, the date/time of the last heartbeat recorded will be displayed, which can sometimes help to work out what may have gone wrong:
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Generally, a camera goes offline if it is physically unplugged, the camera has failed or the power supply of the camera has failed. It can also be caused by the cable connection to the camera failing, which can be due to it being accidentally or maliciously cut, a simple loose connection or it could even be a fox or rodent that chewed through the cable.

Note: You will need to get your camera online before you can follow any other steps.

Your Сamera is Online but Not Recording

There are several reasons why your camera may not be recording:

  • Camera Credentials are Incorrect

  • Camera Stream Path is Incorrect

  • Camera is Providing an Invalid Stream (which may indicate it could be faulty)

  • Camera has an old buggy firmware

  • Some other fault such as a faulty power supply, etc.

The TetherX will identify most problems and show a helpful tooltip when possible, for example:
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Testing your Camera with VLC

If your camera is online but you are struggling to get your camera working with TetherX, please use the third party VLC player to confirm your camera is working correctly:

  • Tap on the Camera name under Admin -> Cameras

  • Under URLs, make note of the Analytics URL, you will need it later.

  • Download and install the VLC video player: www.videolan.org/vlc

  • Open VLC and tap on File -> Open Network

  • Paste the Analytics URL you made note of above.

This will open the camera stream in an industry-standard player and will ensure the camera is working correctly.

If your camera is playing correctly, please send an email with a screenshot of the VLC player and the URL used to support@tetherit.io and one of our engineers will be able to assist further.

If VLC is showing an error, please contact the camera manufacturer with a screenshot and the error, they should be able to assist further. Once you have your camera working in VLC, you can proceed to try to add it to TetherX.

Camera is reporting "Wrong Password"

This means the camera is rejecting the credentials specified for some reason. If you are struggling to figure out the default username/password of the camera, you may find this list of Default Credentials useful.

Please note that both the username and password are usually case sensitive, so "Admin" is a different username from "admin". Cameras will also not ignore spaces, so "admin " (with a space on the end) is a different username from "admin". All of these small differences will cause your camera to reject the credentials. Please pay special attention, especially when copy/pasting the credentials.
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If you are certain that the username and password are correct, the camera may still reject the credentials if they were set incorrectly in the initial configuration. This happens because some cameras prevent too many tries with the wrong password. If this happens, you can do one of the following:

  • Disable the camera by switching "Active" to the "Off" position and wait 60 minutes, after this time the camera should allow connections again.

  • OR Restart the camera by unplugging it from the switch (or restarting it, in its web interface).

  • OR Unplug the PoE switch from power temporarily, forcing the camera to restart.

If you have followed the above and still experience a problem, please try to reset the camera. You can normally do this by holding a reset button inside of the camera for 5 seconds. Please refer to your camera manual for further instructions.

If restarting and resetting the camera did not help, please ensure you are able to open the camera in a player such as VLC. Please refer to "Testing the camera with VLC" above.

If you get stuck at any point, please speak to us on live chat (bottom right) directly inside of TetherX.

Live is Working but Recordings are Empty

The most common cause for this to happen is the analytics stream of the camera is working, but the recording stream is not. Please ensure you are able to open both streams with a player such as VLC.

If both streams are working correctly, please look at the TetherBoxes page to ensure your CPU usage is less than 80%. If CPU load stays at over 80% for prolonged periods of time, it may cause some cameras to temporarily stop recording.

Multiple cameras are on the same IP

If new camera are added, some manufacturers such as Hikvision set them up by default to use a static IP, meaning that the TetherBox can no uniquely identify each one You will need to change this. To confirm this is the case, follow these steps:

  • Click on Admin (top right) -> Cameras

  • In the "Access" column of the Camera table, you will see the IP of each camera, e.g. http://192.168.1.64

  • If this IP is the same for all cameras, you need to change it in the camera config.
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    ​Note: Make note of this IP as you will need it in the next steps.

All my cameras are on the same IP, what do I do?

If your cameras are on the same IP, you will need to change this. To make this change follow these steps:

  • Unplug all cameras from the PoE Switch
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    ​Note: Because the cameras are on the same IP, you cannot have multiple cameras plugged in at the same time.
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  • Plug in each camera, one camera at a time

  • Open the camera IP using Internet Explorer, e.g. http://192.168.1.64
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    ​Note: You may be able to use other browsers, but many cameras require Internet Explorer
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  • Login using the default password (this will be in the camera manual) or some cameras will allow you to set a new password, make note of this password as you will need it to log in.

  • Under "Network" settings (could be under General > Network), make sure the camera is set to "DHCP" or "Obtain an IP address automatically". For more details on camera setup, refer to the Setup Checklist

Camera Dropping Off the Network Periodically

There can be several reasons why a camera may be dropping off the network periodically:

  • Bad Cable: A cable that is damaged internally can create a partial short at different times of the day as temperature/humidity changes. This causes either a short to ground or resistance which causes a drop in voltage, making the camera freeze or reboot.

  • Cable is Too Long: Please ensure the cable does not exceed the 100m maximum allowed.

  • Bad Connection: Poor connector/contact can cause the connection to be lost when the contacts heat up/cool down during temperature/humidity changes throughout the day.

  • Not Enough Power: Insufficient power to the camera can cause it to shut off periodically or restart. Please check the specifications of the switch and camera to make sure it can provide the power requirements.

  • Faulty Network Switch: The network switch could be faulty. Please try a different port on the switch or a different network switch entirely to see if the problem persists.

  • For Wireless or HomePlug Cameras: We have found HomePlug to be unreliable when it comes to video surveillance. The connection drops frequently and causes the camera to skip minutes (and sometimes hours) of footage. For Wireless cameras, it is also important to make sure the wireless signal is strong and that the wireless router is not overloaded.

  • Faulty Camera: Finally, it could just be a faulty camera. We had several instances where a camera would reboot every few hours or just freeze and the problem was resolved by replacing the camera.

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