IP2M-842E Keeps Crashing

[adamsguitar]

I currently have three IP2M-842E cameras mounted under the eaves around my house, and two of them are experiencing inexplicable crashes and reboots. All three are running 2.520.0000.0.R, build : 2016-08-15. All are powered by the same multi-port POE injector and are monitored 24x7 by BlueIris and by two Kindle Fire tablets running TinyCam Pro (so pretty much 24x7 there as well). All are configured to output 30fps.

• One camera works exactly as expected; no issues at all
• One camera crashes and reboots 1-2 times per day (as evidenced by reboot/abort events in the logs) and suffers from occasional low framerates and occasional freezes. The web UI also sometimes gets slow, but I have not experienced an actual failure yet.
• One camera crashes and reboots sometimes as frequently as every 5 minutes (with this it's abort/startup in the logs) and extremely low framerates and frequent freezes. The web UI for this camera is also almost impossible to load because it will time out or fail to log in.

I have a ping monitor continually pinging all of my cameras and right around the time of the reboot the failing camera will drop off the map. Otherwise all cameras are available and have great ping times with no packet loss.

Unfortunately since these cameras are mounted under the eaves they are 20+ feet in the air and I cannot get to them without hiring someone to come out and work on them, so I have not been able to try a full hard reset. Is there anything I can do (either to troubleshoot, diagnose, or fix) the issue without having to handle the camera itself?

Any ideas are much appreciated!

[Melvin]

Hello adamsguitar,

Is the problem camera connected with a very long Ethernet cable? It might be slow above 100 feet from the router.

You can try a hard reset as a last option and it could be that the camera is faulty as well.

[adamsguitar]

The cables are at most about 70 feet or so—is there anything that can be done if the length of the run is the issue? I will say that there is an indoor IP2M-841 that is installed right on the inside of the same wall as one of the affected cameras (so the length of the run is virtually the same) and it has no issues.

Is there a way to perform a hard reset without getting to the actual camera? As I mentioned, I would have to hire someone to come get them since they are high up in the air on the exterior of the house.

Is the latest version of the firmware for these cameras from 2016?

Thank you!

[Melvin]

Hello adamsguitar,

Ok 70 feet should be fine but you could try swapping the cables to ensure its not a cable issue. There is an option to do a factory default settings from the web interface of the camera under Setup > System.

The latest firmware for this camera was on 8/15/16.

[adamsguitar]

I've done the web UI reset on one of the cameras and it didn't have any effect. From what I've read elsewhere this isn't the same (isn't as "complete") as doing the hard reset physically on the camera. Is this true?

It seems really unlikely that two different cameras in two different places would have issues with the cable when another camera (that's a different Amcrest model) would have no issues with a run that is virtually the same length. There are 0 dropped packets over a constant ICMP ping monitor until it starts the reboot cycle, so I really feel like the cable is not the problem.

Could this be a power supply issue? Is there any way to tell if it's dying because of some kind of voltage dip or something?

Are there any updates planned for these cameras? At this point I fear I am going to have to replace them--I can't pay someone to come out here just to troubleshoot the camera.

[Melvin]

Hello adamsguitar,

Yes please try the hard reset as a last resort. You could also replace one camera under warranty as it could be a defective unit sometimes.