T2499E - Empty reply from server

[tedly]

the T2499E has been a great camera. I placed it high up under my eves when we built an addition about 2 years ago. But recently I've been having issues. I contacted support but they have not had a response in 5+ days. (Request 443008, in case anyone from support is reading this.)

The issue is that I pretty consistently don't get an image. It seems to work most all the time using a browser UI. But using the android app, it fails to connect about half the time. But when I use curl to retrieve images, it fails the majority of the time. "Empty reply from server". So I assume that is similar to the response seen by android app... but hidden behind the scenes.

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As you can see in the screen shot, I can try repeatedly and get failures the vast majority of the time. One one of the 10 tries worked in that example.

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And just to show it's not a client (curl) issue, you can see it work on a different camera (192.168.150.14) at the same time it fails for this (192.168.150.7) camera.

I have flashed it to the current firmware. Power cycled it (by pulling plug on POE). And that's all I can do since the camera is physically 30 feet overhead on an ice and snow covered hill right now. So getting my hands on it is way difficult.

Short of the device simply starting to die of old age, are there any recommendations for troubleshooting or remedying this? If not, I'll just be making a single trip up the ladder to swap it out with a different camera instead.

[Revo2Maxx]

Well personally I don't know what the issue is however I am going to guess camera related (In my case) that is my guess...

So I don't normally setup and use Curl however after seeing your post I thought I would setup a couple of different things from my Linux box and see what I get. For me what is odd on both a Curl and a Wget the camera gives only 1 image before it errors out. Now for my setup I get a Bad image in the folder and looking at the command I get 0 for the items that don't make it. So i moved my 8mp camera into the same line of my 4mp camera that I ran same Curl and Wget commands on and I get good pictures. So I thought maybe bad connections. Setup, Tested again and same results (Meaning no longer getting images.) I even changed the encoding down to h.264, changed from 8mp down to 1080 trying 6mp, 5mp, 4mp, 3mp and all of them get 0 images..

No the Wget I am not sure what the issue is. Maybe it isn't input correctly. I say this because for me I get 1 image right after I send the command however the next image no longer has my user and password it shows info from Digest and the command line auto changes to admin:password and then I get 500 error. I run command again I get 1 image, then error so I am going to guess it is something in my wget command that is wrong for format of Amcrest Camera.

However sending that same Wget command to my 1046EW-AI 4mp camera it makes an image without an error just fine, So I am thinking issue is camera related and not cable or port related that I first thought might be the issue for me.

I say this because while the 4mp still works on the Wget there is an Error that is 401 about Unauthorized, However the 8mp camera on this error fails from there on with the Wget command, it does show Auth info in the repeated command line from second on just no longer shows the real password it just says password in that area?

So when I first ran the Curl command I am using (different then yours) I got 1 image then fail from then on even changing locations. I even took a laptop that I have Unbuntu back to the Switch and ran the commands there as well thinking maybe I had network lag that was causing the issues and same results from both locations..

Personally nothing wrong with my Cameras, They work on P2P off my network, and on my network, also local I can take images from camera to FTP, email and all. there is something within the Curl command the camera has locked out that is my guess...

If it worked at another FW that your able to DL and install again. I would maybe try the FW before the one you have installed now.. My firmware for my 8mp camera is from 2021-July-12th all my other cameras don't use that new of FW so I am guessing might be FW related..

[Revo2Maxx]

Edit:

So I was wrong about what I posted above.. I looked at my camera again and thought I would see what my Snapshot settings are setup for 3600.. So I changed that to 1s and now I am able to get a snapshot every second as per my Curl command.

Just ran the Wget again and it does work as well even with the 401 error this time it no longer shows a 500 error..

So for my camera I changed to allow image every second, also already had it setup for full time image snapshot as I had it going to my email server..

[Revo2Maxx]

So here is an image of my images being made after making that change in the snapshot setting area of the camera.

Also about Support not sure why so long, Might have been long weekend, I know I always hate it when I send something on Friday and have to wait all weekend. Email support isn't over the weekend so Sat, Sun just long wait times...

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[Revo2Maxx]

also thought I would post my command so there is no question to why or how it is working on a constant output incase there are others that are reading and wondering how or why

while :; do curl --digest -o "$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S").jpg" http://admin:Password@10.0.0.72/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi; sleep 1; done

For me this is a command I use when I want to make a time lapse of one of my cameras. I normally don't post things like this as others most times already know how to make commands better then I.

However incase other want to use it, just change the user and pass and the ip address of the camera.

I also use ffmpeg to format a time lapse after the fact and works well..
Here is the wget command I use also both work for my cameras

while :; do wget -O "$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S").jpg" http://admin:Password@10.0.0.72/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi; sleep 1; done

hope this helps anyone that is looking to take constant snapshots. I don't personally like having to use year month day format however seems to work best this way others might have better code this is what works for me.

Commands above will go on forever unless you hit ctrl-c however I am sure you already know this, trying to be clear as I can...

[tedly]

Not at my PC to give a solid reply. But I am using these for snapshots and for time lapses. I have a simple shell script that loops through ten cameras and grabs an image every X seconds (based on arguments). Ffmpeg, other tools, etc etc. I can pull it off of all the other device mods just fine at ~1 sec pulls. Except this one. So I'm fairly confident it's not an infrastructure or curl side issue since it's impacting only 1 cam feed.

And I do have that high failure rate on the android app. But I don't belive the web UI has ever had an issue

As for wget, I thought it had some issue passing digest format authentication. But maybe you are allowing public (unauth) logins.

I did get a support reply after I posted that. It was more than just the weekend. They usually reply in a day.

[Revo2Maxx]

There are just to many issues that can cause high fail rate on AVP I would double check how your connection to your camera is setup. Most times P2P is best for access at home and while away (Or at camera location and away) Another issue I am sure you were or could have been told by support is the Internet Connection speed of a network can cause this issue as well..

Also maybe the camera is on h.265 and really would work better in h.264 format. This isn't always the case but is something good to try..

And no I don't let Unauth connections to my Cameras..

[Revo2Maxx]

Also here is from my wget command I don't as said before allow unauth to my cameras don't know why my command just works lol

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[tedly]

I am in the same building. The device capturing the image from this and the other 10 devices is on the same wired Amcrest PPOE switch.

Everything is P2P. There is no NVR involved. Merely a curl from a linux host to several cameras on the same LAN. And it is using h.264.

This camera has been up and working pretty well for most of 2 years. No changes since its' been doing well. Its just the last couple months I seem to be getting lots of missing video.

If it wasn't for the fact that the Web UI shows the videos close to 100% of the time, I'd be more confident that the device is just dying out.

[Revo2Maxx]

Personally I would swap cables from the port your camera is connected to, I would make sure it has a good cleaning (Switch) make sure there is no dust or things that can lead to Static issues within the Switch.

Only other thing that comes to mind would be if your camera has a Micro SD card installed. It might be that your card is going bad and while this normally leads to cameras going offline on a constant basis. It might be that with it being connected to your server with Curl commands where others that only show fail cameras later in the time line because they are not doing curl and might be it way of telling you it isn't happy..

Outside of nothing changing (FW updates) or other things that would or could make the camera unhappy it would have to come down to something camera related then. Normally Port change, if that don't make it better then I would do a Temp cable change, Not always something that can be done because of location issues however even if it is running over the ground for testing a short time, if that don't help next would be changing out Micro SD if one is installed.

Out side of all that it is hard to say what is going on.. Sorry I wasn't any help