IP3M-943W keep losing connection

[rsc]

I have 2 new IP3M-943W that I installed just outside of my house and they keep losing connection every couple of hours (or even more frequent). They are close to the router (35ft) and just 1 wall apart, so the wifi signal is not the issue (I also tested the Wifi signal and it is good).

I already tried making them have Static IPs, Static DNS (8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4) and disabled P2P but nothing seems to solve that connection issue. What could be?

I also tried just leaving 1 turned on (they are close to each other and I read somewhere that Amcrest recommend to have them at lest 5 feet apart) but it makes no difference.

I noticed that even if the camera been reported to be offline, they are alive and I can ping them.

The cameras are connected to my Synology NAS (Surveillance Station)

What could I do? I am almost retuning them because I bought due to their Wireless capability but it is pretty disappointing to see that the connection is not reliable.

[cg49me]

What exactly is losing connection? Are your cameras not recording to your NAS properly, or you're just having trouble watching them live?

I just set up some ProHD cams myself, and found P2P to be the most stable and reliable connection method.

[rsc]

My NAS says that the cameras got disconnected (like if they are offline or out of range). I can't even connect to the own cameras management portal (by typing their IPs on my browser) and the AMCrest IP Config app also does not find them. But if I ping their IP address, I get a reply, which means for me that the connection is still there, but for some reason the camera stopped responding.

Here is a screenshot of my NAS, look on the right side how many times my both cameras get disconnected...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jk6to9kcsbuvidk/cameras.png

[rsc]

I noticed the following also: When the camera is working fine, I see 4 ports open:
PORT STATE SERVICE REASON
80/tcp open http syn-ack
554/tcp open rtsp syn-ack
5000/tcp open upnp syn-ack
49152/tcp open unknown syn-ack

But when the camera is "disconnected", I only see 3..
PORT STATE SERVICE REASON
554/tcp open rtsp syn-ack
5000/tcp open upnp syn-ack
49152/tcp open unknown syn-ack

[rsc]

Someone from Amcrest could give some light on the issue? I really didn't want to return the cameras, but I will not be able to keep them without fixing that connection issue.

[Melvin]

Hello rsc,

Sorry to hear about the issue. Not sure what is causing the issue. It looks like the web server on the camera stops responding. This seems to happen more when the camera is set to record to FTP/NAS etc.

Usually power recycling camera can fix the issue. For testing if possible disable NAS recording and see if the camera works uninterruptedly.

[rsc]

Thanks for the reply Melvin. I configured the cameras directly in the NAS and I have NOT set any NAS configuration in the camera settings via the camera web portal. I don't know if that would make any difference.

I will definitively remove one of the cameras from the NAS to check if it keeps online. I will report back here in a couple of days.

But just something to think: If the camera web server goes down, shouldn't the streaming continue to work normally directly to the NAS (since I believe it uses a different protocol/ports)?


I for use know that turning the camera off/on makes it work again, but since it is getting disconnected several times per hour, that is not feasible solution.

[rsc]

I did a test and cabled one of the cameras. The camera connected via cable is super stable and has never disconnected since then (almost a week now).

The other camera that is still on wifi worked great on the first 2 days (no drops), but now I am starting to see 1-2 disconnection per day.

Any ideas? I would really like to have some Amcrest support to debug that problem.

[Squirrelly]

Are you using 2.4 or 5Ghz? Move the Camera close to your WiFi AP and see if you get disconnected. You might be getting interference from another AP