Is anyone successfully getting snapshots from an IP8M-T2499EW

[DanTappan]

I just got an IP8M-T2499EW and am having problems retrieving snapshots. I am using the URL learned through ONVIF (below).

The problem I am seeing is that it works occasionally but mostly the HTTP GET hangs or returns no data.
The camera is working: I can see video when I access it through the control interface.
I also tried the http://<IP>/cgi-bin/snapshot.cgi URL from the API document; that fails in the same way.

ONVIF response to GetSnapshotUri:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<s:Envelope
xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
xmlns:sc="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-encoding"
xmlns:trt="http://www.onvif.org/ver10/media/wsdl"
xmlns:tt="http://www.onvif.org/ver10/schema">
<s:Header/>
<s:Body>
<trt:GetSnapshotUriResponse>
<trt:MediaUri>
<tt:Uri>http://birdcam/onvifsnapshot/media_serv ... =0</tt:Uri>
<tt:InvalidAfterConnect>true</tt:InvalidAfterConnect>
<tt:InvalidAfterReboot>true</tt:InvalidAfterReboot>
<tt:Timeout>PT0S</tt:Timeout>
</trt:MediaUri>
</trt:GetSnapshotUriResponse>
</s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

[DanTappan]

As a follow up to this:
a. I should add that the most common failure is an HTTP 400 code returned after a 10-20 second delay

b. I've been doing some testing with the built in scheduled snapshot support, storing the snapshot images on my NAS via NFS. I successfully got that set up, configured to take about 1 snapshot a minute (to save disk space). Looking at the timestamped files stored on the NAS I see that typically only maybe 4 snapshots in an hour succeed (out of expected 60). In addition, the times when the snapshots succeed seem to more or less correlate to the times when my snapshotting program is able to successfully retrieve images using the GetSnapshotURI URL.

My conclusion is that there appears to be something internal to the camera which locks up the snapshotting process for long periods. (If I had to guess, I'd suspect some sort of multiprocessing lock screwup). It's definitely a reproducible bug which speaks very poorly of AMCREST's QA process (do they even have one?). This is on top of all the comparatively minor UI bugs I've run into while researching this.

I've sent an email report into the Amcrest support address but have heard nothing. Which doesn't speak well of the support organization, but maybe they are all quarantined with CORVID-19.

Anyway, recommendation: DO NOT PURCHASE AN IP8M-T2499 IF SNAPSHOTTING FUNCTIONALITY IS IMPORTANT TO YOU!!! I'm probably going to have to return this one and give them a bad Amazon review.

Does anyone know of a currently supported IP camera which does support snapshotting? I have some older Amcrest models that work (which is why I purchased this one) but they are not sold anymore.

[longedge]

Perhaps of no interest to you but anyway -

One of my main uses for my IP cameras is taking snapshots for upload to display in pages in my web space. I never achieved my goal which was a completely automated system but at one stage I got it down to a single click to get snapshots from 3 cameras using the http sdk and then ftp'ing to my web space.

That slowly stopped working, never found out why, and now I use a different method using ASP which takes me 5 separate clicks.

1. A click in each frame of ASP, one for each camera to take a snapshot which is saved to the folder on my PC configured for the purpose.
2. A click in ASP to open the folder where the snapshots are saved and where I also have an app that I created.
3. Click on the app which then parses the filenames of each jpeg and renames them to the static names used on my web page and having done that ftp's them, deletes them and closes itself.

It takes me about 20-30 seconds all told and TBH it's just something for me to play around with .

[DanTappan]

If you're interested I can give you a python script I use. Takes some hand editing to set up the URLs and user/pwds but it works pretty well for grabbing a snapshot every second from 1/2 dozen cameras - other than for cameras with buggy snapshot support like this one.

[DanTappan]

Update: After playing around with a bunch of things I've discovered that the problem is related to video resolution. If I set the resolution on the main stream (which also sets snapshot resolution) to 2304x1296 or lower, then snapshot retrieval works. Anything higher and it fails. So lowering the resolution is at least a workaround to the problem if not a solution.

I have a theory that the problem is related to motion detection, maybe an O(N^2) or worse algorithm? If I look at the event logs I see from the time stamps that motion detection takes at least 30 seconds, sometimes much more. I tried disabling all motion detection related settings but I still see the events in the log so apparently there is no way to disable the motion detection process

[longedge]

Great find!! Confirmewd here - dropping the resolution to HD (1080P) on my 3MP cameras has got my solution working again. Now I just need to decide whether to go back to it or stick with my workaround and the higher res .

[longedge]

@DanTappan I've been playing around with video resolution, switching back and forth between 1080P and the highest res my cameras support 2304x1296 and I've found that a change in either direction has an immediate effect, snapshots work again.

Unfortunately it's only temporary and after a while snapshots fail again. Definitely buggy

The same thing happens on two cameras, one with pre javascript firmware and the other with the latest version so I wonder if that is an indication that it is a hardware thing rather than firmware, not sure.

[jack7]

One data point: I just tried my IP4M-1026 with 4M snapshots recorded to SD card, scheduled in cam every 15sec for a while and then 60sec, for a two hour period. All snapshots on time and full size.

[longedge]

Likewise, manual snapshots continue to work perfectly from ASP, though perhaps that doesn't involve any 'in camera' processing. For me, the problem only arises when calling the http snapshot cgi.

[duc916]

Dan, just got mine a week ago and it snaps with motion detection, and emails at full 3840x2160 with no issues.
I'll keep an eye on them if they start failing but so far so good.

Only issue I have is trying to view 4K video from the built-in web gui freezes, showing only the first frame. It does this in the live view AND the player.

My cam info:
Software VersionV2.622.00AC000.0.R, Build Date: 2019-10-24
WEB VersionV3.2.1.677800
ONVIF Version16.12(V2.4.3.651299)