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[Nostromo]

Hello!

This has been driving me crazy since I invested in D-Link cameras and a router.

I am running six D-Link wifi cameras. Several each of the 930, 931, and 933 models, spread all over the house.  Some are a few feet away from the router, some 70 feet away. They all "work", some of the time. But randomly they just quit. I go to D-ViewCam, and maybe two will be fine, and the other four just bounce between "connect" and "disconnecting".

Rebooting the computer--no help. Rebooting router-- no help. Sometimes they seems to come alive all by themselves.  They may all work fine for a few days or a week, then they drop out. I just don't get it. Everything is up to date. D-ViewCam and MyD-Link will both show the cameras as either active or "X'd" out. Yet one right beside a dead one works fine.

This has been going on since I first installed the cameras.  Just when it gets to looking like it all works, and I buy another camera, the problem comes back.  Hell, I even bought a D-Link router thinking that would help!  All the IP addresses for the cameras are reserved, and when I go into the router, there they all are.

While typing this, I unplugged and replugged two of the cameras I can get to. They came back to life. I went outside to the outbuilding and unplugged those, they came back to life. So I may be on to something here.... Interesting.   

BUT WHY DO I HAVE TO UNPLUG THEM? Sorry to yell. What good are they if to get them to come back I have to unplug them?  Is there a fix for this? As I type this, the last two I didn't unplug are still "connect...disconnecting".

Please, and help?

Thank you!

Chris

[JavaLawyer]

What model router do you have?

[RYAT3]

70 ft through walls, can be difficult.

Use a mobile phone app such as wifi analyzer and see what the signal strength is at these locations.
You'll probably see drop outs.

[JavaLawyer]

I would like to know the router model and the distance of all cameras to the router (and line of site vs. walls for each model). A good first step for troubleshooting would be to place all of the wireless cameras in the same room as the router with line-of-site to see if the problem persists. If the connections stabilize, then it's clearly a signal attenuation issue (either distance, too many obstructions, or environmental interference, or a combination of all three).

[Nostromo]

Thank you all for the responses! Now...

I have a D-Link DIR-855L router. 

I don't have all the distances to the cameras.  I don't think this is an issue because the one farthest from will be working when two that I can see from the router quit. It seems sometimes to be a cascade effect, other times, two cameras "in the middle" of more distant ones fail while the outliers are fine. My signal strength in my observatory is great (farthest camera). I routinely have four of five bars on my mobile device and Internet speeds are good.

I don't know if this helps but D-ViewCam shows a throughput (?) of about 18.5Mbps when I am monitoring the six cameras? It does tend to tank when I start having connectivity issues.  Could it be other devices "sucking bandwidth" that causes the issue?  Still I do not understand why unplugging them seems to solve the issue--at least for a few days or week.

Yesterday, after having no trouble for quite a while (other than just intermittent drops--they usually come back by themselves) all cameras failed (hence my frantic post above). D-ViewCam couldn't see them nor could MyD-Link. I rebooted the computer and router, but nothing would bring the cameras back.

After waiting many hours, I slowly unplugged one at a time over the span of several hours. Each time I unplugged one, it would come back online. I finally did all six (the three farthest away are on a separate breaker, so I just tripped and reset same, never touched the cameras).

Twenty-four hours later all six cameras are working fine. As far as I know, not even one has disconnected (no MyD-Link disconnect warnings). As far as I know nothing else changed save for dropping power to them and reconnecting.

If they start failing again, I'll try the power solution, pull them in here, and see if being closer helps. I will report back.

Any more ideas, keep them flowing!  Thanks!

CG

[JavaLawyer]

If you want to rule out bandwidth, you can try reducing the video settings on all the cameras to minimize bandwidth and see if that impacts stability.

[JavaLawyer]

Here's a tool that may be of interest: DCS Network Cameras - Live Feed Bandwidth and Video Storage Calculator

[Nostromo]

I did notice my Mbps feed on D-CamView does take a hit (and video becomes choppy) when I fire up my PC, Android, and iPoop all runnin***outube video. But it keeps functioning, even with the readout dips to 1 or 2 Mbps. Interesting I can't get the cameras to disconnect yet...  CG

[JavaLawyer]

If your router supports bandwidth throttling, you can also manage throughput centrally through the router by setting limits to the cameras to keep everything in check.

[stimas]

Hi,
Do we have the same problem here? I contacted D-Link on Face and I'm not sure if you can see this post?
Link:
https://www.facebook.com/DLinkEU/posts/313132208834548?comment_id=313753038772465&offset=0&total_comments=9&notif_t=feed_comment

My cameras looses connection, but appears right after. This happens with all 3 cameras on two different locations. So I don't think it has something to do with the wifi. I can also say that I have tried to give my router a fixed channel, but it didn't help. I have one Xyxel router and one Zyxel access point.

My cameras is placed nearby my router. Two of them has clear sight to the router.

stimas

[Nostromo]

Well, it happened again.  Went about eight days with not one issue or disconnect (that didn't immediately connect). Yesterday, I lost one camera.  Disconnected. Never would reconnect.  I waited overnight to see if it would come back. Never did. Unplugging power and repowering did the trick.  Then, about eight hours later, I suddenly lose all cameras.  I also noted my cell phone had disconnected from the router. Unplugged modem and router, to no avail. Did a reset on the modem, and killed power to all cameras.  Four of them came back to life immediately.  Killing circuit breakers to the other two brought them back.

So it seems the router just suddenly up and quits working, which kills the cameras.

Is the any way to rest the cameras without having to unplug and replug them up?

CG

[Nostromo]

WT....  Well, maybe I need a half dozen of these things so I can turn my remote D-Link cameras off an on when they decide to stop connecting!

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=59248.0