ibwireless2 Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Hi Guys, New C4 user here with a system in a vacation home that has remote access enabled. I have composer HE and a HC250 based system. Soooo many questions as a new user, so for 1st post I decided to focus on my camera challenges. At first I could not get them to work at all. I have reset all cameras, fixed their IP address on the network (reserved IPs) and used Composer to update IP address, user and password and attempted to make the default picture sizes smaller (like 640x480). Now since playing around on the cameras themselves I have achieved mixed results. Axis 211 seems to work fairly well and shows up on Android , the Home controller TV output, and on PC web browser (through Anywhere Access) Axis M3007-PV and Axis M3113-R both show up on Android app, but on other screens they are black. On android app itself there is a button for Movie Mode or Image Mode - on the the M3007 it works in both, and on the M3113 it work in movie mode but not Image mode. The 211 works in both modes also. The inconsistency of viewing the cameras is puzzling me - any ideas where I should start? Thanks in advance! FWIW - the previous owner of the home had everything working with same HW and C4 system (I bought it) ; the cameras all work on the network locally just fine - access them through a PC and there are no issues with any of the modes, screen sizes, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christophers Posted January 21, 2016 Share Posted January 21, 2016 so i had similar issues with my p33 series cameras from axis. this has to do with the way axis handles streaming profiles and the way the c4 drivers try to pull the streams. there were no specific drivers for them and i got weird behaviour. what i ended up doing was using the axis 2100 driver which allowed me to adjust the stream profiles to anything i wanted on the axis cameras and then modify what stream c4 pulled through the driver settings. you have M series, so you may want to try the generic fixed drivers or a closer M series driver, but it was trial and error for me for a few days, but now they all work fine. fwiw, axis has lots of bugs in their firmware as well as they run really fast development cycles, so updating firmware may help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibwireless2 Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 Out of curiosity ... I have read lots of problems and solutions under the general category involving drivers - using different ones, modifying settings, etc. How does one do that? I have Composer HE ... what tool do I need to install a different Axis driver as suggested? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfh Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 You cannot install or replace a driver using Composer HE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibwireless2 Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 Since many people post and reply on this site that are NOT dealers, how do they add or change drivers since composer HE has the drivers options grayed out? Is there some other tool or license these folks use? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Leeds UK Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 The dealer !!! He as composer Pro which allows you to swap out drivers. However they will be dealers on this site that can it remotely for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibwireless2 Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 Sorry I'm just not familiar with the support model and am trying to learn ... if the dealer does all this stuff then why does the user even need to know about which driver they use, what special driver settings are required etc. So you tell the dealer to try certain settings or a different driver and they do it remote for you? When Christopher Spitler replied to my message it sounded like some trial and error is involved with my axis cameras so I was trying to figure out how to do that... I have to play with camera settings and driver settings at the same time and see if they work together - its not straightforward like asking a dealer to install a known driver for a new switch or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c4toys Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 What is the current c4 software? 2.5.3 or lower, 2.6 or higher? If they all worked and you have not changed settings in HE. I would reboot everything controller, switch, cameras in that order before changing drivers. then possibly updating camera firmware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christophers Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 2 hours ago, ibwireless2 said: Sorry I'm just not familiar with the support model and am trying to learn ... if the dealer does all this stuff then why does the user even need to know about which driver they use, what special driver settings are required etc. So you tell the dealer to try certain settings or a different driver and they do it remote for you? When Christopher Spitler replied to my message it sounded like some trial and error is involved with my axis cameras so I was trying to figure out how to do that... I have to play with camera settings and driver settings at the same time and see if they work together - its not straightforward like asking a dealer to install a known driver for a new switch or something. just because they're a dealer doesn't mean they're an expert on everything that integrates with control4. there are thousands of drivers. many people (not like most people here) pay a dealer to install a system where they don't care about hardware or certain integrations like we do. this means that a dealer installing a certain product and driver for you doesn't necessarily know all the "gotchas" with that product (or they may, but who knows). some people here also have access to composer pro, or gather the info then ask their dealer to do what they've asked, or even pay a dealer to remotely work on these items (there are several dealers on this forum that do such work). if you want this troubleshooting done, i recommend you contact your dealer or look in the dealers subforum for someone to remotely work with you (at cost, of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibwireless2 Posted January 23, 2016 Author Share Posted January 23, 2016 21 hours ago, 2kooltoys said: What is the current c4 software? 2.5.3 or lower, 2.6 or higher? If they all worked and you have not changed settings in HE. I would reboot everything controller, switch, cameras in that order before changing drivers. then possibly updating camera firmware It's 2.5.3 --> The previous owner said they all worked in the current project (which I inherited) but two things changed - 1) the viewing mechanism for him was an Apple product(s) which I don't use , I have Android products and PC access at the cabin and 2) they have been factory reset I had to do a factory reset on all the cameras to change the unknown root password ... so of course after the reset I have lost whatever image setup settings he used as a default were (and he doesn't remember). I guess I'm wondering if there are best practices for what default resolution , frame rate, etc. one should use for the widest compatibility of viewing options. I know the IP and user/pass for the cameras so pinging them isn't an issue , it's a compatibility thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 Try setting up a guest username and password on each camera and report back. That has helped with a lot of different camera manufacturers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibwireless2 Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 Hi @lippavisual - thanks for the idea but I have already done that and updated the composer info to use the generic account instead of the root account. I tested all the cameras from a PC on the network with the guest account and they worked in a browser. From a browser however all the cameras go to what I would call a landing page - one with options to select different views, formats, resolutions, etc. I can't help but feel when you put the IP address into Composer it's trying to access a simple camera webserver interface that serves an image or a series of images , but instead the camera must serve a more complex page rather than just an image. Is the driver in C4 supposed to get just an image or does it have logic to figure out how to extract the image from the other info the webpage is being served? I have seen more complex URLs for some camera where you can append a resolution request, or some modified address to get an image, but in composer it only lets you enter an IP and a port Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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