DS2 Door station VERY buggy

[timelinex]

1 hour ago, jakblak said:

@timelinex, I wrote the Intercom Anywhere app for iOS and work closely with the engineer that wrote it for Android and I'm sure he'd be interested in this problem.  Would you mind clearing the logs within the Intercom Anywhere app, reproducing the problem, then gathering the logs and sending them to me in a PM?   We may not be able to fix it, but we might be able to point you in the right direction.

 

 

Appreciate the response! I cleared the logs, tried to unsuccesfully connect to the keypad 3x, and then immediately saved the logs. I sent you a PM with the log.

 

Thanks

[timelinex]

Well, looks like you guys were right. Connecting the doorstation with a patch wire durectly to the POE worked. LUCKILY, connecting the doorstation to the junction box at the end of the driveway worked great as well. So the issue seems to be from the junction box to the keypad pole. The 25ft run should be easy enough to drag a new wire through, which I am planning on doing right now.

[chopedogg88]

BOOM!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[timelinex]

Yea, unfortunately a new wired didn't help. The new connection is wired correctly and good for data, according to my Klein Network tool. The signal is obviously too weak after the splice? I used a new keystone jack (which is actually what was there before, I was wrong to call it IDC.). I'm gonna try to now use the "3M Scotchlok IDC Butt Connector" instead and maybe that will work better.

 

If that doesn't work any better, the last hailmerry I have is that where it terminates in my media room, there is actualyl alot of extra wire rolled up. It's probably a good 20+ ft. I'll cut that down to only what I need to reduce the wire length and see if that gives it enough extra juice.

[ILoveC4]

It could be some massive electrical interference in the routing between the panel and the DS2. Did you try running a shielded cable? it's a bit of a hassle to terminate and deal with, but might solve your problem. Big power is often buried, and that can cause problems.

[timelinex]

It could be some massive electrical interference in the routing between the panel and the DS2. Did you try running a shielded cable? it's a bit of a hassle to terminate and deal with, but might solve your problem. Big power is often buried, and that can cause problems.

Good point. Before putting on the idc's, I will pull the wire back out the conduit and try to connect the door station to that wire.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[timelinex]

Well, 9 hours later and I have a mostly working doorstation.

I changed the splice to IDC's and I shortened the cable in my media room. This enabled it to get the calls intermittently. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it doesn't. The next thing I tried is changing the port that the POE patch cable goes into on my network switch. This actually made the biggest difference. I have a router, and then 2 switches inline for my ethernet. I tried a few different positions on the switches and now it works. It is slow, laggy, and sound is choppy. But it works to connect every single time and a ping test shows no lost packets.

Why did the position on the switch matter? For that matter, I'm sure maybe connecting directly to the router may be even better. Unfortunately the router is in a different place. I'm thinking that it used to be connected to the router during the initial install and maybe thats when it worked ok. Theres a 50ft Cat6 between the router and switches and my other 12 things connected to the switches have no issues.

 

EDIT: The Web GUI is working good now though. So it seems like the network is atleast alot better than it was. I also lowered the frame rate to 10 but raised the bitrate to 1024 and that seems to of helped a little.

 

 I would guess that the extra cable from the router to the switch is weaking the signal to a certain degree. Is there a way to re-boost the signal? Does a managed switch help with that?

[jakblak]

That’s good to know, glad you got it working.  As an FYI for those of you using the Intercom Anywhere app you can double-tap the call timer on iOS (or long-press on Android) to see advanced call stats including packet loss percentage and call quality stats.

[JSTRONG]

Hey time what Are your network components , router /switch manufacturer?

[timelinex]

7 hours ago, Cartnj said:

Hey time what Are your network components , router /switch manufacturer?

Router: Asus RT-AC87U

Switch: 2x NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch

[timelinex]

I'm still having mostly the same issues. After doing what I can to optimize the CAT run and junctions, I can now mostly connect from intercom anywhere to the DS2 (very slow and laggy though). But I am always missing calls from the keypad and whether I get pinged on my phone is completely hit or miss.

I understand that it's obviously partially a network issue, since connecting the DS2 with a short wire to my network removes all issues. But I can't do anything about the wire that goes underground to my front gate and that would be a very expensive job to run another.

Luckily, it's also obviously a software issue. Either the app or the DS2 itself. I just don't know who to contact to try and get it resolved. I know it's a software issue as well because of 2 reasons:

1. My NVR is recoding the video/audio of the keypad camera at all times and has ZERO issues or lag. So the connection is more than good enough to pull the feed with no issues, and the feed makes up almost all the data entirely. 

However, even if I turn off the recording of the feed, my DS2/intercom anywhere issues remain. Once the connection is made through intercom anywhere, the feed and video is mostly ok though. Not great, but workable and doesn't disconnect. So it may have to do with poorly written handshake/invite? No idea, just guessing.

2. I have my C4 system ring my houses doorbell whenever I get someone press the call button on the keypad. This works flawlessly EVERY TIME. So I can be sitting inside my home, hear the doorbell, and watch my phone waiting for the call to go through (while having great reception).... And nothing. So OBVIOUSLY once again, the network is more than strong enough to send the signal through that there is a call and it works EVERY time to get it back to the C4 ea5 unit. But it's completely hit or miss to get it to intercom anywhere. Notice how the entire route from C4 to my phone can no longer be blamed on the long run... It's a great connection from EA5 to the internet. So once again, points to a software issue.

I understand the code works well when everything is perfect... But as you guys know, things are rarely perfect "in the field".

Any advice?

Once other thing I was thinking about....does POE injection deteriorate connections at all? Maybe I can hook up a power supply to the DS2 and keep the Cat power free? Has anyone ever seen that help?

[South Africa C4 user]

1 hour ago, timelinex said:

I'm still having mostly the same issues. After doing what I can to optimize the CAT run and junctions, I can now mostly connect from intercom anywhere to the DS2 (very slow and laggy though). But I am always missing calls from the keypad and whether I get pinged on my phone is completely hit or miss.

I understand that it's obviously partially a network issue, since connecting the DS2 with a short wire to my network removes all issues. But I can't do anything about the wire that goes underground to my front gate and that would be a very expensive job to run another.

Luckily, it's also obviously a software issue. Either the app or the DS2 itself. I just don't know who to contact to try and get it resolved. I know it's a software issue as well because of 2 reasons:

1. My NVR is recoding the video/audio of the keypad camera at all times and has ZERO issues or lag. So the connection is more than good enough to pull the feed with no issues, and the feed makes up almost all the data entirely. 

However, even if I turn off the recording of the feed, my DS2/intercom anywhere issues remain. Once the connection is made through intercom anywhere, the feed and video is mostly ok though. Not great, but workable and doesn't disconnect. So it may have to do with poorly written handshake/invite? No idea, just guessing.

2. I have my C4 system ring my houses doorbell whenever I get someone press the call button on the keypad. This works flawlessly EVERY TIME. So I can be sitting inside my home, hear the doorbell, and watch my phone waiting for the call to go through (while having great reception).... And nothing. So OBVIOUSLY once again, the network is more than strong enough to send the signal through that there is a call and it works EVERY time to get it back to the C4 ea5 unit. But it's completely hit or miss to get it to intercom anywhere. Notice how the entire route from C4 to my phone can no longer be blamed on the long run... It's a great connection from EA5 to the internet. So once again, points to a software issue.

I understand the code works well when everything is perfect... But as you guys know, things are rarely perfect "in the field".

Any advice?

Once other thing I was thinking about....does POE injection deteriorate connections at all? Maybe I can hook up a power supply to the DS2 and keep the Cat power free? Has anyone ever seen that help?

@jakblak offered help previously... did you take him up on this?

[timelinex]

11 minutes ago, South Africa C4 user said:

@jakblak offered help previously... did you take him up on this?

Unfortunately his look at the logs didn't really help, although I did appreciate that he took the time to do it. He looked at the logs and just confirmed that the logs say that the issue is that the DS2 wasn't responding the call, hinting at a network issue.... But again....If the NVR connects great and for that matter just a ping using CMD prompt connects.... the issue is definitely part software.

I sent him a message saying almost the same thing as my post. We will see if he has any feedback. 

[JSTRONG]

Jakblak knows his stuff so whatever he tells you to do I would listen. 

[timelinex]

18 minutes ago, Cartnj said:

Jakblak knows his stuff so whatever he tells you to do I would listen. 

Yep,

I'm back in talks with him through PM. I'll update you guys.

[timelinex]

Just wanted to update you guys. I got my hands on an iPhone to test things out and it worked with no issues. It turns out there is likely 2 bugs in the Android version. They are working on it now! Jakblak has been great.

[timelinex]

2 weeks later and still no update. I know things take time, but my door station not working is pretty urgent!

[ILoveControl]

What POE voltage are you running, had some similar issues but had my Unifi switch configured to lower voltage on new connections and forgot to unlimited that port. When it got the full power it needed things went much smoother. I am on 3.1 though so this could of been a combination of things.

[timelinex]

On 10/25/2019 at 7:54 AM, ILoveControl said:

What POE voltage are you running, had some similar issues but had my Unifi switch configured to lower voltage on new connections and forgot to unlimited that port. When it got the full power it needed things went much smoother. I am on 3.1 though so this could of been a combination of things.

I am on 3.1 as well by now. My POE injector is between my switch and gate. I attached a picture of it. I didnt see a voltage directly on it.  

Regardless, we did test the system on both android and iphone. There weren't issues on iphone but there were issues with android (which is what my family uses). So the primary issue is the android APP. However if you think it's under volted I would be happy to get a better POE Injector, since even when it's working, the connection with even the iphone is still kinda laggy. What unit would you recommend?

 

......Still waiting on an update on the android App, till then I've been left by C4 with no gate keypad as far as guests go.....

 

EDIT: Further research shows this product "Supplies PoE (15.4W) or Poe+ (30W) power". However as I posted in the next reply, I do have concerns that maybe it is too far from the doorstation.

 

 

 

[timelinex]

MY other question about the POE, would it of been better if I put i much closer to the camera? Right now it is in my media room which is far from the gate. If I put it right behind the door station, would there be less interference since there is power over a smaller run and possibly lead to a better connection? 

I know I could just try it out, but since all the junction's are now IDC spliced, I would have to redo alot to try this out. Plus, barely any cable is still sticking out of the ground by now, after needing to keep chopping cable off as I reterminated it for prior experiments. Thinking about it further, it would have been better to do that from the start, as it reduced the number of junctions in the line by one. On the other hand, it does get to 120f here and I'm not sure how well that switch would work in the summers, roasting inside a gate box.

[Matt Lowe]

do you have power at the junction outside? try putting a POE injector there and it may regenerate the signal.

 

[timelinex]

9 minutes ago, Matt Lowe said:

do you have power at the junction outside? try putting a POE injector there and it may regenerate the signal.

 

I do. It's inside the box that control's the gate. I'm just a little worried about summer time temperatures (up to 115 outside, who knows how hot inside).

[Matt Lowe]

how long is the run roughly?

 

[timelinex]

1 hour ago, Matt Lowe said:

how long is the run roughly?

 

These are worst case scenario estimates based on google earth......

5ft from router to POE. 115ft to junction outside garage. 170ft from junction to Gate box. 10ft from gate box to doorstation.

So that's basically right at 300ft TOTAL.

that is 295ft from the POE, which is within spec but near upper limit. If I would put the POE inside the gate box, it would only be 10ft, which is great. But again, worried about summer temp's.

[Matt Lowe]

I would get a nice POE switch at the one of the two junctions. I am betting that will help. Can get a fan or two on the enclosure to help keep temps down.