I am experiencing strangeness with the scheduler. I have 7 cameras setup and being monitored with Netcam. I have a schedule setup for motion detection on each, however the schedule is slightly different for each. Every now and then, the scheduler will either not trigger motion detection to turn off, may not turn it on when it was scheduled to, or it will turn on motion detection for a camera that is scheduled to be off at those times. This seems to happen at random. Maybe every 1.5 - 2 weeks.
I run Netcam as a service on Win10. When this behavior occurs, I stop/restart the service and things seem to work again for a while.
Hi Troy,
One of those “fun” problems to investigate
I see if I can setup this. However, how do you check this? When it goes wrong it stays in the wrong state until you restart?
Do you have some other software running that for some reason can change the clock of the computer?
If you run NCS X (the blue icon) instead is it the same problem?
-Henrik
I notice the scheduler strangeness from two different aspects. One, I can see in the Netcam client that motion detection is on for a camera that has it scheduled to be off, or vice-versa, depending on the behavior. Two, I have triggers setup on these cameras to capture time-lapse video during motion events and these cameras are capturing the time-lapse video during times when the motion detection is scheduled to be off.
When it does go wrong, it usually stays wrong until I manually stop/start the motion detection or stop/start the Netcam service.
I do not believe I have anything else running that changes the clock. I am pretty meticulous in knowing what is running on my system, since I am an IT professional.
I almost never run the NCS X executable, since I mainly run this as a service, so that it survives logoff’s and other users logging into the system. I only generally run NCS X when I want to modify camera configurations, since I have observed camera configurations don’t seem to stay persistent when I change them using the client. So unfortunately, I can’t speak to whether this behavior is exhibited with NCS X.
Hi,
Thanks for additional info. We have not had this before, but it’s always a first. I will see if I can recreate this.
Can you post a picture of a schedule for a camera that have this problem.
-Henrik
Attached below is a screenshot of the schedule for the offending camera I had last night. As you can see, motion detection is set to be off overnight. However, when I reviewed this morning (at 7:45 am), I discovered motion detection was on for this camera and had been on all night. I have Netcam configured to time-lapse video during motion events and I discovered it recorded that time-lapse video many times overnight on this camera.
One other piece of information to add for this most recent scenario…I have discovered that my Win10 system auto-rebooted last night for the Windows Update installations. However, upon reboot, based on this schedule, I would have expected it to start our being turned off.
@Henrik - Hi. Was wondering if this concern ever had any progress? I had actually forgot I posted this and went searching again for the behaviors I have been seeing and funny, I came across my own post. I am seeing many more instances of this scenario where I have a schedule for motion to be on, but when I look at the camera in any of the clients (Web, Mobile, Desktop) I find that camera does NOT have motion turned on. I have 7 different cameras setup in Netcam with mostly the same schedules, but I often find one of them did not turn on motion per the schedule. The issue appears with intermittently with a random camera. I would like to get this solved, but don’t know where to go further.
Most users use the scheduler, but I have not heard about this from someone else. It seems that something is interfering with the scheduler. NCS is using port 8100, 8120 and 8124. Make sure that nothing else is using these ports also on times when motion should start. I will setup and test.
-Henrik
Just to confirm what your saying…I believe your saying the scheduler runs as a separate process and it calls on NCS to enable/disable motion based on the schedule? I would assume then it uses the ports you listed within the local machine. Otherwise, I am confused why the ports would matter. Surely if another client within my network has a connection to NCS as well, for instance streaming a video feed on port 8100, you aren’t saying that could be a conflict? Otherwise, the ports should all be available.
Is there any race condition possible if the CPU is rather busy when the scheduler is activating motion on 7 separate cameras?
Hi,
The conflict is if another program also use port 8100, 8120 or 8124. NCS web client or win client connect to NCS server on these ports and that is not a conflict.
7 cameras is not much, but if the cpu load on the computer is up to 100% there might of cause be some problems. Overloading a system is never good. Test by either disable cameras for a lower cpu load and see how it goes. If all cameras must be on an alternative is to lower the resolution or max frame rate from some cameras to lower cpu usage for test.
-Henrik
I also tested by lowering the max frame rates on all cameras and lowered video compression rates to help cpu performance. I have indeed noticed a little better cpu load. However, regardless of these changes, I am still seeing some cameras not have motion detection enabled on schedule.
For a few days, it was always one specific camera. I changed its schedule a bit, then changed it back. It’s schedule started working, but then today a different camera did not enable motion detection on schedule.
If there any kind of logging I can review to discover any root causes? I am getting to the point that I am wondering if I can rely on the scheduler and need to review another option.
Enabled that yesterday. Not seeing any logs written to the Netcam install directory. Also don’t see anything in my Temp directory that looks logical to be from Netcam. Where are the logs written to?
