I am trying to use a newly purchased iMac Pro running High Sierra (OS X 10.13.6) and iCamSource Pro doesn't seem to want to work. I first thought it might have been an issue accessing my webcam (Foscam FI8910W), but then I realized that it doesn't even work with the built-in camera on either the built-in or the external monitor. Neither does the "Start" button ever become enabled. Oddly, the icon in the menu bar also seems to be greyed out - although selecting items from its menu works fine. I'm running version 1.3.3.
Any suggestions? I'd really like to be using this fine app again, but going back to my old computer just isn't an option. The thing finally gave up the ghost.
Good afternoon good people of of iCam Pro support!
I've got an iCam Pro setup working rather well at my house in which the iMac in my office was set up to run iCam Source Pro for a couple of wireless IP cameras as well as its built-in iSight. Everything is working well, but I'd like to move that task over to a Mac mini that I have running in a closet that already serves 24/7 duties for other things.
As such, I shut down iCSP on my iMac, installed it on my closet server and set everything up. Things were generally working, but needed some tweaking. At some point during the exercise, I noticed that the "Connecting" message never went away after hitting the "Start" button. Now this is something with which I have some experience and it usually involves firewalls or something preventing the source from interacting with the outside world. This doesn't seem to be the case this time, however. The tip-off was that the video previews don't come up. No error message is ever returned and the connecting message never goes away... it just hangs out there, taunting me.
I did a bit of digging and found that the issue seems to be that iCam is throwing an exception when it tries to set up the capture session. I'll end this message with console logs which cover a pretty simple session that reproduces the issue. (i.e. launch the app, try to start the connection, stop the connection, quit the app.)
I've tried all the obvious: Rebooting the computer, rebooting the cameras, deleting the app (including its preference file) and re-installing it, verifying no firewalls are involved, etc. Nothing works. Now here's the kicker: The iMac still works... it's just the Mac Mini that manifests problem.
For me - as I expect is the case with most of your users - a key requirement in home surveillance is that the surveillance be as unobtrusive as possible. It is with this in mind that I offer the following question:
I am re-purposing an older iPhone running iOS 7.1.2 (the max version compatible with that model) as a bedroom camera because its presence can be made unremarkable and will therefore go unnoticed. Toward that end, I just now bought iCam Pro Source Mobile ($5 for a source app seems very reasonable to me - I don't get why people have complained about having to pay for it in the past) and have it running successfully in my iCam Pro video cluster.
The problem is that I cannot see a way to dim the screen. Having the login credentials and video preview always running screams "Hey! Look at me! Over here!" and rather defeats the purpose of having a mobile source app almost entirely, doesn't it? Nevermind the fact that it would light up the room at night when all other lights are out. Sleeping the phone or otherwise putting the app into the background kills its ability to stream video (as is to be expected given iOS' multitasking model.)
I was wondering if there were a "blank/dim screen" feature somewhere that I'm missing. It wouldn't need to be elaborate, just a "blank screen after 30 seconds of inactivity - wake with a tap"-sort of deal. Otherwise, it's not really all that useful an app and I'll probably just end up trashing it.
All right, I took delivery of a couple of FI8910W cameras yesterday and while I'm not thrilled that they're not HD (not your fault), they are now up and running successfully! Thanks for the help!
Point 2: I reported this to the Foscam guys and they came back with the following:
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We usually suggest users try Firefox to play the MJPEG stream, as Chrome sometimes could not run the script properly. To play it on chrome, you can try the html to see if it'd work for you. Refer attached files.
So unless this is an easy change that iCamSource Pro can make, I'm going to assume that we shouldn't expect a firmware fix from Foscam anytime soon as they believe that their stuff works as intended. Given that, are there ANY Foscam cameras (including non-HD ones) that we know work with iCSP?
So if I understand you correctly, to boil it down this camera won't work with iCam/iCam Pro until they issue some kind of firmware update that will fix the problem, correct?
If that is the case, that means I'll need to return these cameras and get a couple of others. Fortunately, they have a 30-day return policy, so that will hopefully not be that big a deal. Can you recommend other indoor Foscam cameras that you know work? I'd prefer HD, but as it seems that they're trending toward H.264 for their HD products, I don't know if there are any that do.
Thank you so much for your assistance and I look forward to hearing your recommendations.
One last follow-up: I spoke with the Foscam people today and while they were not in a position to offer support for software not their own, I got assurances from several people that the MJPEG stream their cameras provide conform to industry standards and that no special handling is necessary for software that supports MJPEG. Seems to me that that should be all we need to know to be confident that it can be made tow work with iCam/iCam Pro.
So I've dug into this more and found that Foscam added support for MJPEG streams to their HD cameras in a firmware update last year. According to this link on their site:
The setup is pretty straightforward. You tell the camera to set up a sub-stream as MJPEG and then hit the sub stream URL to get the stream. I did this and everything works as it should (i.e. return code of "0" and hitting the stream URL indicated in those instructions on my browser shows a live MJPEG stream as it should.
Unfortunately, iCamSource Pro still doesn't show me anything other than a field of gray. I've tried putting the camera name and password in the URL as well as the fields provided by iCamSource Pro for that purpose and nothing. The only kind of reaction I get is the following error message at the bottom of the window:
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Cannot find JPEG data. Your network IP camera may not be supported. Please click the "?" button to verify your camera's Camera URL.
As you might expect, the button doesn't help much. I tried SKJM's MJPEG test tool (at http://skjm.com/icam/mjpeg_test.php) and get nothing back but a whole series of 404s.
I'm kind of starting to hit my head against a wall now as I'm not sure what to try next. Does anybody have any advice as to what to try next? Help!
Today I received a pair of Foscam 19831P after having been assured they would work - only to find that as it's a H.264 setup, it's not officially supported. That said, Raisin's support entitled "Foscam HD Cameras" would seem to provide a solution to that problem... so, yay!
After having read through his/her post, I put in the configuration URL into my browser and received a "<result>0</result> snippet in return (after having gotten -1 and -2 responses to incorrectly formatted URLs or bad name/password combos, so I am going to interpret a "0" result as "success".
I then put in the access URL as described, but seem to be getting nowhere. The preview area shows nothing and the area at the bottom of the configuration dialog (this is on OS X, by the way) shows no error or information messages. I've tried this with the name and password in the fields specifically provided for that information as well as by leaving those blank (as you would expect would be the right way to go given that the name/pw are in the URL. No dice.
Is anybody able to get any of the Foscam HD cameras to work with iCam Pro - and if so, might you be able to tell me what parts of the secret sauce I might be missing?
I was wondering if there were any thoughts with regard to adding IFTTT support to iCam Pro. Having motion or sound trigger IFTTT recipes would be a pretty impressive feature - and definitely something that would set the app apart from the rest.
Please add me as a +1 for Apple Watch support in iCam Pro. Lifetime subscriber with a 4-camera setup here who would LOVE to be able to use this on my watch (as well as show it off to others.) Are you guys sharing an ETA as to when that functionality might be available?
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