Troubleshooting 101 - iCam & iCamSource Error Messages

[Stefan]

Excellent news!

[seanhsmith]

I'm not getting any error messages but I've discovered what may be a potential bug in either iCam or iCamSource. First, a little background information...

I set up the wifi network at my parents' house as well as my own. For convenience sake, both of these networks have the exact same wireless settings: Same SSID, same encryption type and key, same IP address range, etc.  This allows my dad to jump on the wifi network at our house with his iPhone without having to join the network as it already recognizes the network name and encryption settings. The same is true for when I visit their house with my own iPhone.

However, I've noticed that when I use iCam from their house, it never makes a connection. The "loading" animation just sits there and spins constantly and I never get the webcam images up on the screen. If I turn off wifi on my iPhone and try over 3G, it works fine. Turn wifi back on and it doesn't work again. This leads me to believe that either iCam or iCamSource thinks I'm on the same local network that the cameras are on and is looking on my parents' network for the cameras... I'm not sure if it's doing this based off of the SSID, the IP address range, or what it is doing but if this is the case, I think a better solution would be to have it do an "external IP address check" before attempting to connect. If the external IP addresses don't match, then it's safe to assume that it needs to connect over the internet instead of over the local network.

Can anybody else confirm this behavior? I have the latest iCam update as well as the latest iCamSource... I think. I will double check when I get home from work tonight.

Thanks.

[Stefan]

iCam and the iCamSource actually don't have any visibility into what the SSID is of the network it is connected to. It actually does look at the external IP address of the two devices (iPhone and computer running the iCamSource) and if they are the same it connects using the internal LAN IP. Otherwise it uses the external one.

If you are unable to connect at your parents' house then it most likely has to do with their network configuration. Is the WiFi router the only one on the network? Or is there more than one router? Do they cable or DSL? Some DSL modems do also act as routers, and when there is more than one router on a network performing DHCP, sharing a connection, it confuses the "zero-config" connection logic.

[seanhsmith]

Hi Stefan,

Thanks for the response. The only real difference is that my parents have Comcast cable while I have AT&T Uverse Internet with the type of gateway device you described. However, I have a Linksys WRT54GL in DMZ mode on it and that is also performing DHCP services. I also have my parents using a WRT54GL and both are running DD-WRT v24 (build 13604) firmware. Neither locations have any other sort of connectivity issue. Again, if the gateway device on my end was somehow the issue I'm not sure why it works over 3G. I'll have to try it again the next time I'm down there.

[Stefan]

If you have your router set to DMZ then that basically leaves the gateway to act as the only router on your network, so that makes sense.

It is odd that your parents is the network with only the one router, and yet when their network is involved you are unable to connect ... Are you running the latest version of the iCamSource (1.4.2.5 BETA) on your home computer? Is there any firewall setting that might be blocking UDP on your parents router that might not be present on your own?

If you want, let us know when you are at your parents house again and unable to connect so that we might look up your parents' IP address in the iCam Broker Server logs and hopefully diagnose the cause of the problem.

[seanhsmith]

Hi Stefan,

Wish I had checked back sooner to see your message... I was there again last Friday evening and attempted it again but was greeted with the same result. I let it sit there and spin the loading animation for awhile and eventually I got back the message "Unable to connect to one or more camera sources returned by the camera object broker" or something to that effect. I may actually be there again tonight around 8pm EST or so and will give it another try then. I can say for sure that their network is not "restrictive" at all and also has UPnP enabled so I'm not exactly sure what would be blocking it from their side. I will send you a PM with their DDNS name that I use to remotely connect so you will know what IP address the connection attempt (if it makes it through) is using and hopefully see if the issue can be diganosed.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that their router has also been reset in between connection attempts, so that should've eliminated the possibility that their router just "glitched" and needed to be rebooted.

Thanks-

Sean

[wdcgator]

I just bought ICam and downloaded ICam Support... As usual I can't get anything to work. Did exactly as program asked me to do.. I see my ugly face on my laptop but it won't come up on the IPhone... Ugh.

No sources Found
There are currently no running ICamSources associated with your existing login and password...

Help... I hate this..Thanks
Wally@Stuntplayers.com

[Stefan]

There are two potential causes for the No Sources Found error:

1) The login and password on the iCamSource and iCam do not match. (Please note that they are both case sensitive.)
2) The iCamSource on your computer is unable to communicate with the iCam Broker Server.

If you have made sure that your computer's firewall software is "allowing" the iCamSource to communicate with the Internet, then the next step is to go to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ from your computer and e-mail support@skjm.com what it says your computer's external IP address is so that we can further troubleshoot the problem.

[imezru]

I never found the iCamSourse or how to register it with my IP Address

[Jay]

Windows and Mac versions of iCamSource are available at http://skjm.com/icam/support.php

When you start iCamSource, it will automatically register your IP address.  You just need to select the Video and Audio source and enter the login and password you want to use.

[darrinaltman]

I have three computers with built-in cameras (one pc and two macs) set up and they all work fine on iCam.  I purchased a wifi camera (one of those recommended here) and I set it up on the windows machine.  I had two instances of iCam running on PC.  When I went into the app on my iPhone I could only see the wifi camera and the other three cameras including the built-in camera on PC gave me broker errors.  I turned off all cameras except for the two on the PC.  So I could see on PC the image from the built-in camera and the wifi camera, however on iPhone I still received error message for the built-in camera.  I removed the wifi camera and now all three are working again. 

Is there a limitation that doesn’t allow the combination of camera types?  Any info will be appreciated.

[Jay]

darrinaltman - No, there isn't any limitation on the types of cameras.  The setup you described should work fine.  Please email the external IP address of the PC to support@skjm.com.  To get the external IP address, go to http://whatismyip.com in your PC's web browser.  Please refer to this forum thread in your email.

[darrinaltman]

darrinaltman - No, there isn't any limitation on the types of cameras.  The setup you described should work fine.  Please email the external IP address of the PC to support@skjm.com.  To get the external IP address, go to http://whatismyip.com in your PC's web browser.  Please refer to this forum thread in your email.

I decided to dedicate a different computer to the wifi camera, one that is plugged into router and now I have all three cameras working fine (kind of: no audio from the Airlink 101 500W).  I will search and post in proper section if I cant find answer for that problem.  Thank you.

[Jay]

darrinaltman - Currently, the IP camera support in iCamSource is video-only (no audio).

[strongman08]

i have forward my port i have checked to see if it is open it is. i am running windows and when i try to connect to another wifi network on my itouch it keeps saying connection area even though i have done everything u guys have said to do im a so lost is to what the problem is i have great wifi conection so what do i do i payed 5 dollars for this app and it doesnt work