Great Program - and a note about webcam drivers...

[a042349]

Hi,

First of all I would like to heavily praise your iCam program. It is terrific being able to see/control 4 webcams from one app so seamlessly. Having sound available on them is a great added feature. I had tried all the other iPhone personal webcam apps and yours was clearly the best.

Looking forward to any/all new features as your product grows and matures.

I would like to also point out how important having the latest webcam drivers really is...

I have 4 webcams setup on three different PC's - all WinXP SP3. One PC has a Logitech and also a Lnksys IP camera. It worked flawlessly with both cams. Two other PC's had Microsoft Lifecams and they worked horribly. The icamsourse would freeze, fail to start, stop for no reason, etc. If I could get it to connect to them as soon as any movement was transmitted they would freeze up. I tried everything to fx these two. Turned off anti-virus, turned off the sound n camsource, unloaded any unneeded apps, even tred setting the CPU priority for icamsource to high. Nothing worked. I scoured your forums looking for "Lifecam" and "freezing" and any/all related troubleshooting - except the one big fix!

I remembered how happy I was that the Lifecams didn't need the drivers installed. I plugged them in, Windows detected both the video and audio interfaces, and said "Your new hardware is ready to use".

Well it wasn't. That was the reason for all my problems. I went back and installed the drivers for the two Lifecams and life is now grand. All four cameras work beautifully, as does the connection to them from my iPhone. So a word to the wise, and I'm a former Windows support person, make sure your drivers are properly installed and up to date. I love when I don't have to install drivers because you often get a bunch of crap from the vendor (especially Microsoft) you don't want with them. This was my reason for not installing the drivers. So yeah, I got some "junk" with the drivers, but I also got four well running webcams. The Logitech install asks if you want the drivers and their webcam apps or just the drivers. In typical MS fashion they just give you everything with no choice. I'll have to dig into the CD to find just the driver install for any future installs.

Anyway, great job on the app, keep up the good programming!

-Joel

[Stefan]

Thanks for the excellent post and feedback.

[a042349]

One of the best parts of your program is the very fast and thorough support you provide...makes a HUGE difference in convincing folks to buy I think. I've already recommended your app to many other friends...

In that "great support vein" (you knew there was a catch didn't you?) I'm having trouble with the beta iCamWeb program. I've tried from three different Win XP (SP3) PC's all with the latest Java (version 6, update 15) using both IE7 and Firefox (3.1 and 3.5) and have had no luck at all. It says it found four sources (I do have 4 cams running) but I never get the Java app security prompt, and then the web page eventually throws up four errors about not being able to connect. It feels like a Java and/or related security issue, but I can't seem to figure it out. Any idea?

Thanks, Joel

Java console messages:

Java Plug-in 1.6.0_15
Using JRE version 1.6.0_15-b03 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
User home directory = C:\Documents and Settings\Joel

----------------------------------------------------
c:   clear console window
f:   finalize objects on finalization queue
g:   garbage collect
h:   display this help message
l:   dump classloader list
m:   print memory usage
o:   trigger logging
q:   hide console
r:   reload policy configuration
s:   dump system and deployment properties
t:   dump thread list
v:   dump thread stack
x:   clear classloader cache
0-5: set trace level to <n>
----------------------------------------------------

Reading certificates from 3134 http://skjm.com/icam/web/jar/iCamApplet.jar | C:\Documents and Settings\Joel\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache\6.0\14\69f0e04e-7d768914.idx
Loaded image: http://skjm.com/icam/web/img/icam_icon.png

Then I get  "Source Connection Error - One or more of the icam sources returned by the broker server could not be connected to"   four times...

[Stefan]

If you are receiving the Source Connection Error then the Java Applet is running with the correct permissions ... It just isn't able to connect to your iCamSources.

Are you trying this from a different network than the iCamSources are running on? If so, then you are most likely experiencing "both networks are using a complex port translation technique" issue, similar to Reason #1 in this post - http://skjm.com/forum/index.php?topic=403.0

If you are attempting to connect from the same local network, then it may be a software firewall issue on the computer(s) running the iCamSource.

[a042349]

Nope, same network. I'll try fiddling with the firewall. Neither are running any 3rd party firewalls, just native MS stuff.

Thanks, I'll let you know...

[a042349]

Bingo you nailed it!

Funny thing is that the firewall was running on only one of the three PC's. On one it was turned off in the GUI, on the other the service was disabled (a netbook I tweaked for max performance) but as soon as I disabled the third one all started working fine.

Thanks again for the great and fast support, and damn cool app.

-Joel

[Stefan]

Thanks, and I'm glad that things are now working well for you.