Back around Jan/Feb 2021 I bought several Amcrest IP5M-T1179E cameras to replace older IP2M-844E 1080P Amcrest domes. After running the new cameras for several months and comparing them to similar cameras from another vendor I decided to buy a few more. I bought the new ones 1 or 2 at a time (ending up with 5 more) beginning in August 2021. I configured the new ones exactly the same as the old ones (usually 5-10 FPS with matching Iframes number) and installed them on existing POE cables that had been working without problems for several years.
I started with just one camera. After about 3 days it froze up. The port on the Cisco 48-port switch was still flashing - looked normal, but I could not access or reset the camera from Blue Iris V5 or from Amcrest Surveillance Pro. I had to reset it by unplugging it from the POE switch and plugging it back in. It came back up normally, but then froze again after 3 days.
Meanwhile, I had ordered two more of the cameras. After I installed them using the same process, they too both froze up after 3 days. Very strange.
All of the older Amcrest IP5M-T1179E cams as well as 8 other cams of different types were all chugging along normally.
I noticed that the new cams all had a newer firmware version than the old ones. I downloaded and installed the latest firmware (2020-12-30) from the Amcrest web site and reset the cameras to factory defaults. They came up normally. I then reloaded the configurations that I had saved before installing the new firmware. Three days later, all 4 of the new cameras were frozen up again.
To rule out the problem from any changes I had made to the configuration (I had been experimenting with VBR vs CBR bit rate), I left one of the cameras with factory default config. It, too, froze up.
All 5 of my older Amcrest IP5M-T1179E cameras are running firmware dated 2019-11-13 and have been running without a glitch since the days I installed them back around Jan/Feb 2021. Yesterday, I contacted Amcrest support and asked them to send me a copy of the older 2019-11-13 firmware so that I can try installing it on the new cameras to see if that fixes the problem. I hope to get that later today, but it is Saturday, so I may not hear back from Amcrest until Monday 8/30.
The fact that the cameras all freeze up like clockwork after about 3 days makes me suspect some type of hardware counter-overflow problem. I saw a problem like that back in 1998 when setting up about 50 IBM OS/2 servers- they ran fine for a few months, then all started freezing up in the same sequence in which they were installed. I got suspicious and calculated that they were crashing after exactly 65,536 (2^16) ticks of the hardware clock. We got around the problem by having the servers automatically reboot once a month.
I started with just one camera. After about 3 days it froze up. The port on the Cisco 48-port switch was still flashing - looked normal, but I could not access or reset the camera from Blue Iris V5 or from Amcrest Surveillance Pro. I had to reset it by unplugging it from the POE switch and plugging it back in. It came back up normally, but then froze again after 3 days.
Meanwhile, I had ordered two more of the cameras. After I installed them using the same process, they too both froze up after 3 days. Very strange.
All of the older Amcrest IP5M-T1179E cams as well as 8 other cams of different types were all chugging along normally.
I noticed that the new cams all had a newer firmware version than the old ones. I downloaded and installed the latest firmware (2020-12-30) from the Amcrest web site and reset the cameras to factory defaults. They came up normally. I then reloaded the configurations that I had saved before installing the new firmware. Three days later, all 4 of the new cameras were frozen up again.
To rule out the problem from any changes I had made to the configuration (I had been experimenting with VBR vs CBR bit rate), I left one of the cameras with factory default config. It, too, froze up.
All 5 of my older Amcrest IP5M-T1179E cameras are running firmware dated 2019-11-13 and have been running without a glitch since the days I installed them back around Jan/Feb 2021. Yesterday, I contacted Amcrest support and asked them to send me a copy of the older 2019-11-13 firmware so that I can try installing it on the new cameras to see if that fixes the problem. I hope to get that later today, but it is Saturday, so I may not hear back from Amcrest until Monday 8/30.
The fact that the cameras all freeze up like clockwork after about 3 days makes me suspect some type of hardware counter-overflow problem. I saw a problem like that back in 1998 when setting up about 50 IBM OS/2 servers- they ran fine for a few months, then all started freezing up in the same sequence in which they were installed. I got suspicious and calculated that they were crashing after exactly 65,536 (2^16) ticks of the hardware clock. We got around the problem by having the servers automatically reboot once a month.
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