Foscam FI8910W Cameras No Longer Work

plfinch

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On October 6th, all 4 of my Foscam FI8910W cameras stopped working. On power-up they work for a minute or two then stop responding. They are ethernet-connected. Once they go wonky they even stop responding to ping requests. They are behind a firewall and not Internet accessible so doubt they have not been hacked, and I see no Internet traffic from them. I have a dozen other cameras, some Foscam, most not, that are all working fine.

Just putting this out here in case anyone else notices the same. These cameras are pretty old and the Amazon truck is on its way with modern replacements.

Peter
 

plfinch

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Not a power supply issue. I keep them in stock and first thing I tried was to swap the power supply. But then I noticed it was ALL 4 of my FI8910W cameras gone south at about the same time on the same date. Almost like they are doing a phone home to something that is no longer responding so they lock up.
 

andrewober

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Not a power supply issue. I keep them in stock and first thing I tried was to swap the power supply. But then I noticed it was ALL 4 of my FI8910W cameras gone south at about the same time on the same date. Almost like they are doing a phone home to something that is no longer responding so they lock up.
Hey there. I installed a bunch of FI8910W for a business years ago. Just spent the past couple days getting them back up and recording with BlueIris software. Turned in an invoice to the company, and now this afternoon, all of them show no signal. The two newer models (21w? i think?) work fine.

I came across your thread post here, and was wondering if you found a solution. I feel your post is extremely likely to be the same that happened to me. All cameras went down at roughly the same time, and I know it isn't a power supply issue. I've replaced those many times before, and some of these have brand new ones.

I do see that the cameras are getting a local IP from the router, however, the web interface port 80 shows as closed.

The cameras DO work when unplugged from power and replugged in. The cameras do the whole rotation thing, and video stream does appear in BlueIris... for maybe 1-5 minutes, before port 80 is then again closed. Wondering if it was given a firmware update that shuts it down, or maybe it's possible to block something like *.foscam.com in the firewall to prevent it from shutting down?

Anyway. Just looking for input, in the event you managed to solve the problem. The obvious answer is to throw these stupid things away and upgrade to POE equipment, but not expecting the company to fork over that kind of dough.

Have a good day, if you see this :)
 

TonyR

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I believe the default HTTP port for that cam is 88, not 80...did you try that?

BTW, have you recently updated Blue Iris or Windows?
 

plfinch

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After hard resetting them did not fix the issue, I took them all to electronics recycling. I replaced them with TP-Link Tapo 2K cameras which are working fine and also with Blue Iris.

Peter
 

tangent

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I came across your thread post here, and was wondering if you found a solution. I feel your post is extremely likely to be the same that happened to me. All cameras went down at roughly the same time, and I know it isn't a power supply issue. I've replaced those many times before, and some of these have brand new ones.
Another possible explanation is the cameras got hacked and are now part of some botnet. If this were the case there's a chance you could reflash the firmware via tftp. If this happened, and you don't fix whatever exposed them to the internet, it will happen again.
 

andrewober

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So I guess that's "no" to my questions in post #5. :idk:
That was the original poster from a year ago.

The 8910w cameras default port is 80. The newer Foscams I’ve used are port 88.

Using Fing app on iPhone shows that each cam is still getting an IP Address from the router, but have zero open ports.
 

andrewober

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Another possible explanation is the cameras got hacked and are now part of some botnet. If this were the case there's a chance you could reflash the firmware via tftp. If this happened, and you don't fix whatever exposed them to the internet, it will happen again.
It’s entirely possible, I’ve got them disconnected for now, and told the company that these are long outdated and a potential liability. But here we are.

They were behind a firewall, no port forwarding done to the outside world (other than blueiris port), but being these are like 13 years old, I can see that being a possibility.
 

andrewober

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@andrewober ,
But.....the other question was "... have you recently updated Blue Iris or Windows?" As on Oct. 6th?
I’ve not done any updates to BI or windows, but have determined today that the cameras are only locking up (no signal, no response from pings, closed port 80) when blueiris is running.

If BI is closed, the cams work fine from the web interface.

I was on BI 5.8.0.1 this morning. Tried downgrading yo 5.7.9.12 and same issue occurs. Windows 11.

Tried turning the camera from 640x480 to 320x240 in the Foscam web interface. Still occurred.

Back in the day, these things ran on blueiris 3 or 4. I may try going back to it to see if it fixed the issue . Which will suck, as the web ui is terribly outdated.
 

fenderman

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I’ve not done any updates to BI or windows, but have determined today that the cameras are only locking up (no signal, no response from pings, closed port 80) when blueiris is running.

If BI is closed, the cams work fine from the web interface.

I was on BI 5.8.0.1 this morning. Tried downgrading yo 5.7.9.12 and same issue occurs. Windows 11.

Tried turning the camera from 640x480 to 320x240 in the Foscam web interface. Still occurred.

Back in the day, these things ran on blueiris 3 or 4. I may try going back to it to see if it fixed the issue . Which will suck, as the web ui is terribly outdated.
Yes go back to BI 3..or 2 or 1 and make sure you port forward...cant think of ANY possible alternative.... :rolleyes:
 
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