Foscam R4S dropped off of Blue Iris after ip address change

B

bfollowell

Young grasshopper
Dec 11, 2015
83
24
Evansville, IN
I have a Foscam R4S in my garage. It's been out there for almost 3 years and I've never really had any issues with it. The video feed is recorded using Blue Iris. I was doing some work out there a couple of days ago and I had to turn off the circuit breaker that happened to feed that camera. When I was done, everything seemed to power up correctly and, as I was putting things away, I heard the Foscam announcement. Later, when I was looking in at my Blue Iris server, I noticed that the garage camera was showing no video feed. I pulled that camera up with the Foscam app and I could see the feed just fine from there. On a hunch, I checked the ip address, thinking that it may have been assigned a new address since it was down for a while. Sure enough, the camera had been assigned a new ip address. So, I went back in for what should have been an easy fix, changing the ip address in the camera settings. However, Blue Iris still doesn't see this camera and I have no idea why. As far as I know, nothing has changed except for the camera's ip address, which has been corrected in BI, and the camera itself works since I can see it in the Foscam app. I just can't get BI to pickup the video feed.

These Foscam cameras were really easy to setup, so I was expecting a very easy fix, not a headache.

Any ideas?
 
wittaj said:
I would try deleting the cam from BI and then add it back. Sometimes it gets wonky and that fixes it.
Click to expand...

I had been thinking I might try that tomorrow. Actually, I can remote in from work, so maybe I'll tinker with it over lunch. I'll reply back if that fixes it. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
I found a few minutes to log on and tinker, but no luck, or at least no good luck.

I deleted the old camera and created a new one using the new info. When I click on find/inspect, it never finds anything. It gets a timeout, so it's still dead in the water as far as BI is concerned. It works great from the Foscam app though.

Tomorrow or this weekend I'll reboot my network equipment and make certain there isn't some hiccup going on there. If that doesn't help things, I may do a factory restore on the R4S and run it through setup again. Once I get it going in the Foscam app, I'll run it through setup in BI again and see if it makes a difference.
 
Is the new IP address of the cam actually on your network? Or has it reverted to a default ip which might be on a different subnet?
 
Nope, it's just a normal ip address that is part of my network.

One strange thing I noticed is that, when I check the ip in the Foscam iOS app it gives me one address, but when I check with Windows Foscam VMS it shows another address. Both are able to view and control the camera perfectly, even though they show two different addresses. Neither address works with BI though. It's all very strange.
 
looney2ns said:
Did you scan a QR code to connect the Foscam App to the Camera?
If so, it most likely is using P2P and you would not be able to add it to BI.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that goes back about 2.5 years, so I don't really recall, but I may have. I don't think I did, but possibly. I just bought another R4S though for somewhere else inside, and I know I used the barcode to set it up and everything went well, and it's working well with BI. Comparing the settings between the two R4Ss, the new working one and the older, now, not-working one, everything appears to be setup about the same. I was really hoping to see something glaring and obvious that was different between the two, but no such luck. When I get some time this weekend, I'm going to try to do a factory reset on it and set it up from scratch again, as well as rebooting all of my network equipment, just to be safe. I'll post here how my luck goes.

Also, I see a lot of bad-mouthing about Foscam on the BI forums, but I've had really good luck with them, current issues aside. I really don't understand what all the bad press is about. I mean, I think I'm going to want a little better quality camera with a better night sensor when I start adding outdoor cameras, probably Dahuas with their Night Color 2.0 technology, but for a cheap indoor camera with decent video quality and resolution, I think these little Foscams are hard to beat.
 
Keep in mind that any camera called "full color" or "night color", etc. still require light. They are not magic and do not defy physics. Many people have come here after buying the Hikvision ColorVu series expressing their disappointment in the picture quality of the camera because they were expecting magic. If you do not have ambient light outside, you are better off with cameras that can see infrared.

The biggest issue with Foscam is they have had many vulnerabilities over the years due to the P2P and ease of use.

And many cameras can do ok in an indoor setting with IR bouncing off the walls. Outside is a different story.

When you get a better camera, you will see the difference!
 
  • Like
Reactions: looney2ns
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom