Can someone help me troubleshoot a problem in my home security camera setup

[G+_Lance G]

Can someone help me troubleshoot a problem in my home security camera setup.

 

I use noip.com to view my cameras over the web using the tinycam app.

All cameras work the first time I open the app (over the web) for about 30 seconds (I can see the video change) then all my cameras time out. Once that happens, I am unable to view any cameras.

 

When I get home and use my internal wifi network, everything works 100%

I contacted noip and they showed no problems on my domain.

 

How do I isolate where the problem is.

I have been living with this problem for about a year lol.

 

Thanks

[G+_Marcin Wisniowski]

As far as I know noip.com is only a DNS provider, should there be an issue with noip.com your hostname would fail to resolve to an IP address and you would not be able to connect to your cameras. IMHO You'd be better off with a VPN connection to your home network. But, investigate your router/firewall port forwarding settings, firewall logs. Use ngrok.com to establish a temporary tunnel into your network and test the connection to cameras.

[G+_Marcin Wisniowski]

What kind of router/firewall do you have?

[G+_Ben Reese]

I'd second the VPN idea. It should be far more secure and may help with your connectivity issues.

 

OpenVPN is pretty scarry to setup manually, but if you've got Linux there's a fast and simple setup script on git hub: https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install/blob/master/README.md

 

I've run this on my Raspberry Pi in the past, but recently moved it to Debian running on a VirtualBox VM (also sounds complicated, but not really that difficult).

[G+_Ben Reese]

A few other thoughts....

Have you verified that your public IP doesn't change when you connect remotely? Thinking maybe your ISP is trying to block you or something by changing your IP.

 

Are you using the free or paid version of Tinycam? Looks like the free version is limited to 30 sec of one-way audio, so maybe their limit is affecting video too?

Have you tried other apps like IP Cam Viewer? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rcreations.ipcamviewerBasicI'd also be curious about what cameras you're using and how tinycam connects to them. If they're using RTSP, there's a chance VLC Player would be able to stream video just as a test.

[G+_Paul Miller]

It probably isn't the case but don't rule out interference from your ISP. When I attempted to use noip and port forwarding on a family member's home network I discovered that their ISP was preventing ANY ports from being opened. I finally had to set up an SSH reverse proxy to a VPS to get anything other than LAN access.

[G+_Jason Perry]

+1 Marcin Wisniowski? on the VPN. I think Ben Reese? is on to something with it could be tinycam, I doubt your ISP is trying that hard to discourage you from connecting to your network.

[G+_Ben Yanke]

Is your upload speed sufficient? Even a lot of fast Connections have minimal upload speed. My ISP only offers 10% upload speed of download, so I got the 100/10 plan just to get a usable upload speed (for VPNing home)?.

 

If your ISP has a similar scheme, and you have 5-10mbps down, you might have less than a Mbps up.

[G+_Lance G]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I have a netgear R6250. When I port check, all ports check ok.

I use tinycam Pro. I have cox cable and my upload speed is 5 Mbps.

I will research the vpn idea. never tried that.

Thanks again everyone.