A camera that keeps dropping out.
Intermittent is harder than dead. A camera that disconnects and returns is nearly always one of five things, and they are worth checking in this order because the cheapest fixes are also the most likely.
Under-powered cameras behave exactly like this: fine until the infrared cuts in at dusk, then a reboot. A PoE switch that is within its budget on paper can still struggle with long cable runs, and a cheap injector under load is a classic cause. If the drops cluster around dusk or dawn, suspect power before anything else.
- Cable length and qualityEthernet gets unreliable past about 100 m, and a marginal run fails under load rather than all the time.
- Wi-FiA wireless camera at the edge of coverage will drop repeatedly. Check signal at the camera, not at the router.
- Connectors and waterAn outdoor joint that has taken water in is a favourite. Look at the physical connection.
Cameras have a limited number of simultaneous streams. A phone app, a manufacturer's cloud service, an NVR and your recording software can add up to more clients than the camera will serve, and it will drop one of them. Close the app and the other viewers and see if the drops stop.
- DHCP moved the cameraIf the camera's address changes, the stream breaks until it is found again. Give cameras static addresses or a DHCP reservation.
- Two devices, one addressAn address conflict produces exactly this symptom, intermittently.
Drop the camera to its sub stream or a lower frame rate. If the disconnections stop, the problem is bandwidth or the PC keeping up, not the camera. Switching an enhanced codec such as H.264+ back to plain H.264 also resolves a surprising number of cases.
Quick answers.
It only happens at night. Why?
Infrared illumination is the camera's biggest power draw, so it switches on at dusk and pushes a marginal supply over the edge. Almost always power.
Could the software be the cause?
It can be if the PC is saturated — too many high-resolution streams or too much recognition for the hardware. Try the sub stream on a few cameras and watch whether it settles.
Does VISEC reconnect by itself?
Yes, it keeps trying. Repeated reconnects in the log are a signal worth chasing rather than ignoring, because a gap in the recording is a gap in the evidence.
Try it on one camera.
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