Connection Timed Out Message

Graueradler

Graueradler

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Apr 11, 2005
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Russellville, AR
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Graueradler
On my airport cameras, I frequently get the "Connection has timed out" message when trying to view over the internet. Down powering the DVR and the router and then plugging them back in cures it for a few hours to a few days. I havn' t experimented yet with down powering one or the other. The cameras are still working and viewable on the hard wired monitor at the airport. The computer that is using that router for internet access still has access. The guy that set up the system doesn't have an answer Any ideas?.

We are in that condition right now so I just called and told the attendant to try down powering the DVR only to see what that will do.
 
Are you using a static IP address? If so, skip the rest of this reply and start looking at the modem and router to see if one or the other has a problem.

If you're using a dynamic IP, I'm assuming you're using some sort of a dynamic DNS service. Is the dDNS application running all the time on the video server (or alternatively, is the router set up properly to use it)? How often is it set to refresh / update? Is it the latest version available? Is the firewall open to allow that application to phone home?

-Rich
 
Just to clarify about the firewall, a dDNS application that only seems to work when the computer is rebooted may be able to connect at that time because it starts before the firewall, which typically is slower to start up. But once the firewall is running, it might be blocking the dDNS app from updating.

Or maybe not. But it's something to check.

-Rich
 
I understand it to be a static IP. Here is the URL. (No password required - just click on "Submit"). It is now back up. It stays up for an extended period (several hours to a few days) after resetting. It came back up after just restarting the DVR this time. Next time it goes off, we will try just resetting the router.

I may not be able to answer your questions intelligently (or even understand them). I am only marginally computer literate. Have built a couple by following direction in the material that came with a mother board but don't really know that much about them. The guy that set the system up said something about maybe a cache was getting full
 
Graueradler said:
I understand it to be a static IP. Here is the URL. (No password required - just click on "Submit"). It is now back up. It stays up for an extended period (several hours to a few days) after resetting. It came back up after just restarting the DVR this time. Next time it goes off, we will try just resetting the router.

I may not be able to answer your questions intelligently (or even understand them). I am only marginally computer literate. Have built a couple by following direction in the material that came with a mother board but don't really know that much about them. The guy that set the system up said something about maybe a cache was getting full
Click to expand...

You really have to try doing some diagnostics when it's not working. It's hard to troubleshoot something when it's working properly. There are many possibilities.

Because when the video goes down, the LAN computers still have Internet and the local monitors work, I'd start by looking at port forwarding. Different routers handle port forwarding a little differently, but it all gets down to sending particular requests to the machine that handles those kinds of requests.

Some routers handle port forwarding by assigning the port to a particular machine name, which it identifies by its MAC address. Others assign it to a particular IP address. Others offer a choice.

If the router is set to forward to an IP address, then ideally the DVR's IP should be set statically to an address outside the router's DHCP range. In my experience, this is the most dependable way to do it. Then set port forwarding in the router to point to the DVR's IP. Make sure the subnet (usually 255.255.255.0) and the gateway / DNS addresses (usually the router's local IP address in a setup like this) are correct.

Some DVR's don't allow the IP to be set statically, however, in which case you may be stuck with DHCP.

Some routers offer to set a machine's IP to the same address for you by "reserving" the IP to the particular machine. I have not found this to be particularly dependable on consumer-grade routers, especially if the IP falls within the DHCP range (which is the only way that some routers will do this). But if the DVR won't allow a static IP to be set, then using IP reservation may be the best you can do.

One thing you may want to do the next time it fails is to try to access it from the LAN computer by using the DVR's IP address and whatever the assigned port is. For example, if it's using port 8081 and the machine's IP is 192.168.2.102, you would enter:

http://192.168.2.102:8081

in a Web browser, and see if you can view the cameras. If you can, then the network card in the DVR (along with its internal software) are working properly, and you know the problem is somewhere in the router.

-Rich
 
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