Help - can't see Axis webcam remotely

edwarde2Sun 13/01/08 11:46

I've got an Axis 206 network camera which I use to monitor the local river near my house from my work computer in times of flooding risk, like now. Axis cameras have their own built-in web server software so they don't need to run via your PC.

It used to work fine - I just put my home IP address into my browser at work, entered my username and password and there was the live view from home. However, now when I try I get the error message "can't connect to server". My mum has just confirmed this is still happening when she tested it for me from her house.

I certainly haven't changed any IP settings here at home - I wouldn't know how to even if I wanted to! The only change I've noticed is that I used to enter 192.168.1.4 in my browser at home to view the live image and change user privileges etc, but that didn't work this morning. After experimentation, I discovered that 192.168.1.3 worked instead, even though the camera is still plugged into port 4 on my router.

Can anyone help? I'm going to work in London all day tomorrow and I really need to be able to see what the river's doing at home...

cephidSun 13/01/08 12:13

Most internet users have dynamic ip addresses, that is it changes with time. This can cause a problem since if you try to connect to your PC from another place, if your IP address has changed, then you will no longer be able to communicate with your PC.

If a permanent connection to your PC has to be made, either the IP address of your PC has to stay the same (is static) - this is not generally offered by an ISP and, where it is, it costs more or there has to be a way of an external provider monitoring any changes in your dynamic address so that there is always communication to your PC.

In the blurb from here:http://www.omegacubed.net/axis/axis_206/axis_206.html

it says:

"The Axis 206 is easy to set up and use. It comes with the free Axis Internet Dynamic DNS Service"

The DNS service is the part which tracks your IP address, so if it changes, the system will work out where the communication has to go from the ip address you typed in (the address you type in does not change, but the ip address of your PC might, so there has to be a way of mapping the address you type in to where the messages should be sent).

I see that the axis website http://www.axis.com/ is down. I guess the DNS server is down too, so there is no path to your camera at the moment.

The Axis website says that it will be up and running tomorrow. If this is the problem, hopefully your camera will be up and running when the website comes up. Maybe you should check with Axis whether there is any way to get round this.

edwarde2Sun 13/01/08 12:21

Thanks very much for that suggestion, but unfortunately I don't think it's the solution because I have a fixed IP address (Waitrose, my broadband provider, offers this for free), and also when I tested the camera a few weeks ago the same problem happened. I didn't look at the Axis site at the time so I don't know for sure it was definitely up and running, but it would seem an unlikely coincidence that it was down then as well.

So bloody annoying when it used to just work every time with no problems :-(