Camera Health Check

Camera Health Check (CHC) is an automated camera test feature that checks to ensure your cameras are online and functioning.

What does CHC do?

When enabled CHC will periodically run a network test on your camera to ensure it can be accessed
The test is very similar to the Network Test that's run when you first added your camera
If there's a test failure, you will be notified by mobile or email notification, depending on your preference
After a camera fails a test, the user will also be notified when it passes the next test
If a number of tests fail a final failure message will be sent and you won't receive any further notices

CHC runs a test of your camera approximately every 10 mins. It's important to note that the time of a CHC failure will most likely not indicate the exact time. Use your timeline to see when the recording actually stopped.

How to enable CHC

CHC is automatically enabled. If you wish to be notified when a test fails you can simply add CHC to your email notification list. By selecting this option a notification will be sent to your mobile app and to the email provided under the <Username> -> Settings -> Notifications.

Turning on/off mobile app notifications are controlled by the settings of your mobile device.

Enable/Disable CHC Notifications on the Website

Click on the two dots next to camera name

Click Edit

Click Notification Settings

Click on the Health tab, check to enable/uncheck to disable CHC Notifications

Click Save

Enable/Disable CHC Notifications on the Mobile App

Tap on the Settings/Cog icon

Tap on Notification

Tap on the Health tab, check to enable/uncheck to disable CHC Notifications

Failed test and notifications

When a CHC test fails, a notification will be sent by email or to your mobile app. The camera will then be assigned an "Alert" state to indicate there's a failed test.

The camera can be removed from this state by:

A successful CHC test (on the next scheduled test), or
A successful manual retest, which can be run by selecting Edit Camera -> Test Connection.

Once either of these two tests pass, the camera will return to its normal healthy state. Note: It can take a few minutes before it clears the alert.

A user will also be notified when a camera in failed state passes the next automated health check.

Types of notifications

<Camera Name> is Offline - Your camera is no longer functioning properly. It doesn't necessarily mean everything stopped working. Either the Live View stopped working and/or the events are not coming in. A list of possible reasons will be given in the notification.

<Camera Name> is Online - No action required here. We ran another test and the camera is back in working order.

<Camera Name> is Unstable - This notification is only for cameras that are in continuous record mode. We identified that the stream is unstable. This again could be several reasons and a list will be given in the notification.

Reasons

In every notification you'll get a list of "reasons" for the failure. Different reasons include:

Camera is not connected - The cloud connection is failing. Typically a power or internet issue

Continuous stream unstable/failed - The continuous stream is cutting out too often, possible bandwidth issue.

Camera is connected, but RTSP is inaccessible - camera configuration has been changed and RTSP path may also has been changed. If using Secure Tunnel Manager(STM), open standard needs to be enabled and an open standard user needs to be created in the camera.

HTTP port forwarding - HTTP port used is no longer open

RTSP port forwarding - RTSP port used is no longer open

Username/password - Credentials are no longer working

The camera has exceeded its RTSP bitrate limit. Please try a lower bitrate / Camera High Bitrate - stream's bitrate is too high. We stop the camera from streaming. Make sure to change your resolution, framerate, bitrate and select VBR to lower than our maximums.

Analysis Limit - You've reached the AI limit

Tip: Not all camera's behave the same when a max bitrate is set, you may need to limit the camera even lower than 1280 Kbps. The frame rate should also be kept at or below 15 (10 is recommended).

Camera Health Check History

In addition to what you see with each camera in the Timeline, you also get a history of all events for every device.

Here are the steps to access the Camera Health Check History:

Click on the History

You can filter by camera name or leave the dop-down blank to view all cameras' CHC history

In the Admin Portal(for Partners), you can view the Camera Health Check History from the Account Profile page.

This is a great way to monitor the health of any device and might give you clues to issues such as the internet connection and bandwidth.