Foscam camera randomly rebooting

[ahwman]

I installed Sighthound Video yesterday and so far my camera (Foscam) has randomly rebooted twice now which it has never done in the years it has been running (short of a power failure). This is a huge issue being that after it reboots, it no longer is in focus with the intended field of view - rendering it useless until I re-aim the camera...

Any ideas?

[ryan]

Hi Ahwman,

We have one Foscam model, the Fl8916W, that reboots periodically (between once a day and once a week) when it has been continuously serving a video stream whether to Sighthound Video or another application. This camera also often reboots itself when trying to use the PTZ in it's own configuration page as well. Unfortunately these are bugs in the camera itself, there isn't anything we can do on our side. Hopefully Foscam will release a new firmware version that fixes these issues at some point in the future.

[ahwman]

Thanks for the confirmation. I notice that if I run the camera continuously, I hear some strange sounds emanating from the camera almost like creaking and cracking and then out of nowhere a random reboot.

Such a shame they make the general public unpaid beta testers for their products...

[ryan]

The noises are indeed jarring - it has definitely scared me at night in the office a couple times when it reboots and the PTZ starts swiveling around on its own.

[ahwman]

Too funny. Interestingly, I hear these noises well before it even reboots...

[303]

ahwman

I recently cleared all foscam garbage out of my house and replaced with y-cam or equivalent.

the cameras are reliable, the picture is spectacular, and the quality is what you expect. They don't randomly reboot, the UI is clean and sensible, etc.

i know $300-400 sounds high compared to Foscam's $150, but i assure you that $250 is worth your time in the frustration you've put into dealing with the crap Foscam makes.

Just a recommendation...