Hello,
This may not be a Sighthound related issue but I am hoping someone can help me understand the following.
This AM I saw that all of the IP cameras being managed by Sighthound were offline (not accessible by Sighthound). I tried various things to try and get Sighthound to connect to the cameras but nothing worked. Then I discovered that I had no *INTERNET* connectivity. After several hours my *INTERNET* connectivity came back and at the same time all of the IP cameras came back online and Sighthound was able to connect to them.
Let me be clear. I am not talking about remote access. I am just describing how it appears that the IP cameras lost their connection to the *WiFi* router when the router lost its *INTERNET* connectivity and as soon as the router regained *INTERNET* connectivity the cameras regained their *WiFi* connectivity. I see no relationship between these two at all.
Why would a router that has no connection to the Internet fail to allow connection to it ON THE LOCAL LAN by WiFi devices. Obviously no devices on the LAN would be able to access the Internet if the router has no *INTERNET* connectivity but that shouldn't prevent local devices from connecting to the router over WiFi.
Can anyone explain why this happened?
Thank you.
Why would loss of *Internet* connectivity prevent *WiFi* con
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4 posts
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Devin - Posts: 719
- Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2014 5:48 pm
Re: Why would loss of *Internet* connectivity prevent *WiFi*
Hi AlKoch,
You do not need to be connected to the internet if your cameras are all on the same network as the computer running Sighthound. We have a few customers who run Sighthound on offline machines and we have never heard of an issue like this. I'd recommend checking for firmware updates on your router incase you have encountered a bug.
Regards,
-Devin
You do not need to be connected to the internet if your cameras are all on the same network as the computer running Sighthound. We have a few customers who run Sighthound on offline machines and we have never heard of an issue like this. I'd recommend checking for firmware updates on your router incase you have encountered a bug.
Regards,
-Devin
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Semper Vaporo - Posts: 331
- Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:51 am
Re: Why would loss of *Internet* connectivity prevent *WiFi*
Two thoughts come to mind, not that either of them will help!
1. It could be that the cameras were trying to "phone home" and when the internet connection was lost, they were too busy trying to contact an internet site to respond to polling from SH. I don't know why any camera would do that except my paranoia suggests it is some sort of 'user tracking' feature of the cameras (benign or otherwise). Who knows what these IP devices do "behind our backs"?
2. I have a problem with another computer (not associated with SightHound) that sometimes exhibits a "LAN freeze" condition. It connects via CAT-5 cable (not Wifi) and the socket on the laptop PC and the plug on the cable are worn such that the plug sometimes falls out of the socket if I move 'just so' and I lose the LAN connection. When I realize it has fallen out, I plug it back in, but it can take 20 minutes, or more, for the computer to be able to access anything on the LAN, not even the router's setup page. Other programs can run, but they are slow to start and somewhat sluggish running. I usually don't have the patience to wait that long before I start poking around.
Running Task Manager at that time and selecting to "Show Processes from all users" on the 'Processes' tab, shows that "svchost.exe" by 'user name' - "Network Service" is consuming 30% to 40% of the total CPU time, sometimes more. This tells me why other programs are sluggish, but looking at the "Network" tab of Task Manager does not show that the network is busy at all... there is a bit of traffic (a few hundred bytes per second) in both directions, but not enough to claim that this process is tying up the LAN.
Rebooting the PC will cure the problem, but watching Task Manager shows that svchost/Network Service still eats up 35% of the CPU time for 3 to 5 minutes before the network icon in the Notification area of the Task Bar show I have Internet access, but I do get it faster that way than waiting for it to cure itself.
Being the brave (and sometimes foolish) individual I am, I have deliberately killed that instance of "svchost" to see what happens. (Yes, I have shot myself in the foot many times doing such naughty things, but I am willing [and able] to recover from most such situations.)
I usually have to right click on "svchost/Network Service" in the Process tab list of Task Manager and select "End Process"; and it comes right back; so I right click again and select "End Process Tree"; and it comes right back; so I again right click and select "End Process" again and then it will stay away for a few seconds and any programs that I have started that are waiting for internet access will suddenly come to life (e.g.: I may have started Internet Explorer and it has just hung waiting for a reply from the internet site.)
I figure this "svchost" instance has somehow tied up the LAN such that nothing else can happen, but after I get it stopped, then all is well. Sometimes it will sneak back in at 35% CPU usage and I have to go kill it again. It always does come back eventually, but most of the time it behaves and does not start consuming massive amounts of CPU time and appearing to tie up the LAN.
svchost is a major component of Windows and you will find many instances of it active on your computer at any time... you cannot delete the file or Winders is just flat broken. Kill the wrong instance of it and the mouse might cease to work or other things will break. So I don't recommend just randomly hacking away at what is running in Task Manager unless you are prepared to recover from whatever happens.
Anyway, in my investigation into what is happening, I have run across some notes on Windows "Network Location Awareness" (nla) and that seems to be a sort of "phone home" done by Windows to verify its own external IP address and it is being processed by svchost.
I do not understand how it ties up the LAN such that I cannot even access the router setup page, but I wonder if it might be associated with your problem of SH being unable to connect to a local IP cam after losing internet access. Maybe your cameras were fine, but your PC was "stuck" in this "Network Location Awareness" process because of the loss of connection and it just took that long for it to eventually work out what it was doing.
1. It could be that the cameras were trying to "phone home" and when the internet connection was lost, they were too busy trying to contact an internet site to respond to polling from SH. I don't know why any camera would do that except my paranoia suggests it is some sort of 'user tracking' feature of the cameras (benign or otherwise). Who knows what these IP devices do "behind our backs"?
2. I have a problem with another computer (not associated with SightHound) that sometimes exhibits a "LAN freeze" condition. It connects via CAT-5 cable (not Wifi) and the socket on the laptop PC and the plug on the cable are worn such that the plug sometimes falls out of the socket if I move 'just so' and I lose the LAN connection. When I realize it has fallen out, I plug it back in, but it can take 20 minutes, or more, for the computer to be able to access anything on the LAN, not even the router's setup page. Other programs can run, but they are slow to start and somewhat sluggish running. I usually don't have the patience to wait that long before I start poking around.
Running Task Manager at that time and selecting to "Show Processes from all users" on the 'Processes' tab, shows that "svchost.exe" by 'user name' - "Network Service" is consuming 30% to 40% of the total CPU time, sometimes more. This tells me why other programs are sluggish, but looking at the "Network" tab of Task Manager does not show that the network is busy at all... there is a bit of traffic (a few hundred bytes per second) in both directions, but not enough to claim that this process is tying up the LAN.
Rebooting the PC will cure the problem, but watching Task Manager shows that svchost/Network Service still eats up 35% of the CPU time for 3 to 5 minutes before the network icon in the Notification area of the Task Bar show I have Internet access, but I do get it faster that way than waiting for it to cure itself.
Being the brave (and sometimes foolish) individual I am, I have deliberately killed that instance of "svchost" to see what happens. (Yes, I have shot myself in the foot many times doing such naughty things, but I am willing [and able] to recover from most such situations.)
I usually have to right click on "svchost/Network Service" in the Process tab list of Task Manager and select "End Process"; and it comes right back; so I right click again and select "End Process Tree"; and it comes right back; so I again right click and select "End Process" again and then it will stay away for a few seconds and any programs that I have started that are waiting for internet access will suddenly come to life (e.g.: I may have started Internet Explorer and it has just hung waiting for a reply from the internet site.)
I figure this "svchost" instance has somehow tied up the LAN such that nothing else can happen, but after I get it stopped, then all is well. Sometimes it will sneak back in at 35% CPU usage and I have to go kill it again. It always does come back eventually, but most of the time it behaves and does not start consuming massive amounts of CPU time and appearing to tie up the LAN.
svchost is a major component of Windows and you will find many instances of it active on your computer at any time... you cannot delete the file or Winders is just flat broken. Kill the wrong instance of it and the mouse might cease to work or other things will break. So I don't recommend just randomly hacking away at what is running in Task Manager unless you are prepared to recover from whatever happens.
Anyway, in my investigation into what is happening, I have run across some notes on Windows "Network Location Awareness" (nla) and that seems to be a sort of "phone home" done by Windows to verify its own external IP address and it is being processed by svchost.
I do not understand how it ties up the LAN such that I cannot even access the router setup page, but I wonder if it might be associated with your problem of SH being unable to connect to a local IP cam after losing internet access. Maybe your cameras were fine, but your PC was "stuck" in this "Network Location Awareness" process because of the loss of connection and it just took that long for it to eventually work out what it was doing.
Semper Vaporo,
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AlKoch - Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:14 pm
Re: Why would loss of *Internet* connectivity prevent *WiFi*
Hi Semper,
Thanks for the detailed notes on the problems you have had. I wonder about your 1st idea - I'm not so sure you are being paranoid. It is becoming quite common for products to phone home. It's one thing if a piece of software is checking to see if an update is available and something else if it is sending info out!
If I get a chance I will run Wireshark and see if these cameras and sending any info out of the LAN. I'll certainly let you know if I can make time to test for that.
Thanks for the detailed notes on the problems you have had. I wonder about your 1st idea - I'm not so sure you are being paranoid. It is becoming quite common for products to phone home. It's one thing if a piece of software is checking to see if an update is available and something else if it is sending info out!
If I get a chance I will run Wireshark and see if these cameras and sending any info out of the LAN. I'll certainly let you know if I can make time to test for that.