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Hello everyone,
We use digital watchdog camera system as our security camera system for for server and client. Our cameras are a mix of Lorex, digital watchdog and branded cameras. Each camera has its own static ip but they are all set up with the same configuration otherwise. we have many cameras, mainly ones that cover our production areas ( that are important cameras and should never go down) randomly go down for anywhere from 10-15 seconds which leave an empty gap in recordings, and then a network issue event gets logged for cameras that experience this with description “Write to log” and " reason: RTP Error in primary and secondary streams. Or connection to camera unexpectedly closed."

I did research and tried some trouble shooting steps, but I was wondering if anyone experienced this and if so what their solution to this problem was?

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Given they are different camera manufacturers, even though you stated they use the same settings, are they set with the same codec options? Are you using any kind of QOS on the cameras or on the switches they’re connected to? Are they all randomly going down at the same time or diff times? I’ve seen “video loss” for moments or seconds on mine but tweaking the codecs to more efficient network options and changing them from CBR to VBR were the major factors involved in remedying that.

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So unfortunately, I just took over this system recently. All I know is all these cameras are plugged into different switches and alot of the switches arent configured properly sort of "plug and play: kind of set up. But the cameras that do briefly go out for a few seconds all do it athe same time sometimes some of the groups of cameras go down and its at all different times of the day.

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I would start by investigating what is common between the affected cameras, and by verifying the network isn’t dropping.

are they on the same switch?
are they POE and losing power?
do they loose IP connection if you ping them via a monitoring tool (or simply cmd prompt)
Are they on wifi?

Start basic, ignoring the fact that they are cameras and look for any issues that would disrupt the connection. Once you verify the network layer then move back to the NVR \ Cameras.

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Something you’ll want to look into is how your cameras are connected/interconnected. Switches daisy-chained into other switches all ultimately traversing a single 100Mbps connection for instance could saturate the link and cause connectivity issues.

With many cameras at higher resolutions you could also be looking at insufficient switching capacity or backplane bandwidth someplace in the mix…or a switch that’s beginning to fail.

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He he he, funny, Lorex with DW… but both VMS’s are based on NXwitness, so there should be very little ‘compatibility’ issues.
Switches daisy chained, only adds a second of delay to live view for each switch, so not a huge issue. While backplane etc is a very important consideration

10-15 is a huge gap - can it be to do with IR switching? IR increases power usage as example - 15w to 17w & many POE switches have troubles accommodating the additional power draw.

As Molan stated, start checking connection issues first. Our test’s often start with just a constant ping, with a larger packet (ping -n -l) or a Wireshark report.
10-15 points to network issues over camera issues

DW cameras are made by Hanwha, Lorex are from Dahua, unsure what you mean by ‘branded cameras’. - if the Hanwha are dropping out, I would definitely be focused on the network

If any of the cameras can take SD cards, the software allows for a redundancy, data is retrieved to rebuild the moments of disconnection - perhaps you should be focused on that solution?

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Everything everyone has mentioned so far can be issues. Other possible issues are maybe the DW NVR software needs an update to resolve a known bug. If it’s the same brand and models of cameras going out, they may need a firmware update to also resolve a known issue.

Is the DW server a custom built or COTS system? Or is it a DW branded server sourced from DW?

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  1. Confirm the switches are on the firmware update and are not logging errors.
  2. Put the video devices on their own VLAN and as @DarkBrewer said, check for QoS (Quality of Service). They should be set up with the best QoS to avoid data loss.
  3. Confirm the cameras are on the latest firewall update.
  4. As @molan said, if these are POE (Power Over Ethernet), make sure they are configured correctly. Again, check if the switch or camera are logging errors.