Applies to: Wisenet WAVE

Summary:

WAVE Servers can operate with the standard ONVIF profile S API that is commonly used in most cameras. If you're facing some issues with the camera and it's not a device from a natively integrated API list, here's the fastest way to troubleshoot it.

Step By Step Guide:

Install ONVIF Device Manager.

• Download and install the ONVIF Device Manager (ODM) on the same computer as your WAVE Server. If you are using an Ubuntu Linux machine then install the ONVIF Device Manager on a Windows PC on the same LAN as your ONVIF camera.

For Device Discovery Issues.

Your camera, if it adheres to the ONVIF standard, should be automatically discovered by WAVE if it is on the same LAN as your WAVE Server.

• • If WAVE does not discover your camera automatically:
    • Run the ONVIF Device Manager.
    • Enter the camera ONVIF-Admin credentials at the top-left corner of the ODM main dialog.
    • Add the camera, manually, to ODM.  (Figure 1)

Figure 1

• • If the device is still not detected by WAVE and you're 100% sure that the device is online and credentials are correct then one of the following issues most likely exists: 
    • Network Issue:  Multicast is disabled for your LAN
    • Device Issue:  Your device's firmware incorrectly processes ONVIF requests

• • If WAVE does not find your device even when using manual camera addition (e.g. entering RTSP or IP address of the device)
    • Try to find the camera using the ONVIF Device Manager. Click Add (Figure 1) at the bottom left corner of GUI and enter the IP address or domain name of your device, specifying TCP port as necessary, then click apply.
    • If you're sure that all the information has been entered correctly and you cannot find the device using the ONVIF Device Manager then one of the following exists:
      • Network Issue: Your camera device is unreachable on the current network (try to check its web-page and fix the connection if necessary).
      • Device Issue: Your device can't process a standard ONVIF request for manual discovery (device issue).

Streaming Issues.

• • If WAVE Desktop Client discovers the device but shows "No Signal":
    • Try to login to the device using the ONVIF Device Manager and click Live Video. If you can't reach the device, contact your system administrator. If you can't find this button, contact camera vendor tech support.
    • If you see "No signal" in the ODM, first, try to reboot the device, signal most likely will appear. If not, causes could be: RTSP port is closed, try to check the device and port forwarding configuration(LAN issue), device can't handle too many RTSP connections (try to turn off any additional streaming clients like VLC, web-pages, other VMS or Media Servers and reboot the device) or there's just a flaw in the firmware (device issue).
  • The camera should be able to stream H.264 with some certain resolution but it doesn't, streaming MJPEG instead in WAVE Software.
    • Go to ODM, login using device credentials and click Video streaming in the interface. Find "Encoder and resolution" drop-down list and check it. If you don't see the H.264 with the necessary (highest) resolution, it's a camera issue.
  • The camera should be able to provide a secondary low-resolution H.264 stream but you can't see it in the GUI for live view, the archiver or a heavy MJPEG stream.
    • In ODM click Profiles in the interface. You'll get a list of profiles. Try to check them and you'll see that there are some drop down buttons with information about different encoders configuration including frame rate, resolution and codec.
      • If you see there are only high-res Profile(s), it's most likely because the camera doesn't allow configuration of streaming profiles (device issue). If low-res stream has MJPEG codec, the reasons are most likely the same (device issue).

PTZ issues.

• • If you're sure that your device has PTZ capabilities but there's no PTZ icon in the WAVE interface:
    • Check if ODM has a point called "PTZ controls".  If not, it is most likely the device's issue.
  • If you're facing some issues with camera moves after dragging arrows or clicking zoom buttons in the WAVE interface:
    • Check ODM PTZ controls, continuous move section. There will be several arrow buttons and "+/-" zoom controls, click them to check if the camera moves.
  • PTZ presets issues.  If you see "capability to assign presets" in the camera context menu but they don't actually work:
    • In ODM, check PTZ controls --> absolute move. Just try to set different values for absolute move coordinates.

Advanced options issues.

• • If you see that camera doesn't change its state when you try to control it using the advanced settings tab in the WAVE interface, try to run the same commands using the corresponding ODM section.

Motion detection issues.

• • If using WAVE Client and you can't see available Motion Recording option in the Recording Schedule for the camera:
    • Check if motion detection is indeed configured on secondary stream. To do that, right-click an empty space at the scene, select Change Resolution and click Low.  Hover the mouse over the camera and if "Hi-Res" isn't replaced with "Low-Res", there are other issues that may need to be looked into. 
  • If there is a secondary stream but you still can't see Motion Mask appearing on the Motion tab of camera settings, there are likely some issues with the secondary stream. WAVE Media Server provides motion detection for cameras with secondary stream resolution (HxW) less than 720x576. WAVE Media Server tries to configure streams according to this requirement or use existing pre-configured profiles.
    • Using ODM, select the device, click Profiles and check every profile on the list. There will be the Video Encoder Configuration drop-down information box. Check this box for every profile and find their information about profile resolution. If there are profiles with matching resolutions but the server doesn't use them – it most likely happened because of some other issues. If there are no such profiles, it's very likely that the device didn't allow the profiles to be created – it's a non-standard behavior.