Cannot keep IP camera on line

PaulD

Active Member
I picked up a new Panasonic IP camera (BL-C10) to play around with to learn more about using an IP camera in my HA setup. Not a high end unit but it met my near term needs. I can get it set up and on line for viewing but if I navigate away from it for a short period, it seems to lose it connectivity to the network. I can cycle the power and do setup again but the cycle repeats when I stop viewing it and it drops off line. I am assuming that the camera should be live at all times and maintain its assigned static IP address at all times so I can view it on demand. Is that a bad assumption? I am now thinking that there is something wrong with the unit to cause this behavior but I don't have another IP camera to compare it to. Anyone familiar with this Panasonic IP camera? Am I expecting it to do something it is not designed to do? If not, any way I can test it to verify proper operation?
PS...I have had this for more than a year (cannot find sales receipt) and am just now using it so warentee replacement is not in the cards.
 
I picked up a new Panasonic IP camera (BL-C10) to play around with to learn more about using an IP camera in my HA setup. Not a high end unit but it met my near term needs. I can get it set up and on line for viewing but if I navigate away from it for a short period, it seems to lose it connectivity to the network. I can cycle the power and do setup again but the cycle repeats when I stop viewing it and it drops off line. I am assuming that the camera should be live at all times and maintain its assigned static IP address at all times so I can view it on demand. Is that a bad assumption? I am now thinking that there is something wrong with the unit to cause this behavior but I don't have another IP camera to compare it to. Anyone familiar with this Panasonic IP camera? Am I expecting it to do something it is not designed to do? If not, any way I can test it to verify proper operation?
PS...I have had this for more than a year (cannot find sales receipt) and am just now using it so warentee replacement is not in the cards.
I had similar problems as well. Returned them and went with Linksys.
 
Can you try this with a cross over cable directly connecting the cam to a PC/laptop? I'm wondering if you are dealing with duplicate IP issues. If you don't have a cross over, try just changing the IP address to something less common, such as .252. Also, have you checked if there is newer firmware available? It's a pretty good (and popular) cam.
 
I have the same issues with Panasonic camera (same model). I have given up on it long ago, and it just sits in the box now.
 
nov0798, I am more than willing to take a look at it, I do this kind of stuff for a living (and fun).
 
I had a Panasonic BL-C10A for a few years now with no issues. Version of firmware that I am using is 1.07 (boot) and 1.25 (application). I use it with my Zoneminder box. No problems with it. Its a bit primitive but it was reasonable in cost.

I have mine set up with a static IP and never used the Panasonic DDNS setup for it. I did notice that viewnetcam dot com is still up though.

I suppose you have done a cold reset with it and you have checked your network cables eh?
Once about a year ago mine kept dropping off line. It was actually rebooting itself because I had plugged the little AC adapter brick in an outlet which the connections were going bad. When I fixed the outlet all was fine with it.

Go to maintenance on the camera and check your logs. Last log is diagnosis. It should look like this:

Diagnosis

Displays hardware status. Entirely in case of 0 means no problem.
Hardware(Main) 00000000000000
 
I think I may have found my problem. It did not appear that the switch I had it connected to would consistently show a device was connected to the lan port I had the camera plugged in. Suggested a poor connection so I looked closely at the camera's RJ45 connector and the internal tabs looked like they had some crud or corrosion on them. I am going to try and open the camera and clean they up to see if that fixes my problem.
 
Problem confirmed. I cleaned up the contacts on the cameras network connector and it will now stay on line. If others have experienced similar problems with the BL-C10A IP camera, check the contacts in the RJ45 connector.
 
Good to know, glad you fixed it.

Few years ago played with the Axis web cam, you could actually modify the code a bit. Wish you could do that with the Panasonic camera. The Panasonic has been problem free after about 5 years or so of use.
 
Back
Top