Cameras do not connect when the server is restarted

Symptoms

Upon rebooting the VALT appliance you are able to sign back in to VALT, but when attempting to view any camera in the Observe tab, a message stating Camera Not Available is displayed. Even after reloading the page and waiting several minutes, you are unable to connect to any of the cameras.

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Diagnosis

• Check to make sure the cameras are online by pinging their IP addresses and/or accessing them via the web interface.
• Restart the Wowza Streaming Engine.

If the cameras connect after restarting the streaming engine, proceed to the solution below.

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Solution

This issue occurs when the appliance is not able to establish a network connection when the Wowza Streaming Engine is first started. This is typically caused by Spanning Tree Protocol. If the switch the appliance is plugged in to is configured with STP, there will most likely be a delay before the port is placed into forwarding mode. This prevents the Wowza Streaming Engine from communicating with the cameras when it first starts, and creating the issue outlined above. To resolve this, you must enable a fast connection for STP on the port the appliance is plugged into.

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Cisco Switches

For Cisco switches, this is referred to as PortFast, other switch manufacturers use different terms.

1. Access the console.
2. Enable
3. Config
4. Press Enter.
5. Access the interface the VALT appliance is connected to.

   EX: int gig 1/0/2

6. Spanning-Tree PortFast
7. Exit
8. Write
9. Exit

Enabling PortFast will only work on a port that is set to access mode. If you are trunking multiple VLANs to the VALT appliance, this will not work. Syntax may vary depending on the model of switch you are using.