ONVIF Camera troubleshooting guide

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

First Step - Install ONVIF Device Manager (further -- ODM)

• Download and install the ONVIF Device Manager on the same computer as your Nx Witness Server is installed. If you cannot install the ONVIF Device Manager because you are using an Ubuntu Linux machine then install the ONVIF Device Manager on a Windows PC on the same LAN as your troubled ONVIF camera.

Device Discovery Issues

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

• Nx Witness does not discover your camera automatically:
  • Network Issue: Multicast is disabled for your LAN
  • Device Issue: Your device's firmware incorrectly processes ONVIF requests
• Run the ONVIF Device Manager.
• Enter camera ONVIF-Administrator credentials at the top-left corner of ODM main dialog.
• If the device is still not detected and you're 100% sure that the device is online and credentials are correct then one of the following issues most likely exists:
• Nx Witness does not find your device even when using manual camera addition (e.g. entering RTSP or IP address of the device):
  • 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 standard ONVIF request for manual discovery (device issue).
• Try to find the camera using the ONVIF Device Manager. Click "Add" at bottom-left corner of GUI and enter the IP address or domain name of your device, specifying tcp port in 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:

Streaming Issues

1. Nx Witness Desktop Client discovers the device but shows "No Signal":
• Try to login to device using the ONVIF Device Manager and click the "Live Video" button. 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, firstly 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 great flaw within the firmware(device issue).
2. Camera should be able to stream H264 with some certain resolution but it doesn't, streaming MJPEG instead in Nx Software. Go to ODM, log in 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 there h264 with necessary(highest) resolution, it's the camera issue.
   
   
3. Camera should be able to provide secondary low-resolution h264 stream but you can't see it in GUI both for live and an archive or see heavy mjpeg stream. In ODM click "Profiles" in the interface. You'll get list of profiles. Try to check them, you'll see there some drop down buttons with information about different encoders configuration including frame rate, resolution and codec. If you see there only high-res Profile(s), it's most likely because camera doesn't allow configuration of streaming profiles or can't do that(device issue). If low-res stream has mjpeg codec, the reasons is most likely the same(device issue).

4. A common reason is when the device is connected to multiple VMS or NVR simultaneously. This causes conflicting information and profile errors since each device attempts to push and retrieve its own settings.

   Resolving this at the expense of allowing internal optimization performed by Nx Witness causes FPS and image quality settings in the recording schedule to be ignored:
   1. Navigate to the Camera Settings menu.
   2. Select the Expert tab.
   3. Enable Keep camera stream and profile settings.

   Alternatively, if you connect the device directly to Nx Witness, you can disconnect the device from the other device, do a Soft Factory Reset and disable the Keep camera stream and profile settings.

PTZ Issues

• You're sure that your device has ptz capabilities but there's no "PTZ" icon in Nx GUI, check if ODM has point called "PTZ controls". If not, most probably device issue.
• You're facing some issues with camera moves after dragging arrows or clicking zoom buttons in Nx GUI, just check ODM ptz controls, continuous move section. There will be several arrow buttons and "+/-" zoom controls, click them to check if camera moves fine.
• PTZ presets issues. If you see capability to assign presets in camera context menu, but they're not actually working go to ODM, check ptz controls --> absolute move. Just try to set different values for absolute move coordinates.

Advanced options issues.

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

Motion detection issues.

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

Signal Input issues.

• You trigger the single input(DI) on the camera, but it does not have actions on Nx Witness, check there is any state changed log in ODM. You can navigate to the section of Event in ODM by adding the camera into ODM and switch to the event tab. If the camera is doing good on its ONVIF implementation, you should always see the state changed log (Input token relay changed, state:true, state:false....etc).

Questions

If you have any questions related to this topic or you want to share your experience with other community members or our team, please visit and engage in our support community or reach out to your local reseller.