strange Foscam camera issues with Netgear R6300 and R6900

[Router_help]

TL;DR: foscam cameras work great on other routers outside the wifi network, but do not work reliably with two Netgear routers now. On the latest Netgear R6900 router, cameras work well on Cricket (AT&T) network, but do not work well on Verizon LTE network. Same setup with ASUS / Linksys worked great for years, why?


Story:

We have several Foscam cameras that were set up and worked great on my old Linksys WRT54GL (running Tomato) for years.

Then we switched to Cox Gigablast (fiber optic network), and Cox gave us a brand new Netgear R6300 AC router in January of 2016. I set up the static IP addresses of the cameras (outside the DHCP address range), set up port forwarding for each, just like how they worked on my Linksys WRT54GL.

The cameras would come great inside my network, on my Galaxy Note 4, iPhone 6, and other android / iOS devices. As soon as I switched off wifi, and tried to use Sprint LTE or Verizon LTE, the cameras would be very difficult to access. They may come up initially for a few seconds, and then the data stream would just disconnect and I woudln't be able to connect to the cameras again.

Thinking that Cox network was the issue, I debugged with Cox and didn't get a resolution. I then tried putting my old WRT54GL on the Cox gigablast and the cameras instantly came on outside my network, voila!!

So I shelved the Netgear R6300 (running the latest firmware at the time), and switched to an ASUS RT-N66U router, and it worked awesome from January til 2 weeks ago, when the ASUS router lost all wifi connection and refused to connect to wifi clients despite multiple resets. So I had to come up with a new game plan.

I went to CostCo and purchased the Netgear R6900 (AC1900) router for $159, and set up the static IP addresses of the cameras, and the port forwarding as previously. I put the Netgear R6900 on the network, and everything worked great inside the wifi network.

Once I turned off wifi, and switched to Cricket 4G or LTE (I switched from Sprint to Cricket), the cameras would come up, a bit slower than the ASUS N router, but they would come up reliably and the data stream would work. I then tried with my Verizon LTE iPhone 6, and the same problem occurred - the camera stream would come up for a few seconds, then the data stream would die out and I would be unable to connect to the cameras.

So a VERY ODD problem!! The problem is I can't reliably access my Foscam cameras outside my network, very sporadic initial access on my Verizon iPhone 6 on LTE (and this exact set up worked perfecly with the ASUS router before it died), and it works reliably with the Cricket / AT&T network.

I'm thinking the problem has to be with the Netgear routers:

Same Foscam cameras
same Cox giglablast network
same client devices (Android / iPhones, all same apps)
The ONLY difference is now I'm using a Netgear router, as opposed to the Linksys WRT54GL or the ASUS Rt-N66u
FWIW I'm using the latest firmware with the Netgear R6900 - V1.0.0.4_1.0.10.

I'm kind of at a dead end trying to figure out what the issue is with Netgear.

Any thoughts from the advanced tech heads here?

 

[Beer4Me]

Very strange. Wonder if you're being throttled by your cell carrier in any way. I have 3 Foscam's (all 720p models), a Netgear R7000 (AC1900) router, and NEVER a problem. I also have a Lorex 1080p NVR with my outside cams. Never a issue accessing cams from AT&T LTE. Now over 4G, that's another story - the video stream comes up, but it's delayed and slow as sh*t. My guess is that AT&T 4g sucks. Never an issue on LTE.

One thought, since you switched ISP at the same time with router, did they give you a new "modem"? Is the modem configured for passthrough eg. the local firewall is disabled? I ask because the Arris SB6141 cable model I have does have an option to enable a firewall from the config. That would definitely cause problems.

 

[tracerit]

I've had issues with three Laview NVRs and have found out the cause to be a weak router (I have it set to auto reboot every day now) at one location. ANd at another location, I used a different port from the standard port which would cause my outside remote login to die as just as you experience. Changing it back to the default port fixed the dying out. Have you tried changing ports, possibly back to whatever Foscam has set as default?

 

[Router_help]

This looks to be the answer below. How can Netgear let this bug be unanswered for so long?? I'm shocked at the poor quality of Netgear firmware.



The foscam cameras disconnecting when not on home network is because of a known issue with Netgear's firmware. It is because it is thinking the cameras being accessed from the outside network is a DoS attack. If you go into the router settings and go to Advanced, Wan Setup, and then CHECKMARKDisable Port Scan and DoS Protection. This will disable the DoS protection and fix your issue. It is enabled by default. Sadly this is the only way to resolve this. I have the R8500 and Netgear just released 1.0.2.64 firmware for it that fixes this issue so you don't have to disable the protection for it to work properly. in the R8500s new firmware release notes it states:
Fixed the DDos false detect issue when accessing multiple IP CAMs from Internet.
They also fixed the annoying Origin download bug in this release too supposedly (not related to the Foscam issue):

Fixed a potential router reboot issue when dynamic QoS is turn on.

It does not look the R6300 or R6900 have a new firmware with the fix yet. So your only solution will be to Disable Port Scan and DoS Protection

 

[boomerang]

Unsure if you have applied the "fix" yet but you'd do better to assign a static IP for the cameras within the camera configuration. I had a slew of issues with a Foscam camera that were intermittent until I did that.

 

[Router_help]

Unsure if you have applied the "fix" yet but you'd do better to assign a static IP for the cameras within the camera configuration. I had a slew of issues with a Foscam camera that were intermittent until I did that.

Interesting. My Foscam cameras are always assigned static IP addresses in the router (outside the router DHCP address range to avoid IP collisions) and I generally don't have issues with IP conflicts.

But this is good tip and I will assign that in the camera configuration as well as a dual safety check.

 

[boomerang]

Interesting. My Foscam cameras are always assigned static IP addresses in the router (outside the router DHCP address range to avoid IP collisions) and I generally don't have issues with IP conflicts.

But this is good tip and I will assign that in the camera configuration as well as a dual safety check.

Not as well, just in the camera. I firmly believe this is a YMMV issue and it surely sounds like you are not experiencing any issues. But if you want to read some background behind my comments, read the short thread linked below and be sure to click on the link provided by TheUberOverLord in that thread.

http://foscam.us/forum/camera-keeps-dropping-signal-freezing-t16225.html

 

[Router_help]

Not as well, just in the camera. I firmly believe this is a YMMV issue and it surely sounds like you are not experiencing any issues. But if you want to read some background behind my comments, read the short thread linked below and be sure to click on the link provided by TheUberOverLord in that thread.

http://foscam.us/forum/camera-keeps-dropping-signal-freezing-t16225.html

Great info, very enlightening, thanks!

I think I have avoided the IP issues by assigning the cameras IP addresses outside the DHCP range, and I have turned off uPNP (more secure).

Those two things probably helped me avoid similar issues. But putting a static IP address in the camera is a great idea and will be doubly reliable. The only issue if I make mistake in the camera setting that could FUBAR things up.

There is no room for error in these settings at all. Have to be OCD about doing this work!