Problems with SE Qld and Mid North NSW surfcam streams
Cheers Ben.
Still no solution despite four tech visits and a million more emails. We're trying to resolve this ASAP but are limited as to how fast we can make anything happen. Sorry for the inconvenience everyone.
check what telstra are doing with their equipment, they are doing a lot of tech experimentation with the 3G/4g networks, and not advising anyone. any signalling data around airports in particular. that is if, of course, you are sure your own hardware/software is functioning correctly.
I am sure our hardware is fine. it's all brand new and identical to every other upgraded surfcam (ie our entire network except three locations, all of which are being upgraded next week).
However, we do not use 3G/4G networks. The Edge Router (which I think is responsible for the problem) is also not Telstra infrastructure but I believe belongs instead to our ISP.
Still no resolution in sight. ARGH!
Looks like we may have fixed the problem.. they're all streaming fine now. Fingers crossed!
For the last couple of weeks we've had ongoing problems with the streaming quality of several surfcams in SE Qld and Mid North NSW. These locations are:
Noosa Heads
Burleigh Heads
Snapper Rocks
Duranbah
Coffs Harbour
Interestingly, our other two surfcams in the same geographical region (Moffat Beach, Byron Bay) are NOT affected. I'll get back to this point in a second, as it's quite interesting.
The problem we are seeing is that the surfcam freezes for extended periods of time, which makes the viewing pretty ordinary. Also, the Snapper surfcam is very jerky when it does actually stream.
We're not sure on the exact cause of this, but we're confident that it's not a problem with our hardware (all locations have the same brand of equipment, and are installed and configured identically), or even with the local internet connection (on-site upstream/downstream speeds are fine).
However, what is interesting (and this gets a little techy) - when assessing the traceroute from each camera to our streaming media server, all five 'problem' locations pass through one particular Edge Router.
Every other surfcam on our network - all of which are streaming perfectly - do not pass through this Edge Router. To me, this is a smoking gun - however tracing the issue via our ISP and telco wholesaler is a little difficult. Also, I have been advised that it is very difficult to re-route via another Edge Router.
We've been liaising with our ISP about this issue since the issue first appeared, and have deployed several telco technicians on site to try and find the route case - with no luck as yet. However I am hopeful that the problem will be fixed soon. I'll advise any updates here in this thread.