At times you may experience breaks in your recorded footage. These breaks appear as spaces between the green orbs (recorded data) on your video time line.
Possible Causes
Poor internet connection
An unstable internet connection is the most common reason for breaks in recorded data. Camera streaming uses the upload portion of your internet bandwidth, which is commonly overlooked and out of spec for what is required.
Ensure that your internet bandwidth can support your camera(s) or VR system. There are many calculators online which can help you determine the required bandwidth for your equipment.
If your camera operates off of a WiFi network ensure that the signal is not inhibited in any way. Small drops in a WiFi connection can be exploited when streaming, causing large and frequent breaks in recording. Signal repeaters and/or extenders, located near to the camera, can often improve the network connection.
Defective network hardware
Old or defective network hardware can also cause issues with maintaining a reliable internet connection for your equipment.
Ensure that all ethernet cables are undamaged and installed correctly. Locating network wiring too close to power sources or other inhibitors can cause latency or drops in your network connection. Route cabling accordingly.
Check and test the ports on your network router. At times ports on a network router can fail. The network connection status lights can be a good way to quickly determine if your port has burned out. Plug your camera or VR system into another available port on your router to test.
Buggy camera firmware
Faults with the camera or VR system firmware can also be the culprit for breaks in recording. Cheaply manufactured or old devices are often unable to support 24/7 streaming.
Low quality cameras or VR devices may not always have reliable firmware installed or available. Ensure that your device has the latest version of firmware installed.
Minor changes to the camera or VR system encoding parameters may also help restore connectivity for faulty devices. Be sure to use a constant bitrate type and set it to a value which is at or under your available network upload speed. Adjustments to the i-frame interval may also be necessary.
Overloading DVR or NVR systems can also cause drops in streaming. Some VR systems are not designed to sustain streaming all cameras at the same time. Typically these devices are designed to only stream a single camera for a limited amount of time for remote viewing. If you have multiple cameras streaming from a single VR system check to see if recording breaks occur at the same time for each camera.
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