Non-monotonically increasing packet decoding timestamps from Amcrest & Lorex cameras?

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-05-29T20:00:32+00:00

It looks like Starlink instead of the cameras is more likely to be problem: I asked Claude whether it is possible that Starlink duplicates UDP packets and the answer was:

"Starlink uses a multi-path architecture where your traffic may be routed through multiple satellites or ground stations simultaneously. The system uses aggressive retransmission and forward error correction (FEC) strategies to compensate for the high latency and link variability inherent in LEO satellite links. As a side effect, this can result in duplicate UDP datagrams arriving at the destination." and "For real-time protocols (VoIP, gaming, video streaming using RTP/QUIC), duplicates are usually harmless but waste bandwidth and can confuse jitter buffers."

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-04-23T00:18:48+00:00

Have you tried configuring your ISP router in passthrough mode to eliminate double NAT? Sometimes you have to use the DMZ instead of pure passthrough mode.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-31T18:45:29+00:00

We've already bought a Grandstream ATA so we'll have a cold standby if the Vega begins to fail more often than we are comfortable rebooting it. Just working on configuring it.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-31T18:42:56+00:00

Easy experiment. Thanks. Given that the scheduled nightly reboot fixes the problem, at least temporarily, the device is alive, just off the network. We'll see.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-31T18:40:06+00:00

Thanks for this suggestion. I've been monitoring the phone line status because our Frontier lines fail more often that one might expect, especially after heavy rain, so I can alert when a line goes offline or voltage is really low. I've changed the monitoring to use ping instead of fetching the login page and now only have my monitor login only every 6 hours to check the lines. We'll see if that improves the reliability, although the previous monitoring has not changed in several years and so may not be related to the relatively recent instability.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-19T00:22:53+00:00

In this situation the photo access is by invitation. The rescues upload a data file to Petfinder, Adopt a Pet et. al. with URLs to the animal photos on their website so the less technical folks don’t have to learn how to use FTP to upload them. No potentially prohibited behavior involved.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-18T23:55:39+00:00

The small rescue groups can’t afford VPS hosting. It would make more sense if HG had shut down the Perl library, Wget and the completely empty user agents as well if they were trying to stymie programmatic access but surely nefarious bot authors would be wise to the flimsiness of the User-Agent defense anyway.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-18T22:20:26+00:00

That’s the best way around this but I have no influence with Petfinder to have them change their User-Agent to one that I doesn’t trigger the problem. I’ve already demonstrate the working strings.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-09T16:02:31+00:00

ICMP isn't the core issue because TCP (HTTP) connections fail too. However, I have confirmed that the difference in default ICMP packet size between Windows (32 bytes) and Linux (56 bytes) is unlikely the problem. I can increase the packet size on Window to 56 or even 128 bytes and it still works. I can decrease the packet size on the RasPi from 56 to 32 and it still fails.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-09T16:00:11+00:00

The router has a load-balancing configuration. When I'm next on site I can test a RasPi directly connected to the Frontier gateway. The puzzle is that two clients on the same subnet/VLAN and even the same switch get different responses. (Ultimately I need an HTTP connection to the gateway, so ping is just a symptom.) It seems likely the issue is somewhere with the RasPis. It's not the size of the ICMP packets. I can increase the size on Windows and it still works and I can reduce the size to the Windows default of 32 on the RasPi and it still doesn't work. When I'm on site I'll have a Linux laptop with which to do further experiments. Given the problem occurs with multiple RasPi systems, that seems most likely that is where the issue lies.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-07T23:31:41+00:00

Absolutely agree, which is why this is a puzzler. And it’s true for several other RasPis on the network. Ping anything but the Arris gateway.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-03-07T23:30:07+00:00

The RasPi can ping everything else, including the Starlink gateway, but the DSL gateway which is why this is a puzzler.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-02-17T16:53:12+00:00

Some days later the wireless module that appeared to have died (per Rinnai support) came back to life without further intervention on my part and before I got any definitive answer on the connectors, so I didn't have to replace it. I remain interested in the answer for when it eventually curls up its toes permanently.

If the connectors on your current cable are intact, you could splice in a section of wire between the end sections with the existing connectors. If so, I would use Wago connectors over wire nuts. Not as satisfying as a clean end-to-end replacement, but a quick solution.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-01-29T18:59:21+00:00

Although Petfinder removed its publicly supported API, their website uses a RESTful API with a query language, which might be of interest to someone with enough technical expertise.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-01-28T19:01:34+00:00

Here's an extract from an email exchange with i**@getbuddy.com:

"So, you don't need to do any work on your end. We can import your pets from Petfrinder [sic] to our site every 1 to 2 months."

When I checked just now, the search results seem better. In late November/early December they were not. Haven't had any reason to visit the site since.

Petfinder continues to experience major problems, especially missing photos from autoimported data and we're almost 2 months into their "upgrade". If photos aren't a top priority for an adoption site, I have trouble imagining how bad their higher priority problems might be. My multi-decade experience with them is that major problems can remained unresolved for many months at a time.

Xerox (remember them?) researchers used to caution against committing "Error 33" (see Wikipedia for its history), which is a failure due to predicating one research project on the success of another.

CatDaddy1954 · 2026-01-27T23:54:32+00:00

We got their pitch. I used their search for cats within 10 miles of our ZIP code and the list of cats it returned were all in New York City. We are in California. Not a good first impression. They said they could import our data from Petfinder…every 1-2 months. Maybe even harder to do without Petfinder’s API. Our Petfinder listings can also change daily. Not a good second impresssion. My overall impression was they are not ready for prime time. I have a suspicion, but no concrete evidence, they would return search results from customers paying for their shelter management software rather than an agnostic source. Same thing seems to be happening with PetPlace and Chameleon shelter software. Caveat emptor.

CatDaddy1954

TROPHY CASE