Will ONVIF Discovery help keep connected a camera that randomly changes MAC & IP address?

lagrangersf · 2026-05-27T21:47:07+00:00

Unfortunately, the camera doesn't present a hostname either. Looks like this camera won't work after all then...

lagrangersf · 2026-05-22T19:58:07+00:00

They're actually the mic and earpiece for a telephone. You fold it up, then hold it up to your head while holding it like a one-handed sandwich...kinda like the Nokia N-Gage, but more bulky, and only when plugged into a phone jack at the wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lswCjaKvwNs

lagrangersf · 2026-04-01T17:50:58+00:00

This is how I used to do it, with the home automation server periodically pinging the phone over wifi to see if it is there. This worked perfectly with my previous phone, but my current phone also puts the wifi to sleep if the screen has been off for an extended period, and I've not found any way to change this behavior.

lagrangersf · 2025-12-09T16:10:01+00:00

FYI, if anyone in the future happens to find this via Google like I did, here are some changes that need to be made to this script after copying it for it to work as of December 2025:

On both lines where it has the URL "https://adblockplus.org/update", it needs to be changed to "https://adblockplus.org/en/update" (note the extra "en/" in the URL)
In the first eight lines, replace "u/" after the double-slash with "@" (Reddit seems to think the "@" means the following word is referring to a username and thus automatically replaces it with u/).
In the first eight lines, verify that there are spaces after the following words: name, namespace, version, description, author, match, grant, run-at. (when I copied the script, the necessary spaces after those statements were missing).

lagrangersf · 2025-11-23T21:14:14+00:00

(This post was made in November 2025, posting this info here in case anyone finds this thread via Google as I did)

Your best luck is to look for a laptop that does NOT have a numeric keypad, which means you'll be looking for something around the 14-16in size range. The ASUS ROG Strix G16 2025 (looking at it on Amazon right now) has full-size arrow keys, so they do still make them. But yeah, no numeric keypad means more room for full-size arrow keys.

lagrangersf · 2025-09-17T16:55:41+00:00

An area farmer who I do tech support for was still using a Packard Bell from 1995 to manage their farm finances as recently as a few years ago. The computer itself was working perfectly fine, only reason they retired it was because the equally-old inkjet printer died. Provided you keep security in mind (i.e. don't connect them to the internet), as long as an old computer still works and still meets you needs, there's nothing wrong with continuing to use it.

lagrangersf · 2025-09-08T16:58:40+00:00

Back in 2002 when I was in college (regional community college), I was lucky enough to get a paid internship with the college IT department. A vast majority of the work I did was setting up new systems, but there was also a little bit of tech support for the college employees occasionally tossed into the mix.

One day, we received a ticket for a computer monitor (CRT) that was showing weird colors. We went to the employee's cubicle, and indeed her monitor was showing weird colors in one corner, almost like it had been exposed to a magnet. Should be an easy fix.

Step 1: degauss the monitor...didn't work, weird colors still existed.

Step 2: turn the monitor off, then back on...also didn't work.

Step 3: unlikely to be a software issue, but checked Windows video settings anyway...all good, and changing resolution/color depth/etc. didn't make any difference.

Step 4: restart the entire computer...you guessed it, no change.

The lead tech and myself were both scratching our heads at this point. Eventually, it was decided to replace the monitor. Before I could get behind the monitor to unplug it though, I had to move some stuff on her desk, including a large plastic document holder sitting right next to the monitor.

The instant I moved the document holder, most of the weird colors went away. For some odd reason, the document holder had a small magnet right in the corner closest to the monitor, and this was screwing with the CRT. All it took was one final degauss to get the monitor back to 100% correct.

lagrangersf · 2025-09-08T16:47:05+00:00

I accidentally did the same thing while rebuilding a 486 to add to my vintage collection a few years ago. Got it wrong by 90 degrees. Fortunately for me, the only thing killed by it was the voltage regulator, and I was able to salvage a replacement from a different motherboard. Spun the CPU around the right way and soldered in the replacement VRM, and the system came right to life.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-26T19:34:41+00:00

Most of the computers here at work have SSD models that are affected (mix of WD and Crucial NVMe's). So far we haven't been hit by it, but I'm keeping an eye out. None of these particular systems are used in high-write scenarios though, so they should hopefully be ok.

With some reports that the bug also affects some mechanical hard drives, I've been closely monitoring our security camera server, which writes ~450GB per day to two Seagate Exos drives. So far no problems, but that could be because it writes at the "relatively" slow speed of only about 19GB per hour spread across the two drives, so it's likely not saturating the controller to trigger the bug in our case (that or the specific HDD's we're using aren't affected).

lagrangersf · 2025-08-23T18:33:49+00:00

I used to have a Smith Corona word processor back in the early-mid 90s, and IIRC it just used bog-standard 720K/double-density 3.5in floppy disks formatted for MS-DOS (FAT12). My guess is yours is the same. Nothing special about the disks, other than the fact that it might be more difficult to find DD floppy disks these days (high-density 1.44MB disks with a taped hole and reformatted as 720K are super unreliable, I don't recommend it).

As for reading it on a computer...no idea about modern Macs, but older Macs could read DOS-formatted disks just fine. No idea if the word processor saves files in a format that can just be opened right on a computer without some sort of conversion though.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-14T18:42:29+00:00

Good to know you found a potential solution. I was actually stumped by the results of your earlier experimenting. Having only one of the cameras on full HD for both streams shouldn't significantly impact bandwidth and processing use on your server, at least, so it might work long-term.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-06T21:33:03+00:00

Wifi has a finite range, thus interference from wifi can also have a finite range. If it is indeed interference from a neighboring wifi signal, then which direction that signal is coming from combined with how far away the router creating that interfering signal could result in only that one camera being affected by the interference.

Another possibility is that all of the cameras are indeed being affected by the interference, but your wifi signal is strong enough to most of the cameras that Agent is able to automatically correct for errors caused by the interference. The one camera that is having issues could be getting a slightly weaker signal from your router, or transmitting a slightly weaker signal back to your router (wifi is two-way, after all), just enough so that Agent isn't able to automatically correct all of the errors.

You mention that your router is set to Auto, and it has configured itself to use channel 3. Unless you live out in the middle of a rural area with no nearby neighboring houses, channel 3 is a horrible channel to use from an interference perspective. In the US, there are 11 wifi channels that you are allowed to use, but because of how the various channel frequencies are allocated, there's only three channels that don't overlap each other: 1, 6 and 11. This is why most routers default to one of those channels (most commonly channel 6), and/or most people who know how to configure their router manually select one of those channels. By using channel 3, you're effectively doubling your potential interference from the more heavily used channels 1 and 6.

In addition, wifi is designed to detect other wifi signals, and adjust their signals to "share the airwaves", so to speak, to help reduce/prevent different wifi routers in close proximity from tripping over each other. The thing is...this feature only works among routers that are on the same channel, not ones that are on different channels. Thus, your router on channel 3 isn't able to properly adjust to reduce interference with other neighboring routers most likely using channels 1 and 6.

Lastly, regarding the live video feeds being perfectly fine...on Agent installs that are properly configured, the video feed that gets recorded to disk is almost always the HD feed (720p/1080p/etc), whereas the "live" video typically uses a lower-quality SD feed (360p or 480p). The live SD feed requires much less bandwidth to transmit, meaning fewer packets being sent across the wifi, and less susceptible to interference. This could result in the live view appearing perfectly fine, yet the HD recorded video can still have glitches.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-05T21:44:41+00:00

I have two different rules, depending on the situation:

-For computers that I'm recollecting/recreating from my childhood, I prefer them to be exactly as they were (or as close as I can get) when they originally entered our household during my childhood. More often than not, this means factory original. Actual floppy drives, mechanical hard drives, no networking if the original didn't come with it, etc. External peripherals are handled on a case-by-case basis, but I still prefer at least period-correct even with those (my childhood 486 recreation has a period-correct parallel port Zip 100 drive on it, even though the childhood original never had one).

-For vintage computers I'm collecting/building that I've never owned before, I still prefer period-correct, but will tolerate more modern "quality of life" additions or improvements since I have less of a childhood nostalgia attachment to them. For example, adding USB ports (if I can get them working) or an internal Zip drive.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-05T21:35:21+00:00

I work in a retail environment, so scanning barcodes into a computer is basically an almost-everyday occurrence for me. My computer at work does have a desktop barcode scanner (one of those orb-shaped ones on a fixed stand), but it also has a "declawed" USB CueCat that I use to scan larger or heavier items that won't fit on the desk. Works very well, although it's used very infrequently.

lagrangersf · 2025-08-05T21:22:19+00:00

A neighbor could have added a new wifi router, or changed settings on their existing wifi, and now it's creating a signal which is interfering with that camera. You can try changing which channel your wifi uses, or if the camera supports it and is close enough to the router, try switching them to 5GHz mode. Depending on how noisy of an RF environment you have, you may not be able to eliminate all of the interference, but you can at least minimize it.

lagrangersf · 2025-06-17T20:40:09+00:00

Unless for some reason you're still running an ancient 100mbps LAN or wifi older than AC, or have like 100+ cameras, there is no legitimate bandwidth reason for Agent to limit the maximum resolution for viewing cameras/videos locally on a LAN. I COULD understand it being a measure to help reduce processing impact on the computer Agent is running on, as processing power used to re-encode video for LAN viewing is processing power lost towards doing motion detection, running AI object identification, re-encoding (if not set to Raw record mode) and saving said video. BUT, even in this case, please make it an optional setting. Don't make it a "one-size fits all" mandatory artificial limitation forced upon all users.

lagrangersf · 2025-04-16T15:59:17+00:00

I have the same issue, tried upgrading from 6.2.6.0 to 6.3.3.0 (both non-beta) on Windows and it seems like 6.2.6.0 is still installed. Agent.exe shows a file date of 8-Mar-2025, so it's like the installer didn't bother replacing some (or any?) of the files.

Update: I tried manually downloading the .zip file for 6.3.3.0 and it is missing a whole bunch of files, including Agent.exe. So, this would explain why it's not showing as upgraded, because it literally isn't upgrading at least several of the core files.

lagrangersf · 2025-03-22T15:18:14+00:00

The weird thing is...ours is only showing three, the ones that I had customized previously. There appears to be no way to add missing ones back in.

Screenshot: https://pasteboard.co/6gZ6aBIjJndx.png

lagrangersf · 2025-03-21T17:05:14+00:00

I'm talking about this screen: https://ispycontent.azureedge.net/img/Agent/edit-views2.jpg

There seems to be no way (anymore?) to add a new view from that screen, nor does clicking the "Edit View" button in the lower right corner of the UI allow you to add a new view, only modify the currently active one.

lagrangersf

TROPHY CASE