Camera not responding

[nickpeq]

Our team is attempting to use the Axis 206 camera, hopefully for tracking targets this year. We had issues last year with the camera repeatedly causing the robot to freeze up after a few seconds. At competition, the camera suddenly started working, so long as we called getInstance() ONCE only. We did not have time for vision tracking but were able to view the dashboard image. This year, even with the same code, the camera does not respond whatsoever. The robot overloads with error messages such as the following:

[cRIO] >>>>ERROR: S_errno_EHOSTDOWN (0x00000043): Failed to connect to the camera ...in CreateCameraSocket() in C:/WindRiver/workspace/WPILib/Vision/AxisCameraParams.cpp at line 457

The error code is sometimes 0x00000044.
We are using 2012 utilities, 2012 cRIO firmware, the camera was configured with the 2012 utility to connect through cRIO port 2 (on the 8-slot cRIO), the camera is receiving appropriate voltage, and the camera works just fine when connected directly to the Classmate.
Using example code from 2010 for tracking, the program supposedly gets "100 images in x seconds", without errors until running for a few seconds. Nothing ever appears on the dashboard.
Google found one or two teams that had similar errors (difference being "EHOSTDOWN"/error-code), but no solutions.
Any ideas?

[Mr. Lim]

Camera should not be connected to cRIO port 2.

Connect it directly to your router instead.

You should be able to ping it from your driverstation using ping 10.xx.yy.11

[nickpeq]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

Camera should not be connected to cRIO port 2.

Connect it directly to your router instead.

You should be able to ping it from your driverstation using ping 10.xx.yy.11

It will need to be connected to the cRIO to use tracking code on the robot. And it worked last year connected through the cRIO, as well as there being an option in the Axis camera utility specifically for connected through the cRIO.
Also, we have had the same error when connected through the router, however I haven't tested this as extensively.

If you have advice on using the router (should it start working on router only) for vision tracking, preferably without the involvement of LabView, I would still be grateful for that as well.

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by nickpeq

It will need to be connected to the cRIO to use tracking code on the robot. And it worked last year connected through the cRIO, as well as there being an option in the Axis camera utility specifically for connected through the cRIO.
Also, we have had the same error when connected through the router, however I haven't tested this as extensively.

If you have advice on using the router (should it start working on router only) for vision tracking, preferably without the involvement of LabView, I would still be grateful for that as well.

This is a change that has been made from last year. Our robot last year was plugged into port 2 of the cRIO. This year, the new 4-slot cRIO only HAS one ethernet port. The camera implementation has changed, and routing your camera through port 2 does not appear to be supported anymore.

Last year, the camera was also kept on the 192.168.x.x domain, which has also changed. The 2012 setup utility will change the IP address to 10.xx.yy.11.

Even though the camera is connected through the router, the cRIO will still be able to capture images from it using the same WPILib functions as last year. We are running vision code on our 2012 cRIO in this manner.

Hooking it up this way will also improve your driverstation video feed, and reduce load on your cRIO. The cRIO is no longer running a video server that relays the images from the camera to the driver station. Your driverstation can now retrieve video directly from the camera.

[neal]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

This is a change that has been made from last year. Our robot last year was plugged into port 2 of the cRIO. This year, the new 4-slot cRIO only HAS one ethernet port. The camera implementation has changed, and routing your camera through port 2 does not appear to be supported anymore.

Last year, the camera was also kept on the 192.168.x.x domain, which has also changed. The 2012 setup utility will change the IP address to 10.xx.yy.11.

Even though the camera is connected through the router, the cRIO will still be able to capture images from it using the same WPILib functions as last year. We are running vision code on our 2012 cRIO in this manner.

Hooking it up this way will also improve your driverstation video feed, and reduce load on your cRIO. The cRIO is no longer running a video server that relays the images from the camera to the driver station. Your driverstation can now retrieve video directly from the camera.

Makes sense. Thank you!

Will try this tomorrow

[nickpeq]

Originally Posted by neal

Makes sense. Thank you!

Will try this tomorrow

Same.
Thank you very much Mr Lim!

[Doc543]

We had the same error also when we plugged it into the 2nd port on our C-RIO. On the documentation on the Axis Camera code it says I should work if you plug it in that slot, we are using the old bridge connection for our prototype, is there a way to fix that error?

[Mr. Lim]

Originally Posted by Doc543

We had the same error also when we plugged it into the 2nd port on our C-RIO. On the documentation on the Axis Camera code it says I should work if you plug it in that slot, we are using the old bridge connection for our prototype, is there a way to fix that error?

Check what year the sample code is from. It is likely not from this year.

In posts mentioned above, I believe support for the camera on port 2 has changed this year. There are also reasons as to why the other approach will likely work better for you.

I strongly recommend you move the camera off port 2, run the camera setup utility, and patch it directly into the router instead.

[Patrickwhite]

Another cause of this error is caused by the setup utility - Greg (of NI) confirmed that there was a problem with the camera setup utility that causes errors such as this. Set up the camera manually. Reset the camera by holding the button on the back and follow these steps:
1) Connect to the camera at http://192.168.0.90 (your ip address will need to be on the same domain)
2) The camera will ask you to create a root password - "admin" will work.
3) Log into the camera with root:admin
4) Using the setup page, add the user FRC, password FRC as admin.
5) If you're planning on using the Smart Dashboard, enable anonymous viewing
6) Change the IP address of the camera to 10.te.am.11
Once you save that last setting, you will not be able to connect to the camera. It should be set up at this point.

[Greg McKaskle]

The patched utility is located at https://decibel.ni.com/content/message/31018

Greg McKaskle

[Derschatten]

Lim if you read the FRC Getting Started with the 2012 FRC Control System it states the below:

The camera can also be connected to the second Ethernet port on the 8-slot cRIO FRC. In this configuration the IP is left at the default 192.168.0.90. The User name and Password are setup identically to if the camera is connected to the radio

I would suggest setting the camera up by logging into it.

I have had the camera working in both port 2 or the switch. As my team is unsure which way we will go for processing the image. Laptop/cRIO as they all have pro and con.

[biojae]

Originally Posted by Mr. Lim

The camera implementation has changed, and routing your camera through port 2 does not appear to be supported anymore.

It does, you just have to supply the correct IP address.

AxisCamera camera = AxisCamera.getInstance("192.168.0.90");

That's how we have been getting our camera images this season.

[nickpeq]

Our camera is so far functioning through the router.
Not necessarily consistently. (I'll have to look into that) But working!

[woodk]

We are also seeing camera connectivity issues.

We have the camera plugged into the router/access point, the IP set correctly (10.te.am.11) and can ping it from our development laptop, but cannot see it via the Web browser or get images from it in the code (using C++.) We have had no problems in past years but nothing shows up on the dashboard, we get failure to connect error messages on the console when the robot code is running, and we cannot see the camera via http (which we were able to do a couple of days ago, so something must have changed since but I have no idea what.)

The bottom line is: the network configuration looks fine, the camera is powered and appears on the network and can be pinged, but either there is some failure in the camera initialization or some subtle issue with the network config.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[nickpeq]

Originally Posted by woodk

We are also seeing camera connectivity issues.

We have the camera plugged into the router/access point, the IP set correctly (10.te.am.11) and can ping it from our development laptop, but cannot see it via the Web browser or get images from it in the code (using C++.) We have had no problems in past years but nothing shows up on the dashboard, we get failure to connect error messages on the console when the robot code is running, and we cannot see the camera via http (which we were able to do a couple of days ago, so something must have changed since but I have no idea what.)

The bottom line is: the network configuration looks fine, the camera is powered and appears on the network and can be pinged, but either there is some failure in the camera initialization or some subtle issue with the network config.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

I would try reconfiguring. Hold the button on the camera as you power it on, wait for the lights, and use the camera setup utility or BETTER YET setup the camera manually.
Usually when our camera has some fatal errors, I have to reset and reconfigure for it to get back to normal.