This is not a Vera-specific question, but I couldn’t resist asking this forum since there are so many knoweledgeable members…
I have a Panasonic wireless IP camera hooked up in my weekend home, accessible thru Vera, and for that, it’s working just fine. However, when I first got the camera, I decided to use that Viewnetcam service to also be able to view the camera over the web, without having to go through Vera. This was allowing me to get a clearer, larger image, especially on my BlackBerry. It worked great at first, then for reasons I can’t explain, it dropped off the net, and the port number changed. So I re-registered when I was last at the house, and it was viewable again over my personal Viewnetcam website. But once again, it has dropped off, and I can’t get to it (I can still get to it through Vera just fine).
Does anyone have any clue as to why the port forwarding would just stop working? Has anyone had any experience using Viewnetcam with a Panasonic camera? Is it prone to this type of failure?
Despite being a Panasonic camera owner, I’ve never used the viewnetcam service as I use the dyndns service built into my router. Not sure why the port number would change as it should always be port 80 (unless you changed it); however the IP address would almost definitely change unless you set it up with a static address?
Not sure how the viewnetcam service works exactly but it would probably rely on the cam reporting in to the service, from that it would derive your IP and know where to connect to you. Maybe the camera has some intelligence to re-assign port numbers etc based on other local devices running on port 80?
If you have a dyn-dns service on your router then I would use that perhaps instead.
Thanks. I do have DynDNS on my router, but just don’t know a lot about how to setup/use it. I’ll take the time to educate myself and go that route, as relying on a third-party service, while it seemed great at first, obviously has not worked out so well.
BTW, this service actually uses, by default, port 50000. Somehow, during the first failure, it re-assigned to port 50001, and now that seems to be not working.
But as you suggest, I’ll just figure out how to get DynDNS working instead.
I have eight panasonic cameras and three Veras. I use the viewnetcam service from Panasonic primarily because I can get streaming video and sound (on my pc) - and a bigger picture. I can access the cameras with my iPhone and viewnetcam.com and have never had any problems with that service. I do have port forwarding set up on my routers where each camera has a specific port number. When I registered with viewnetcam.com, each Panasonic camera has a unique user name which includes the specific port number for that camera.
Service works great and is free.
I agree. I have 3 Panasonic cameras and the viewnetcam service is much better than Vera’s. Specially when you are local to the camera location, you get instant camera movement and full live video. When remote, viewnetcam gives you an update every 3 seconds. The viewnetcan address must include your port number and each camera needs a unique port number. Go to the viewnetcam website and review the instructions, or download the instructions from panasonic.
Thanks everyone - agree wholeheartedly that the Viewnetcam service has its advantages over just viewing through Vera, which is why I initially set it up and had it working correctly. And I do realize each camera gets a unique address and port.
I only have one camera. But for whatever reason, after I had it [re] registered with Viewnetcam and working again for a couple days, it has once again stopped working. When I go to the url for my camera, I get a “Site not found” error. I can go to the generic Viewnetcam website, login under my username and password and see that my camera is still apparently registered with the service. I just can’t get to it.
The first time I had this working, the assigned port was 50000. When I re-registered the camera this past weekend to get it working again, for some reason the port became 50001. But now it’s inaccessible again, so I’m not sure what’s going wrong. Perhaps there’s an issue with my router that’s somehow causing the problem? That must the case given that the camera is working through Vera. I’m stumped - I just wish it worked.
Maybe you have something else locally running on that port? Or maybe your ISP has blocked it for some reason? I guess for the cameras and the viewnet to work, it must have some intelligence built in on both ends to work out which port to use and thus any of the first two possibilities I wrote above may have occurred. It may be as simple as just needing to power cycle the modem/router and camera?
Off topic a bit…
I actually have my router, camera power and modem etc all on an appliance module, and have a scene in Vera that powers off for 5 seconds then On again for the appliance module (for these special occasions) as all my stuff is in the Attic and would otherwise be a pain to power cycle. You could take this one step further using the ping sensor and have it set to a remote IP like one of google’s DNS servers and then have it activate the scene that does the power cycle if it goes offline 
Back to DynDNS, once setup I think this would be more reliable anyway and it gives you the advantage of being able to use it for other stuff too; but mainly would give you the Panasonic interface you’d see if you were local to the camera and you can see just one camera feed, or all of them. Using an external service is an extra failure point really. This is how I view my cam and I’ll see if the viewnetcam service offers anything above and beyond what the panasonic cam http interface ofers but I doubt it.
I believe you also have to set up port forwarding on your router to allow that port to be accessed from the outside.
Correct and I have mine set up on a really high port number externally rather than something common. It does redirect though internally to port 80 for the cam.