Streaming via Firecube with Gateway

rac

Hi All -

I have used Monocle with 11 local cameras streaming to my Escho Show (older edition) for years without any difficulty.

I recently moved to the Fire cube (2nd gen) and have done some reading on how to get that setup with my system.

-My router is a UDM-Pro.
-I setup the Monocle gateway app - seems to be successful BUT I cannot ping to the address *@dc.mproxy.io.
-When i try to activate a camera I DO see the request coming through - but the alexa device gives the response “Hmm … the camera isn’t responding.”

The most recent attempt I tried I see THREE such requests … and then got some cryptic message that was new:
2022-10-15T03:37:43.997Z [INFO] [RTSP PROXY] STREAM [“Camera name”/PRIMARY] WILL BE DE-REGISTERED IN 4 MINUTES

This seems to me to be the DNS Rebinding issue, but I cannot find a way to change this on the UDM-Pro. Some threads seemed to suggest it’s not possible?

Any help is appreciated.

Monocle

@rac

Please try restarting your Monocle Gateway and re-testing the DNS (***.mproxy.io) record. There was a backend DNS issue impacting some users that was just fixed today. This problem may appear with the same symptoms as DNS REBINDING. You can also use a public tool like this (https://dnschecker.org/all-dns-records-of-domain.php) to verify that your unique DNS record is resolving to the private IP address assigned on your local system running Monocle Gateway.

If it resolves publicly but still not locally inside your network, then it still could be a DNS REBINDING problem.

Thanks, Robert

rac

@Monocle This worked!! I have a few cameras that are not working, but they were not working before … they are also 4k, so I think I may just need to use a lesser stream…

THANK YOU for the help, very happy with this …

rac

@Monocle Robert -

I have them all working with the exception of one. Wondering if you can help me with it.

It’s a Jidetech P1-PLUS-5X-5MP.

I can get the stream via VLC. I have tried the “major” and “minor” streams with no difference. With the @proxy tag I get a response from Alexa that the camera “is not responding.” When I use the @tunnel tag, I get basically no response - it starts to act like it’s going to load the stream and then nothing happens, returns to the home screen.

Any ideas on that?

THANK YOU so much again.

Monocle

@rac said in Streaming via Firecube with Gateway:

@Monocle Robert -

I have them all working with the exception of one. Wondering if you can help me with it.

It’s a Jidetech P1-PLUS-5X-5MP.

I’m not familiar with that camera. Make sure its streaming using a H.264 video encoding. Some newer cameras have started shipping with H.265 by default and Alexa does not support that yet.

Apart from that, you could try the tags @tunnel, @fake-fmtp, @noaudio. This combination should ignore any audio stream as well as provide a known working video stream format descriptor to Alexa in hopes that she is able to accept it and attempt to render the video stream.

Also make sure you are using the latest BETA version Monocle Gateway 1.0.6 available here: https://archive.monoclecam.com/monocle-gateway/monocle-gateway-0.0.6-beta/

Thanks, Robert

rac

@Monocle said in Streaming via Firecube with Gateway:

@rac said in Streaming via Firecube with Gateway:

@Monocle Robert -

I have them all working with the exception of one. Wondering if you can help me with it.

It’s a Jidetech P1-PLUS-5X-5MP.

I’m not familiar with that camera. Make sure its streaming using a H.264 video encoding. Some newer cameras have started shipping with H.265 by default and Alexa does not support that yet.

Apart from that, you could try the tags @tunnel, @fake-fmtp, @noaudio. This combination should ignore any audio stream as well as provide a known working video stream format descriptor to Alexa in hopes that she is able to accept it and attempt to render the video stream.

Also make sure you are using the latest BETA version Monocle Gateway 1.0.6 available here: https://archive.monoclecam.com/monocle-gateway/monocle-gateway-0.0.6-beta/

Thanks, Robert

Hi Robert -

That seems to have worked! I did upgrade to the 0.0.6 Beta, but that didn’t solve it. What did was the @fake-fmtp tag, though.

This was a cheap PTZ camera … is the issue that it’s not passing along a “standard” RTSP format video, or is it just that Alexa is picky?

Thank you again for your help.

Monocle

@rac said in Streaming via Firecube with Gateway:

Hi Robert -
That seems to have worked! I did upgrade to the 0.0.6 Beta, but that didn’t solve it. What did was the @fake-fmtp tag, though.
This was a cheap PTZ camera … is the issue that it’s not passing along a “standard” RTSP format video, or is it just that Alexa is picky?
Thank you again for your help.

Well, we don’t exactly know the precise reason it’s failing because Alexa is a black box with no diagnostics data. However, I suspect that there is something in the SDP that describes the video stream formatting options/specs that Alexa just doesn’t like or does not technically support. So the @fake-fmtp tag simply substitutes some of the SDP data with a known working format and allows Alexa to attempt to play the stream. In some (lucky) cases, Alexa will play the stream just fine and in other cases she still fails.

Thanks, Robert