Troubleshooting Why Your Avigilon Camera Is Not Recording
An Avigilon security system is a professional-grade solution designed for reliability. However, if you discover that a camera is not recording, it's a critical issue that needs immediate attention. Gaps in your video footage can compromise your security and leave you without evidence when you need it most.
This guide is designed for system administrators and users to diagnose and resolve common reasons why an Avigilon camera might fail to record footage to the Avigilon Control Center (ACC) server or NVR.
## Initial Checks: Identifying the "Not Recording" Symptom
Before you start changing settings, it's crucial to confirm the exact nature of the problem. Look for these specific symptoms within the ACC software:
- Gaps in the Timeline: When reviewing recorded video, you notice chunks of time are missing for a specific camera.
- "Recording Disabled" Status: The camera's status icon in the system explorer shows that recording is turned off.
- Storage Full Alerts: The system logs or notifications indicate that the NVR's storage capacity has been reached.
- No New Footage: The camera provides a live feed, but no new recordings are being saved.
- Motion-Based Recording Failures: The system is set to record on motion, but no events are being triggered or recorded.
Step-by-Step Solutions for Avigilon Recording Failures
Follow these methodical steps to troubleshoot the issue. It's often a simple configuration error rather than a hardware fault.
### 1. Verify the Camera's Recording Schedule
The most common reason for a camera not recording is an incorrect schedule.
- Open the ACC Client software and log in with administrative privileges.
- Navigate to Site Setup and select the camera in question from the system tree.
- Click on the Recording tab.
- Examine the recording schedule grid. This grid shows when the camera is scheduled to record based on time, day, and type (e.g., continuous, on motion, or none).
- Ensure that the current time and day are configured to record. A greyed-out area means no recording is scheduled. Adjust the schedule as needed and click OK.
### 2. Check NVR Storage Capacity and Health
If the storage drive is full, the system will stop saving new footage.
- In the ACC Client, go to the Server Management section for your NVR.
- Look for Storage Management or a similar option.
- This will display the status of all hard drives, including their capacity and the amount of free space.
- If the drives are full, you must enable settings to overwrite the oldest footage or manually export and delete old data to free up space. Also, check the health status of the drives for any hardware failure warnings.
### 3. Confirm Camera Licensing
In the Avigilon system, each camera channel requires a valid licence to be fully functional, including recording.
- Go to the Site Setup area in the ACC Client.
- Click on the Licensing tab.
- Verify that you have not exceeded the number of camera channel licences for your system. If you have 20 licences but have connected 21 cameras, the last camera added will not record.
### 4. Test Network Connectivity
While you may be able to see a live view, intermittent network issues can disrupt the data stream to the NVR, preventing recording.
- Ping the Camera: Use the camera's IP address to run a continuous ping test from the NVR or another computer on the same network. Look for any packet loss, which would indicate a connectivity problem.
- Check Physical Connections: Inspect the Ethernet cable at both the camera and the network switch for a solid connection and blinking link lights. A faulty cable or switch port can cause data loss.
### 5. Review Motion Detection Settings
If your camera is set to record only on motion, misconfigured settings are a likely culprit.
- In the camera's setup page, navigate to the Motion Detection tab.
- Ensure that motion detection is enabled and that the detection regions are drawn correctly over the areas you want to monitor.
- Adjust the sensitivity. If the sensitivity is too low, it may not trigger recordings. If it's too high, you'll get excessive false positives.
- Verify that the "Record on Motion" option is selected in the recording schedule.
By carefully working through these five areas, you can effectively troubleshoot and resolve the vast majority of issues that would cause an Avigilon camera to stop recording. Regular system health checks are recommended to prevent these issues from occurring in the future.