Offline image doesn't always show when cam is offline

[Martijn]

Hey everyone,

I am a new user, using a webcam connected to my laptop to create a livestream of my dog and her newborn puppies. I want to have my webcam running a few hours a day. When it's offline, I want an offline image to display, so people will know it's switched off. I have already created a custom offline image using some help I found in another thread. The problem is that the offline image only appears randomly. Sometimes when people log in they get the offline image, most times they just get a timeout message. I know this problem isn't related to my custom image, because the original yawcam image reacted in the same way.

Is there anyone who has any idea why the offline image is not showing most of the times?

I'm pretty new to everything concerning websites and code, so it's probably just something I missed, I couldn't find an answer in the forums though so I am hoping anyone here knows the solution to my problem.

Thanx in advance for any advice you can give me!

Martijn

[Mike Scott]

To see the Offline image the viewer must have a connection to the yawcam server, and it must be running. If they get a timed message then they did not connect with the yawcam server on your PC in the time allowed by the internet. They might get through to your PC but if the yawcam is not running, they will get nothing back and will time out. If they simply do not get a connection to your PC they will get time out, just like any other web site

[Martijn]

Thanx for your reply. I am still not quite getting where it is going wrong though.

My webcam setup works just like it should. I switch on "stream'' in Yawcam, and people can view my webcam by typing in my ip+port in their browser. Now when I want my webcam to go offline. I press the off button next to stream in the yawcam console. I leave my laptop switched on with Yawcam running.

If i'm correct, people should be seeing the offline image now when they try to access my cam. (is this a wrong assumption?)

I have tested this myself, and at some occasions I am indeed getting the offline image. Most of the times it fails though, giving me an error page (I said time out page, but it's more like one of those pages you get when you visit a page that doesn't exist)

During my own tests, I got the offline image most times when I tried connecting to my webcam the first time after switching off. When I would try a second time I would get the error message.

Can anyone tell me what exactly I am doing wrong, and how I could fix this?

[z3r0c00l12]

If you go in the Settings -> Scheduler, you should be able to Enable the scheduler and set the hours that the Stream should be On on the Stream tab.

As per your last message, I'm not sure if the page would simply time out or display an offline image when it's off.

I know that if you host a page on another web server and the stream is offline then the page would display the offline image, but that may be harder to set up.

[malun]

If i'm correct, people should be seeing the offline image now when they try to access my cam. (is this a wrong assumption?)

Yes, I'm afraid that is wrong. When the stream (or http) output is disabled, the build-in web server in Yawcam will be switched off.
This means that new connections to your ip+port will get a timeout.

If a user is viewing your stream at the same time as you disable the stream, an offline image will be downloaded from yawcam.com and presented to the viewer.
If the viewer reloads the page when this offline image is shown and the stream still is disabled in Yawcam, the viewer will get a timeout (since there isn't any web server enabled to answer the request).

The only way of having a offline image visible at all times when your stream is disabled in Yawcam is to use an own web server hosted somewhere else. As z3r0c00l12 says that is a little bit harder to setup...

/malun

[Martijn]

Okay, I get it now, thanx for the help!

I'm not gonna bother with an own webserver. I'm sure I would figure it out eventually, but it's not really worth the hassle. Pups will be leaving in a few weeks anyway