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Problem With 503 Service On An Axis Camera

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Tony Darland
Jan 03, 2017
IPVMU Certified

Can anyone tell me what this 503 Service is? I get it on occasion on our Axis cameras. They usually go away after a reboot of the camera, but for some reason this one isn't. The camera is one of 11 cameras on the same switch.

The only thing different about this camera is that it's the only one of the 11 that's connected to a monitor via a mini hdmi cable to allow a person to see who's standing outside a service door.

JH
John Honovich
Jan 03, 2017
IPVM

Tony,

503 frequently means the server is overloaded and the Axis description implies that as well - 'maximum number of clients are already connected'. Any idea how many connections are currently being made to the client (VMSes, web browsers open, etc.)? Can you check the logs to see what it shows for connections?

I have also forwarded this to Axis to see what they have to add.

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Tony Darland
Jan 03, 2017
IPVMU Certified

Thanks always for the help, John. I got it squared away.

I can't explain it all in the proper technical terms but the gist of it is this:

The camera is an Axis M3046. Our VMS is Lenel OnGuard, which doesn't have the M3046 written into it, so like I've done with dozens in the past, I input the camera as an Axis M3026 and it works just fine.

However, this is the first and only time we've ever had a monitor connected to the camera. I don't think the VMS liked having the camera in HDMI capture mode to facilitate the external monitor because the VMS automatically defaulted it to QHD capture mode, thereby rendering the monitor without an image.

After figuring this out I deleted the camera out of OnGuard, set the capture mode to HDMI, configured the SD card for recording, and now all is well. 

Except for the 503 service issue. At the time of my post the camera was stand alone with only one client connected, which was the PC I was on to view the camera.

(Here comes the lack of technical jargon) Despite the fact that the camera was deleted from OnGuard, I think OnGuard still had "remnants" in the camera. I think the 503 Service issue was somehow the result of OnGuard's past control of the camera.

After I "Restored" all parameters, except the IP parameters, to the original factory settings, the 503 Service issue was TCO.

Does anyone have any thoughts on my "remnants" theory?

JH
John Honovich
Jan 03, 2017
IPVM

The remnants theory makes sense to me generally; If other systems or devices continue to request streams, this can cause overload problems. We have seen this on cameras generally.

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JH
John Honovich
Jan 04, 2017
IPVM

Axis provided more information. There is a FAQ specifically available on that, 'Why do I get the message "503 service unavailable."

The answer is that many M series cameras have hardware limitations on unique streams.

Axis has a whitepaper that goes into more details on these limitations. This excerpt is relevant to the M3046:

Moreover, the paper notes that:

Products having HDMI option will reserve the 3th source buffer for this option when it’s enabled

The combination of streams used on these hardware restricted models is likely what caused the 503 message.

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