What to do when issues arise
1. Read the manuals!
Most faults reported by customers come from not reading carefully the manuals included with the products or available for download. The manuals also include a section on the most common errors and their solutions. Don't overestimate your skills — even if you think you can handle everything easily, it's best to study the manuals and follow recommended procedures.
2. Apply common sense and elimination
If you encounter a fault, common sense and the elimination method are your friends. By simply swapping the same component and progressively eliminating, you'll narrow down to a likely faulty or misconfigured part of your camera system. For example: one camera doesn't work, swap it with another — this verifies whether the wiring and power are fine. The recorder doesn't work, try a different power supply with matching specs to verify whether only the supply is faulty — and so on.
3. Walk through the entire wiring once more
We're only human and anyone can make a mistake. That's why it's important to walk through the entire wiring, routes and components again. You may have made an inadvertent slip and a small mistake then affects the whole system. We recommend carefully checking and, if needed, measuring all connectors, cabling and components of the camera system. Another good aid is to reset the device to factory defaults (in the recorder menu, on cameras using the cable button or the SD-card slot, or via SearchTool).
4. Possible material fatigue
A camera system is a set of devices running continuously for many years. As is the way of the world, nothing lasts forever — so occasionally a component must be replaced. For instance, power supplies may have reduced output if poorly chosen and overloaded for a long time. It can then look like the recorder is powered but the disk doesn't work — exactly because the supply can no longer power it 100%.
5. Keep older systems updated
Regularly update the firmware of all devices and the software of the PCs or phones used. After updating — or if no update is available — perform a factory reset and reconfigure the user settings. Then test whether the issue is resolved. If not, contact technical support.
6. Discuss the issue with our technicians
For technical questions our helpdesk is here. A team of trained professionals will look after you. Send your technical query to support@patronum.eu. For correctly framing your question we recommend reading How to ask technical support.