How SNAP helps rental car companies and shuttle operators accomplish reliable camera capture using diagnostic logging and optional overlay metadata.
Introduction
When a capture fails or returns a blurry image, you need to know why. SNAP’s camera diagnostics log every capture event: success or failure, image size, resolution, and duration. You can review recent logs per camera to spot patterns—slow fetches, small images, or repeated errors.
Optionally, organizations can enable diagnostic overlays on proxied images. When enabled, images are displayed with a timestamp and metadata overlay, helping you verify capture timing and camera settings visually. Overlays are useful for troubleshooting without digging into raw logs.
This guide covers what diagnostic logs capture, how to interpret them, overlay configuration, and best practices for keeping cameras healthy.
Why This Feature Matters — Visibility and Troubleshooting
- Visibility: See exactly what happened during each capture—duration, size, resolution.
- Troubleshooting: Identify slow cameras, failed fetches, or poor image quality.
- Pattern detection: Spot recurring issues (e.g., camera X always times out after 5 PM).
- Audit: Logs provide an audit trail for capture events.
- Overlay verification: Optional overlay helps visually verify capture timing and metadata.
What You Get When You Use This Feature
Your Workflow
- Enable diagnostics: Logging is automatic; no configuration needed for basic capture.
- Review logs: Open camera diagnostics (Admin > Cameras > [Camera] > Diagnostics or similar) to view recent logs.
- Enable overlay (optional): In Org settings, enable diagnostic overlay for proxied images.
- Act on findings: Use log data to fix camera placement, network, or provider settings.
What the Feature Produces
- Diagnostic logs: Event type, timestamp, message, image size, resolution, duration, optional details JSON.
- Overlay images: Proxied images with timestamp and metadata overlay when enabled.
- Log retention: Logs are retained for a configurable period; old logs are cleaned up automatically.
Understanding the Results
Diagnostic Log Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Event Type | Type of event (e.g., CaptureSuccess, CaptureFailed) |
| Occurred At | Timestamp of the event |
| Message | Optional message or error text |
| Image Size Bytes | Size of captured image |
| Image Width / Height | Resolution of captured image |
| Duration Ms | Time taken for capture (milliseconds) |
| Details Json | Additional structured data |
Interpreting Duration
- Fast (< 2 seconds): Usually healthy; network and provider are responsive.
- Slow (2–5 seconds): May indicate network latency or provider load.
- Very slow (> 5 seconds): Investigate network, provider API, or camera configuration.
Interpreting Image Size
- Very small (< 10 KB): May indicate low resolution or compression; check camera settings.
- Reasonable (50–500 KB): Typical for JPEG captures.
- Large (> 1 MB): High resolution; may impact storage and LPR performance.
Reports and Deliverables
- Log viewer: Per-camera log list in Admin.
- Overlay images: Proxied images with overlay when org setting is enabled.
- No exports: Logs are for internal troubleshooting; use screenshots or notes if you need to share.
Best Practices
- Review logs after failures: When a capture fails, check the log for that camera and time.
- Monitor duration trends: Increasing duration may indicate network or provider degradation.
- Use overlay for visual checks: Enable overlay when debugging camera placement or timing.
- Clean up old logs: Diagnostic log retention is configurable; balance retention with storage.
- Correlate with LPR: Low LPR confidence + small image size often indicates resolution or lighting issues.
Conclusion
SNAP’s camera diagnostics give you visibility into every capture event. Logs show duration, size, and resolution; optional overlays add visual verification. Use them to keep your cameras performing and to troubleshoot quickly when issues arise. Explore Admin > Cameras for diagnostic access.
The post Camera Diagnostics: A Complete Guide to Troubleshooting Capture Issues first appeared on C2IT Labs.