1 min read

When the Problem Was Just… the Plug

When the Problem Was Just… the Plug

March 26th: The day the DVR stopped recording.

A friend called me up, worried. His CCTV system — 4 cameras, a DVR, and a router hooked into my network setup — suddenly stopped recording footage. No warning, no errors. Just… nothing.

So naturally, I packed my gear, brought my best “tech whisperer” mindset, and headed over.

The Scene

  • The router? Alive and well.
  • All four CCTV feeds? Streaming like a charm.
  • The DVR? Offline. Not recording. Not reachable. Not even blinking.

Cue the dramatic pause.

I checked the usual suspects:

  • Power? ✅
  • HDD space? ✅
  • Network config? ✅

And then… I spotted it.

The LAN cable. Ever so slightly out of its port. Not fully clipped in. Just hanging on for dear life — and barely losing connection.

I gave it a satisfying click back into place. Boom. DVR came online. Recordings resumed. Problem solved.

The Funny Part?

We spent longer debating theories than it took to fix it.

It’s a classic reminder that in tech — even with all our smart tools, logs, and dashboards — sometimes, the fix is literally just plugging something in properly.

  • No fancy scripts.
  • No firmware updates.
  • Just… plug the dang thing in.

Extra Touch

To help him monitor everything more easily in the future, I set him up with Uptime Kuma — a lightweight self-hosted monitoring tool. Now he can check the DVR and network status anytime, anywhere via:

👉 https://jtw.yonathan.id

Takeaway?

Always check the cable.
Especially before you start blaming the cloud, gremlins, or Mercury in retrograde.

Tech doesn’t always have to be complicated. Sometimes, it just needs a gentle push and a good laugh.