So I’ve tried a series of four different IP cameras and none of them work. I can understand one or two of them being defective, but all four of them?
Camera 1: This was an Amcrest. I plugged it in and it worked, and I used it to play around with and put up temporarily to guard my halloween decorations, but it was technically indoor only so I removed it to get and outdoor model
Camera 2: This was an HKvision: This would work on and off, disappearing for several days at a time. I figured it was defective so I got a new one,
Camera 3: A GW Security dome camera. I plugged it in and the network light on both the camera and the router were blinking. I can’t find it on the network with any program, either Blue Iris, Ispy, or the software that came with the camera. The MAC address is not listed on my Comcast Gateway. I figured this was brand new defective so I bought a different model
Camera 4: This one is a Jidetech the activity light on the router blinks but not the one on the camera. I can’t find it with iSpy or Blue Iris. Nothing listed on the Gateway. The included software IPWizard recognizes it, but when the program launches internet explorer to go into the camera
Any ideas how to fix the problem? So are security cameras really this terrible or do I have other issues? Are all the people on Amazon that plug in a security camera and find it actually works fake reviews by the camera companies and a working IP camera is a figment of our imagination?
I suspect a network problem. I’m not familiar with using any of the brands you mentioned except Hikvision (which is a major player in the security camera market*), but it doesn’t make sense that all of them don’t work properly.
Have you tried working with tech support to get any of them up and running (I realize support varies in quality, but somebody should offer decent help)?
*there’ve been numerous Hikvision bootleg cameras sold online, and the company doesn’t support those.
As an update, it seems that the issue was the Comcast gateway was assigning addresses at 10.X.X.X, and the cameras are configured for 192.X.X.X addresses. Someone suggested the Comcast gateways are really just for people that want to plug in a computer or two, and that I should buy my own router. I did (I also plan to buy my own modem to so I don’t have to rent one at $13 a month) and started setting up a separate network. It still didn’t work, and just about when I was getting ready to burn all the stuff, I saw the suggestion online that the 3rd number of the IP addresses needs to be the same. Sure enough the camera was configured as 192.X.1.X, and my computer / router was 192.X.10.X. Changing the camera to 10.X resulted in it being found immediately.
Still a few strange things though: The new modem will not list all the devices attached to it through a non-managed switch nor the camera when plugged directly into it, but everything seems to work. Also putting the switch in the path resulted in a loooong time (like a half hour) until the entire test network was back up and operational.
Should I try to figure out why all this is happening or just accept that it works now and work at transitioning the rest of my devices and the internet connection to it.
Finally, I know I need to put the Comcast Gateway into bridge mode to disable the route functionality of it before I plug my new router in, but what could theoretically happen if you have two live routers plugged into each other?
Can flaky cabling cause issues like devices kind of working but not being found on the router, or devices that sometimes work and sometimes don’t, or take eons to boot up and work properly? I’ve wired the house myself but I’m not a pro at making cables, the connection to the router to the switch is plain Cat 5 even though it’s registering as Gigabit.
I take it generally to install an IP camera you use the manufacturers tool to find and set it to an IP address that’s compatible with your network?
My M.O. generally involves acceptance when something works, even if I don’t entirely understand why. 
The cameras I’ve used most recently are detected on my network without my having to assign IP addresses. I dimly remember monkeying with that stuff a long time ago, but ideally it’s an automatic process.
Ease of setup is something I’d check really carefully in reviews before buying a camera.