Fault-finding
Cannot find footage from a known time
Use the playback calendar: pick the date, tick the channel, drag the timeline to the hour. When nothing shows for a period you know was recorded, the recorder's clock is usually wrong and the footage sits filed under a different timestamp — check the clock before concluding the recording is gone.
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Verify the recorder's clock first
Compare the recorder's displayed time against your phone. If it is hours out or showing a wrong date — routine after power cuts once the internal clock battery has died — the footage you want exists under the shifted time. Work out the offset, then scrub the timeline around the adjusted hour. This one check rescues more 'missing' footage than everything else on this page combined.
Check how far back the drive actually reaches
Open the oldest recording the calendar offers. That date is your true retention, and any incident older than it has been overwritten — no amount of searching will surface it. If the window is shorter than you expected, added cameras, a raised bitrate or a partly failed drive have all been shrinking it, and each is worth confirming while you are already in the menus.
Search by event where the system allows
Recorders index motion events, alarm inputs and on some systems door entries. Jumping event to event beats dragging a timeline across an empty afternoon, and it catches the ten-second incident a manual scrub slides straight past. Once you find the clip, export it the same day — footage on a looping drive has a shelf life, and claims and complaints always take longer than the loop.
How do I find CCTV footage from a specific date and time?
There is a gap in the timeline. Where did it go?
A power cut with no UPS, a drive error, or a schedule that excluded the period are the usual reasons. The event log entries either side of the gap normally show which one it was.
Can you retrieve and export footage for us?
Yes, it is routine work. Give us the date and rough time and we locate, export and hand it over in a format you can pass to police or an insurer. Callout from PKR 3,000.
Rather have it done?
Security camera repair covers black screens, recorders that stopped writing, lost phone access after an internet change, and footage that will not play back. Most faults trace to power, connectors or settings rather than a dead camera. Callout in Islamabad or Rawalpindi starts at PKR 3,000, with the full fix priced before any work.
Security camera repair in Islamabad — prices and scope