WebcamXP has a quirky way of handling user databases. If you change the settings while the server is running, it doesn't always "take."
After three months of trial and error, here is the exact, repeatable fix that gave me a stable webcamxp:8080 server with secret32 working permanently. my webcamxp server 8080 secret32 fixed
taskkill /F /IM WebcamXP.exe timeout /t 5 /nobreak D:\WebcamXP\WebcamXP.exe --headless --port 8080 --auth admin:secret32 WebcamXP has a quirky way of handling user databases