Hikvision cameras lost in cyberspace...

[evan9eleven]

Hello everyone! First post here, so I'll try not to step on any toes!

At my holiday home I have installed a HikVision DS-7608NI-I2/8P recorder, and three Hikvision cameras (a PTZ and two bullet cams.) All cameras are powered by POE and the cabling out to them is Cat 6. The cables are a straight run from the cameras to the NVR, nothing in between. The system has been up and running for a couple months with no problems, and I could easily view the cams using the Hik-Connect app on my iPhone. That is, until a few days ago, more below.

Note that since I'm quite some distance from the property, I can't get there myself to troubleshoot, and though my wife is there working remotely I can't ask her to spend her days fiddling with my gizmos. I'm just hoping to get some input from the brain trust here on what I should be looking for.


So last week we got fibre internet installed to replace the inadequate dish internet we had been using, and suddenly my cameras are no where to be found on the network. Here are some facts about the system and what I've done to troubleshoot:

• We have a fixed IP from the fibre company, and the connection is a fibre converter to ethernet, and in to our router from there.
• With the new internet connection all devices on the network needed to be restarted but after that everything came back online except the cams.
• The NVR is online and visible in Hik-Connect, also comes right up in SADP.
• Cameras are showing as offline in Hik-Connect
• I logged in to the network remotely and checked all settings, rebooted again, tried re-setting all settings and starting over, no luck.
• Had my wife check the back of the NVR and UH-OH there are no lights on the network ports. These were previously blinking away happily as they should.
• Had my wife move a camera cable from the NVR directly to the router which also has POE. POE light illuminates, and the camera gets an IP address, but while there is traffic showing going out to the camera, there is no traffic coming back from it. So it would seem that the camera is getting power but is otherwise lost in space.
• I've checked with my electrician who pulled the fibre in to the house and he could assure me that all my cabling is just as before.
• One thing I have not tried is to connect a cam directly to the router and then see if it is visible in the SADP tool. Maybe the cams need to be re-registered?

So I'm utterly baffled, as is my company IT guy who moonlights helping me on my projects. Obviously there are a number of next steps that I can't get done until I'm physically there (like testing cables and moving the cameras inside to connect them directly to the router or NVR to rule out cable issues. Or see if the cameras somehow went up in smoke...)


Sorry this is so long, but if anyone is going to help then well, you'll need all the data.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies!


-evan

 

[JB1970]

Hello everyone! First post here, so I'll try not to step on any toes!

At my holiday home I have installed a HikVision DS-7608NI-I2/8P recorder, and three Hikvision cameras (a PTZ and two bullet cams.) All cameras are powered by POE and the cabling out to them is Cat 6. The cables are a straight run from the cameras to the NVR, nothing in between. The system has been up and running for a couple months with no problems, and I could easily view the cams using the Hik-Connect app on my iPhone. That is, until a few days ago, more below.

Note that since I'm quite some distance from the property, I can't get there myself to troubleshoot, and though my wife is there working remotely I can't ask her to spend her days fiddling with my gizmos. I'm just hoping to get some input from the brain trust here on what I should be looking for.


So last week we got fibre internet installed to replace the inadequate dish internet we had been using, and suddenly my cameras are no where to be found on the network. Here are some facts about the system and what I've done to troubleshoot:

• We have a fixed IP from the fibre company, and the connection is a fibre converter to ethernet, and in to our router from there.
• With the new internet connection all devices on the network needed to be restarted but after that everything came back online except the cams.
• The NVR is online and visible in Hik-Connect, also comes right up in SADP.
• Cameras are showing as offline in Hik-Connect
• I logged in to the network remotely and checked all settings, rebooted again, tried re-setting all settings and starting over, no luck.
• Had my wife check the back of the NVR and UH-OH there are no lights on the network ports. These were previously blinking away happily as they should.
• Had my wife move a camera cable from the NVR directly to the router which also has POE. POE light illuminates, and the camera gets an IP address, but while there is traffic showing going out to the camera, there is no traffic coming back from it. So it would seem that the camera is getting power but is otherwise lost in space.
• I've checked with my electrician who pulled the fibre in to the house and he could assure me that all my cabling is just as before.
• One thing I have not tried is to connect a cam directly to the router and then see if it is visible in the SADP tool. Maybe the cams need to be re-registered?

So I'm utterly baffled, as is my company IT guy who moonlights helping me on my projects. Obviously there are a number of next steps that I can't get done until I'm physically there (like testing cables and moving the cameras inside to connect them directly to the router or NVR to rule out cable issues. Or see if the cameras somehow went up in smoke...)


Sorry this is so long, but if anyone is going to help then well, you'll need all the data.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies!


-evan

It's difficult to ascertain what's wrong as your full setup and configuration isn't clear.

I'm guessing that the cameras are connected directly to the PoE ports on the NVR? If so there should be no need to "see" the cameras in Hik Connect - just the NVR. You should only register the NVR with Hik Connect (not the cameras connected to it - there's no need) and let it handle the connection to your cameras. If the cameras were left as plug and play when they were installed that's how it would be. Might your IT guy have altered the network settings in the cameras themselves rather than simply plugging them into the NVR? Or are they connected differently (via a switch on the LAN)

With regard to the new internet connection. Have the NVR network settings been altered to match that - IP address, default gateway etc? For instance if you moved from one particular ISP to BT, your network would still be in the 192.168.1.xxx subnet but BT uses 192.168.1.254 as it's router address (gateway) whereas the other uses 192.168.1.1. That's just an example.

Was port forwarding used on the original connection and is it on the new connection?

It's likely to be a very simple configuration issue. There's no need to start moving cameras, testing cables etc. The first rule of fault finding is "establish what has changed". The issue started with your new router/internet connection - so I'd guess you just need to look at the network settings on the NVR and router.

 

[evan9eleven]

It's difficult to ascertain what's wrong as your full setup and configuration isn't clear.

First, thanks for your answer JB.

A simple overview of my network looks like fibre => fibre converter => router => 4 wifi AP's + lots of IoT devices. After the router is a switch, which supplies net to the NVR. The NVR is set to both receive DHCP from the router and supply DHCP out to the cameras. Basically the default settings on the NVR if I remember correctly.

More below.

I'm guessing that the cameras are connected directly to the PoE ports on the NVR?

Correct.

If so there should be no need to "see" the cameras in Hik Connect - just the NVR. You should only register the NVR with Hik Connect (not the cameras connected to it - there's no need) and let it handle the connection to your cameras. If the cameras were left as plug and play when they were installed that's how it would be. Might your IT guy have altered the network settings in the cameras themselves rather than simply plugging them into the NVR? Or are they connected differently (via a switch on the LAN)

So I'm the one that set up the NVR and cameras. These are connected to the PoE ports on the NVR and as you say were just plug and play, no issues. No settings were changed initially for the cameras or NVR in the net changeover, only after we started troubleshooting.
When I say that Hik-Connect doesn't see the cameras, I simply mean they appear as "offline."

With regard to the new internet connection. Have the NVR network settings been altered to match that - IP address, default gateway etc? For instance if you moved from one particular ISP to BT, your network would still be in the 192.168.1.xxx subnet but BT uses 192.168.1.254 as it's router address (gateway) whereas the other uses 192.168.1.1. That's just an example.

Yes, I understand. So the NVR has DHCP activated, and received a new IP plus gateway and router addresses. Since we, and not the ISP manage the router, we were able to keep the same address range for our own network specifically to avoid changeover issues. While the ISP has provided a fixed IP for me (well at a cost of course) the router connects to the ISP using PPPoE. Beyond that we decide the DHCP range to use and kept it the same as before. Range is 192.168.3.1 - 254 where .1 is the router and the NVR happened to get .2 assigned to it. It was .25 previously. So since nothing changed except the source of internet to the router, I would have expected everything to work as before.

Was port forwarding used on the original connection and is it on the new connection?

Port forwarding is not in use, no change there.

It's likely to be a very simple configuration issue. There's no need to start moving cameras, testing cables etc. The first rule of fault finding is "establish what has changed". The issue started with your new router/internet connection - so I'd guess you just need to look at the network settings on the NVR and router.

I agree, and this is exactly where I started. In spite of the NVR having the correct network settings, the cameras just don't show up. The fact that there is no link activity shown on the 3 used NVR ports is of particular concern. No change if moving a camera to a different port. PoE is turned on in the NVR configuration. As mentioned previously, plugging a camera in to the router directly does illuminate the PoE light and the camera gets an IP address assigned.

This is what is so baffling here, the NVR and cameras should just have come back online after everything was restarted.

Obviously I can go in and look through the settings again to make sure, but so far the answer is eluding me-- thus my mentioning looking at hardware issues.

Not sure if I was able to give a more complete picture, but as always any comments are welcome.

 

[JB1970]

Much clearer idea of setup now - thanks.

There are a couple of things it could be:

1. You're not using port forwarding and so the NVR automatically attempts to map the required ports using UPnP. If you look in Network > Basic Settings > NAT you'll see that Enable UPnP is checked and the table should show the internal port numbers in use, the external ports they are mapped to and the status. It could be as simple as UPnP not being enabled on your router, or not working as it should (it can be fickle) - is this a new router or did you always use this one on your previous connection? I'll never use UPnP on my systems - I'll port forward every time. It's what Hikvision recommend and it works better.

2. I'd always recommend you use a static IP as the NVR LAN address. Although it's unlikely, there's always a chance that the address currently assigned by the router changes (following a power failure, device being temporarily disconnected and the lease expires etc). If that happens the UPnP above has to sort itself out again. (not the cause of your issue but may help you avoid one later on)

3. Manually set the DNS of your NVR to 8.8.8.8 rather than letting the router handle it. Again this is recommended by Hikvision and the new ISPs DNS may not be resolving the Hik Connect server address.

4. Sometimes when the network changes it helps to disable Hik Connect on the device temporarily and then re establish the connection.

I'm not sure about the lack of network activity on the camera ports. However I'd initially treat that as something separate and concentrate on getting the system back online first.

 

[evan9eleven]

Thanks a bunch JB, I'll make the changes you suggest and see where that gets me.

 

[David]

@evan9eleven I use static IP addresses for my NVR and cameras, I also reserve those IP addresses in the router by binding them to the relevant MAC addresses. This means your IP CCTV setup does not need a router to operate, obviously if your router is down you lose remote access.

 

[evan9eleven]

Thanks David. I've set a static IP for the NVR now and will reserve the IP addresses in the router, good suggestions. Though it must be said that I'm not having any issues reaching the NVR locally or remotely-- it is online and functioning.

The puzzling item continues to be why the cameras-- none of the 3-- light up the PoE ports and don't appear in live view. When I originally set these up it was just to plug them in and bang, there they were.

 

[JB1970]

In your case do not reserve IP addresses for the cameras or the NVR in the router!

NVR - If you've set a static IP address for the NVR already, there is no need to reserve one in the router. DHCP reservation is a means of leaving a device (your NVR in this case) set to obtain an IP address via DHCP, but ensuring that the DHCP mechanism always assigns the same reserved address from it's pool. As @David has said it's done by binding a chosen IP address from the DHCP pool to the MAC address of your device. The only reason to use DHCP reservation rather than a static IP address would be if the device did not support static addressing (which your NVR does)

Cameras - Your cameras are connected directly to your NVR PoE ports and so use a different network to that of your router. As you've already indicated your network is in the 192.168.3.xxx range whereas the cameras are assigned addresses in the 192.168.254.xxx range. You can't therefore reserve camera addresses in the router (in your case)

 

[David]

Thanks David. I've set a static IP for the NVR now and will reserve the IP addresses in the router, good suggestions. Though it must be said that I'm not having any issues reaching the NVR locally or remotely-- it is online and functioning.

The puzzling item continues to be why the cameras-- none of the 3-- light up the PoE ports and don't appear in live view. When I originally set these up it was just to plug them in and bang, there they were.

The 3 NVR PoE ports not lighting up and the cameras work connected to a separate PoE source is a concern. Has the NVR PoE supply been disabled? I am not sure if this can be checked remotely via the web GUI.

 

[David]

In your case do not reserve IP addresses for the cameras or the NVR in the router!

NVR - If you've set a static IP address for the NVR already, there is no need to reserve one in the router. DHCP reservation is a means of leaving a device (your NVR in this case) set to obtain an IP address via DHCP, but ensuring that the DHCP mechanism always assigns the same reserved address from it's pool. As @David has said it's done by binding a chosen IP address from the DHCP pool to the MAC address of your device. The only reason to use DHCP reservation rather than a static IP address would be if the device did not support static addressing (which your NVR does)

Cameras - Your cameras are connected directly to your NVR PoE ports and so use a different network to that of your router. As you've already indicated your network is in the 192.168.3.xxx range whereas the cameras are assigned addresses in the 192.168.254.xxx range. You can't therefore reserve camera addresses in the router (in your case)

I'd forgotten that cameras connected to the NVR are on their own subnet.

 

[evan9eleven]

The 3 NVR PoE ports not lighting up and the cameras work connected to a separate PoE source is a concern. Has the NVR PoE supply been disabled? I am not sure if this can be checked remotely via the web GUI.

Yes, PoE is enabled, and I did try turning it off and on again just in case. (I have remote access via the wife's PC, so I can log in to the NVR as though I was sitting there.) Honestly, this system was running perfectly for couple months. Got a new ISP, but kept the internal IP range the same. All other devices came back online including the NVR, with no changes. But the cameras are no where to be found. I'm going to ask my wife to bring the NVR home with her so I can test it directly and either rule it in or out. I've already run her out of patience swapping cables for me.

 

[evan9eleven]

Hi everyone! Just a little follow up on this, my wife brought the NVR back with her so I could troubleshoot, and while the network ports light up and show traffic when connected to powered devices, they are no longer providing PoE. I connected up a PoE wifi box as a test, and it was as dead as could be. Switching PoE on and off in the NVR configuration made no difference, all 8 ports will no longer power devices. My HikVision reseller is replacing the unit with a new one under warranty, so hopefully this was just a fluke.