NVR5416-16P-4KS2E ... was working ... now all cameras disconnected

loopforever

loopforever

n3wb
Jan 7, 2019
17
9
Nesconset, NY
Hi all,

I recently bought and installed 10 Dahua POE cameras powered and controlled by a NVR5416-16P-4KS2E NVR.

For several days the cameras were working great. I was able to access them via the gDMSS Plus app with no complaints.

The other night, for no discernible reason, all the cameras disappeared from the NVR. Gone.

There is a POE tab on one of the NVR setting pages and it shows all my cameras plugged in -- but -- it now shows them all as "Disconnected" (w/ Red circle icon).

I know the cameras are getting power because the IR lights were lit up last night, and the NVR POE tab is showing power draw at 50-something watts (no where near capacity for the switch).

The NVR itself is assigned an IP in the 192.168.1.0/24 range via DHCP with a static assignment on the router.

The NVR "Switch" tab is assigning IPs to the POE cameras in the 10.1.1.0/24 range.

None of the cameras are currently appearing via Device Search in the NVR. They are all different models, they all previously worked for several days, they all stopped working at the exact same time.

I have tried a Factory Reset of the NVR and still no luck.

Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks in advance!
 
If everything worked once that's a good start... If it were me I'd start with connecting one camera directly to my pc to see if I can login to the camera via web browser and display an image. If that works, I know the camera is ok... With that same camera I'd then do another factory reset on the NVR and connect just one camera to the NVR via I pre-made RJ45 cable and see if the NVR picks it up and displays video.

If that works fine I'd start looking at cabling in you current setup.. A badly terminated rj45 connector can cause very strange issues on a NVR. If it doesn't work I'd look at flashing the NVR's firmware and repeat again. Should you still have no look I'd think you may have a faulty NVR
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I did not consider plugging a laptop into the POE ports. But, this would allow me to test DHCP assignment on the NVR "switch" side and also have a route to the individual cameras on the 10.1.1.0/24 subnet.

Further I can try the Dahua Config Tool without having to guess at what IP address range is being assigned on the "switch" side. One fear I have is that somehow the cameras have been assigned addresses in another subnet, and have become inaccessible from the outside of the switch. (Why that would happen, I have no idea, but I heavily suspect an addressing issue, since the cameras themselves DO have power).

I do not suspect cable or termination issues, as each cable was tested, wired as 568B, pure copper, and each is known to work find for several days both supporting the POE load and sufficient throughput for high frame rate video, 4K video at the length of each cable run. NONE of the cameras work, it is unlikely ALL of the cables are defective. So I feel this is unlikely.

As for security, not only is internet access disallowed to into my network, all traffic originating from the NVR switchport is disallowed from establishing outbound connections to the internet, with the exception of NTP, which I require for accurate time syncing for the NVR and cameras. ie. I trust no inbound traffic except OpenVPN, and I trust no outbound traffic from any Dahua product on that leg of the network.

I may not have a chance to play with this tonight, but I will be sure to respond once I have some updates in the next day or two. Thanks all!
 
Well, the saga continues. I need some serious help! This is driving me nuts.

I've done some troubleshooting and I can now say the following is true:

  1. All the cameras work fine. I connected each camera to my regular Unifi POE switch, plugged a laptop into the same switch and assigned a static IP in the 10.1.1.0/24 subnet, same as the cameras. Found all the cameras via ConfigTool. I logged into each camera one at a time and normalized all the TCP/IP settings so they have static IPs ranging from .101 to .111. Also manually set the time zone and time to match the NVR settings, since they were all out of whack. Each camera has a functioning video feed.
  2. It can be said, because of item 1 above, that all the wiring is fine too.
  3. The cameras, even after this manual configuration, fail to be found via the NVR Device Search which is still configured to use 10.1.1.0/24. Further, "Manual Add" of any camera fails even with (now) well known IP addresses. However, the cameras ARE getting power via the POE switch ports on the NVR. So whatever is wrong is at the TCP/IP level -- on the NVR.
  4. I plugged two laptops into the NVR switch ports, each with static IPs: 10.1.1.2 and 10.1.1.3. They cannot ping each other! However, if I connect both to my normal switch, they can ping each other just fine. Further evidence something is whacked out with my NVR switch ports.
  5. Similar to above, with both laptops plugged into the NVR, I try to ping them from the NVR itself (10.1.1.1 to .2 and .3). Both fail. However, pings to the 192.168.1.0/24 network (ie. the "outside" network) succeed just fine.
I highly suspect something is wrong with the routing table on the NVR. However the UI is too limiting and I cannot see it. I tried to follow a guide to enable telnet access, but this doesn't work anymore (I think my firmware is too new). I don't understand how a factory reset does not fix this.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. This thing was working TOTALLY fine for several days, and it is presently a brick.
 
c hris527 said:
Did you reset..Default your NVR ??
Click to expand...
Hi Chris, yes -- I took it a step further. That screen, when accessed directly via the NVR, has a Factory Reset button. I did a full Factory Reset of the NVR and there has been no change.

I feel the only way I can resolve this is if I can get shell access to the NVR. But there is no documentation on a supported way to telnet or ssh in. The only stuff that's out there are now defunct exploits.
 
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Spent another night playing with this and I think there is nothing left to do. At this point the only explanation can be a bug in the firmware. Without shell access I cannot debug how the unit itself is routing between switch ports.

I reset the NVR again. Tried to see if the NVR was saying it was using 10.1.1.0/24 for its internal subnet, but perhaps due to a bug, assigning IPs in some other subnet. So, switched one of the cameras to DHCP, plugged it into an NVR switch port. Nothing happened (this might be expected because I don't think the NVRs are doing traditional DHCP assignment). Plugged it into my regular POE switch, let the router assign it an IP in the 192.168.1.0/24 subnet. Device is instantly found by the NVR Camera Registration -> Device Search. Camera works fine. So, basically as an NVR, it's working fine. As a "switch" it's just totally broken.

The only thing that does not work -- and it is essential -- is ALL TCP/IP routing in and out of the 16 switch ports on the NVR. From the NVR, I can ping itself on the 10.1.1.1 gateway address but cannot ping any other device on that subnet. Two PCs on the 10.1.1.0/24 subnet cannot ping each other. Ran nmap on the entire subnet from one PC, it could not find any host other than itself. The NVR is simply not routing packets between any switch port.

I would like to try downgrading to very old firmware. But, I don't know where to get it...anyone know? Other than that, I think this device needs to be returned.
 
FYI The newer Dahua NVR's for must be security reasons will NOT let you ping other devices if plugged into the switch on the back, I think you can access only "registered devices" I found that out last year the hard way. Did you try to set your switch range to a different subnet 3.1.1.1 and see what happens.

You can access cameras directly on their own subnet behind the switch from your management port two ways.

Local.JPG

That is the management IP Address, Dahua is letting you pass thru, the next cam behind your NVR would be 10082 and so on. I just log on using IE, type in my NVR IP and the port numbers. The Other way is in the registration screen.

NVRCapture.JPG Just clicking on the IE will get you to the cam also. I know you might already know this stuff but it might shine a little light on the newer working of the switch.
 
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Hi Chris, thanks for that information. I did not know that it was intentional that devices on the switch ports could not talk to each other. If that's the case, then I suppose it's working as intended.

I did try changing the internal subnet to something else but also with no luck.

Previously, when the cameras were "registered" I was able to access them directly via the port mapping you described in your screenshots. But when everything went to shit (for no reason at all), the cameras remained powered via POE (according to POE tab) drawing power, but all disappeared from Camera Registration screen. So where at one moment I had 10 registered and functioning cameras, after the "event", I now have nothing at all.

For example, I have one camera statically assigned to 10.1.1.101. If I plug this camera into the NVR right now, it will power on. But it will never appear in Camera Registration -- even if I manually add the IP it results in "Cannot find network host." And further, from the Info -> Network -> Test page, although I can ping 10.1.1.1 (gateway address on the switch itself), I cannot ping 10.1.1.101. I don't have the device in front of me right now, but the message was something like "Destination host unreachable." or something like that. So regardless of if I try access via ICMP or HTTP via the port assignment, the route to the camera is inaccessible. Crazy stuff. It'd be one thing if I could correlate to an error in a log file or something...but it truly just "stopped working" out of nowhere!

Andy has just suggested to me to try unplugging the HDD and doing a hard reset via the button on the NVR board. So I'm going to try that tonight after work...I think that's probably the last possible thing I can do to troubleshoot.
 
Yea, I think last resort is right, he will take care of you tho..he has been really good with the guys here. Good luck.
 
loopforever said:
Hi Chris, thanks for that information. I did not know that it was intentional that devices on the switch ports could not talk to each other. If that's the case, then I suppose it's working as intended.

I did try changing the internal subnet to something else but also with no luck.

Previously, when the cameras were "registered" I was able to access them directly via the port mapping you described in your screenshots. But when everything went to shit (for no reason at all), the cameras remained powered via POE (according to POE tab) drawing power, but all disappeared from Camera Registration screen. So where at one moment I had 10 registered and functioning cameras, after the "event", I now have nothing at all.

For example, I have one camera statically assigned to 10.1.1.101. If I plug this camera into the NVR right now, it will power on. But it will never appear in Camera Registration -- even if I manually add the IP it results in "Cannot find network host." And further, from the Info -> Network -> Test page, although I can ping 10.1.1.1 (gateway address on the switch itself), I cannot ping 10.1.1.101. I don't have the device in front of me right now, but the message was something like "Destination host unreachable." or something like that. So regardless of if I try access via ICMP or HTTP via the port assignment, the route to the camera is inaccessible. Crazy stuff. It'd be one thing if I could correlate to an error in a log file or something...but it truly just "stopped working" out of nowhere!

Andy has just suggested to me to try unplugging the HDD and doing a hard reset via the button on the NVR board. So I'm going to try that tonight after work...I think that's probably the last possible thing I can do to troubleshoot.
Click to expand...
It seems we did not hear back from him on this.
 
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