New 5442 cam connects via router port, not by switch

J

JDavis

n3wb
Jul 6, 2017
14
13
Longtime lurker here. Not sure if this is a Dahua issue or a networking issue I'm having, but I'll try here first because I suspect the latter.

I grabbed a new EmpireTech IPC-T5442T-ZE cam from EMPIRETECANDY during his recent new year sale. I have one other non varifocal 5442 and two older 5321 cams (purchased directly from Andy), which have been working great for years.

When I tried to set up the new camera, I connected it by ethernet to a POE port on my newish TPLink 16 port switch (this one, which is on the POE switch suggestion list: ). One of my 5231s is already connected like that to a POE port on that switch, and I have the other two cams connected via a non POE port to another dumb switch and power inserters in my garage. This switch is my first (semi) managed switch, but I hadn't even logged into the "Easy Smart" interface until recently. It had always worked just fine for me as a dumb swich. Poking around in there did not produce any obvious change or solution to the problem I'm about to describe.

I couldn't get the camera to connect this way at all. No DHCP assignment by my router, and the browser connection timed out. I had no such problems setting up the other cams, or with accessing them still via the browser. I use Edge in IE mode, and the other cams have of course been changed from their default IPs.

I tried connecting the new cam to a non POE port on the switch and a 12v power supply, and had the same result. I was ready to send it back to Amazon but reached out first to Andy by email. He said something in his response that made me realize that I hadn't set up any cameras since getting the new switch, so I tried it with a 12v power supply and an ethernet port on the back of my Asus AC86U router. Everything worked perfectly in this configuration.

I figured I would just set up the cam, change the default IP, plug it back into a POE port on the switch (minus the 12v supply), and all would be well, but I still can't get any response from the camera when plugged into the switch. Different POE ports on the switch, different ethernet cables, power cycling the switch- it doesn't matter. The browser just times out when trying to log in, like there's nothing there. The link light on the switch for that port turns on when I connect the 12v supply, but no other signs of life really. The cam only works for me when connected to an open ethernet port on the router and a 12v supply.

Anyone have any clue what I'm doing wrong here? I appreciate and am open to any suggestions.
 
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Reading your post, I have the same problem with a 5442T-AS I just received. It powered up and I went in and configured it, video parameters, network, IVS and so on, and left it sitting on the bench for a burn in. It dropped offline in about fifteen minutes and won't power up through a PoE switch. The PoE light blinks slowly, but no network activity happens. It works fine plugged into a wall wart though. I have contacted Andy at EmpireTech, the seller, but it's Chinese New Year and they're basically shut down for two weeks. I suspect the PoE board is dead and am hoping it can be field replaced by me. If I hear something I'll let you know.

My switch, an IPCamPower 16 port, is rated at a total of 200 watts with 30 watts available per port so I am sure it's not the switch being overloaded. A 5442T-AS doesn't even draw 10 watts. Tried different pre-made cable and even tried a factory reset all with no results so I'm convinced the PoE board went south, especially since I was able to fully configure it when I first powered it up through the switch and when I powered it with the wall wart it still had all the changes I made still in place. That means the factory reset did nothing since it wasn't getting power through PoE.
 
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Could be a bad POE on the camera, but it could be the POE switch is over capacity. Just because it has X number ports doesn't mean it can power that many. Or like my TPLINK all but one of the POE ports still works as POE...

Have you tried unplugging all the other cams and trying this camera on a known good POE port? Do you have a POE injector you could try instead of the 12v power supply?
 
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Sorry to hear you're having trouble with one too @sebastiantombs.

Wittaj, the 5231 is the only POE device plugged into the switch, so I don't think it's overloaded, but I will try it on a POE injector (instead of the 12v supply) and the switch. That might at least help tell me if the switch is somehow the problem.
 
So @JDavis , several things come to mind, if I have understood your process so far.
Cannot connect to cam through a web browser trying:
1. Directly to a POE switch.
2. Connected to a non-POE port on switch and a 12Volt power supply connected to the power pigtail.

It does connect via a web browser when you connect directly to your ROUTER and use a 12Volt power supply connected to the power pigtail.

So there could be some issues. The POE board on the cam could be bad as @wittaj stated. That would account for #1 above, but not #2. To test the POE board on the cam, use a POE injector between the cam and the ROUTER. If it works, the POE board on the cam is fine.

That leaves a networking issue.

To help there it would be necessary to understand how your network is configured. You have some cams, a router, POE switch, non-POE switch(s), and a computer. Are you running BlueIris or something else? How are the cams, router, switches and computer connected to each other? Like the attached diagram? What are the IP addresses of the computer, cams, and router? Remember that the default IP address of the new cam is 192.168.1.108.

It may be that you can access the cam from your computer when the cam is connected to the router since the router uses DHCP. Are your other components using 192.168.1.xxx, or is it some other scheme?

Network Topology 0.JPG
 
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Your initial summary of my process @samplenhold is correct.

If I disconnect the 12v power source from the camera pigtail, the camera will work with an ethernet power injector (this one: ) while connected to the router, but not while connected to any port on the switch. So it would seem that our instincts about it being a networking issue are correct.

I don't have a blue iris PC yet (I wish I did). Everything is connected in a corner of my basement where I have the modem, router, switch, and a synology NAS (which I use for now to view the cams). The PC upstairs is connected via ethernet, but not involved directly with the cam setup other than a synology client app, or a browser. The router's IP is 192.168.1.2. The PC is 192.168.1.133. The cams are 192.168.1.107, 192.168.1.109, 192.168.110, and 192.168.1.111 (this is the new camera, after I changed it from the default). Approximately 25 or 30 other devices not related to the camera setup are connected on the network. The router's DHCP reservation range is 192.168.1.3 to 192.168.1.254, if that helps. The 16 port switch is 192.168.1.206. I can access all of the cams (including the new cam) via the synology desktop client, a browser on my PC, and on my phone's synology app, but the new camera in each case only while it is connected directly to the router and fed power via the 12v pigtail input or the injector linked above.

If all else fails I can leave it connected to the router, but for planning and UPS purposes I was hoping to be able to add this and more cams directly to the switch.
 
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only 8 ports are POE af/at with 110 watts. one TP link switch user reported on Amazon questions...> The fatal flaw is that PoE stops being live after a reboot. If you plug in a device that needs PoE, the port does not power up. You have to reboot the entire switch, with the PoE device plugged in, before it decides to provide power. Obviously, I dont want to reboot my switch every time I plug something in. At this point, id rather use power injectors than this silly switch.
 
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might have to visit the the Easy Smart feature and look around?
 
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Flintstone61 said:
only 8 ports are POE af/at with 110 watts. one TP link switch user reported on Amazon questions...> The fatal flaw is that PoE stops being live after a reboot. If you plug in a device that needs PoE, the port does not power up. You have to reboot the entire switch, with the PoE device plugged in, before it decides to provide power. Obviously, I dont want to reboot my switch every time I plug something in. At this point, id rather use power injectors than this silly switch.
Click to expand...

Excellent find! It doesn't match my experience with the switch though. One of my 5231s fired right up (and continues to operate just fine) on a POE switch port, and that wouldn't explain why my new cam doesn't work with a power injector on any of the non POE switch ports.

I agree that I need to poke around more with the switch's "easy smart" web interface, but looking thru it all last night, I didn't see anything that explained or would fix the behaviour I am seeing from the switch. Perhaps it is just a lemon though.
 
im running a Cisco WS-C3560X-24P-S with 2 power supplies and 2 cooling fans for redundancy. You can swap fans and power supplies easily( no tools) and find the parts on ebay and keep it running for a long time.
 
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JDavis said:
The router's IP is 192.168.1.2. The PC is 192.168.1.133. The cams are 192.168.1.107, 192.168.1.109, 192.168.110, and 192.168.1.111 (this is the new camera, after I changed it from the default). Approximately 25 or 30 other devices not related to the camera setup are connected on the network. The router's DHCP reservation range is 192.168.1.3 to 192.168.1.254, if that helps. The 16 port switch is 192.168.1.206
Click to expand...
Since your cams are within the DHCP reservation range, it is possible that you have an IP conflict. If you give anything on your network a fixed IP, that should not be included in the DHCP range of your router.

It's late here in Houston and I am not thinking straight. Let me think about it some more and get back to you. Others feel free to chime in. I know that @SouthernYankee knows quite a bit about this stuff and I am sure others do also.
 
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With problem cameras, I connect them directly to my laptop. I turn off WiFi and open a web browser and connect to the camera's IP. You just need a power supply for the camera. This will not resolve your issue, but will at least let you know that the camera is or is not the issue.

Note: I have the same switch AND the same camera. Works fine. The switch is fine for me and it comes with a lifetime warranty.

Be Safe.
 
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Eliminate possible IP conflict first imho. If you have a large number of DHCP devices, reserve the bottom end of the currency DHCP range for the cameras by changing the DHCP lease range to something like 192.168.1.2 thru 192.168.1.100. (Or even something like 192.168.1.125 to 192.168.1.254)

You will want to keep the default IP address unoccupied, so new cameras joining the network can start there and then you can move them. For many Dahua’s that’s 192.168.1.108

I don’t think you will want IP cameras getting DHCP addresses long-term unless you want lots of problems locating your video streams when things reset and they might get a different IP.
 
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Yeah, you should carve out a static IP section from your subnet. So with a subnet of 255.255.255.0 that gives you 254 host addresses available. I like to reserve the first ~25 for my static IP needs (servers, cameras, etc...) so I start my DHCP addresses usually at x.x.x.26 and go up to x.x.x.254.
 
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Thats good information guys...about the Static IP's being kept out of the DHCP range. I just changed my router/modem network settings. my dvr was static at 192.168.0.5. my dhcp range was .02-.253....Somewhere in the house a you tuber is probably wondering what happened to their stream....:)
 
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I do IP even simpler. My cameras are all on a separate network on a separate NIC card. No router or DHCP needed at all, just a second NIC, gig speed.

I did some more testing in my case and the switch is powering another camera, 3241T-ZAS, with no problems plugged in to the same port that the 5442T-AS failed on. I am convinced that in this case the PoE board has failed.
 
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I thank you guys. Regarding limiting the DHCP range to exclude static IP addresses... this is good advice, that I'd somehow gotten away with for a long time. I changed my DHCP reservation range to 192.168.1.3 to 192.168.1.99. I then rebooted the router and switch. It didn't solve my problem though.

To recap, my new camera is fixed at 192.168.1.111. It works perfectly when I utilize the 12v power pigtail (or an ethernet power inserter) and plug it into a router ethernet port. It won't work however when connected to a POE port on the switch, or a non POE port on the switch (when also using a 12v source or an ethernet power inserter). With it connected to the switch a browser just times out at that address, as if there is no response, and my synology app says the cam is disconnected. I've tried several different ports on the switch- both the POE ports and the non POE ports (again, using supplemental power in this instance). I've logged into the "easy smart" switch interface to ensure the POE ports I've tried are active and set to give power. Here's a few screenshots. Ports 1-8 are the POE ports. Port 1 is where one of my old 5321 cams is currently connected and working fine. I've got the new cam plugged into port 8, currently:

1612724442400.png1612724492800.png


There's got to be something else going on here, and though I've not had any other trouble with the switch at all, I'm left wondering if something is wrong with it and that the problem isn't sitting in front of the keyboard.
 

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