Cameras rebooting when nvr is connected to router

LMN79

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Hi,

For the past few months I've been having a problem with my hilook nvr whereby 2 of the cameras keep randomly rebooting when the nvr is connected to the router.
I have 5 x 2mp cameras plugged direct into the nvr, cameras are a mix of hilook, hiwatch and uniview, the cameras affected are the 2 univiews.
With the router disconnected from the nvr everything functions perfectly, never any drop outs or reboots.
With the router connected within 2 - 30 minutes one of the univiews will reboot and the screen says "network is unreachable", when logged into the nvr on my laptop the affected camera says "offline network abnormal".
Both the univiews will randomly keep rebooting until about the 3rd or 4th time when they will stay offline permanently until I unplug them from the nvr and reconnect.
I have to leave router disconnected but remote viewing is important for me so it's a real pain.
I have confirmed it is not a cable/plug/power issue as I've visually checked everything and tested the cables with a tester.
Univiews have been bought inside and connected to nvr with a short ready made cable and the problem persists.
Cable is solid copper cat5e.
It can't be a compatibility issue between the hilook nvr and uniview cameras as everything is fine until the router is involved.
No amount of factory resetting of the nvr or cameras works.
I've tried using all the same settings/ports as the other cameras on the univiews but it just results in knocking the univiews out completely or not being able to log into them on my laptop so everything has to go back to default.
At this point I have spent a few hours everyday for months trying to trouble shoot but nothing changes, I have several sheets of a4 paper with settings written down and everything I've tried.
I feel it's probably something fairly simple but I'm missing it.
The only difference that I can see between all the cameras is that on the nvr under management port it says 8000 for all cameras exept the univiews that says 80 but it also says http is port 80 for the other cameras and nvr, could this be the issue?
If I change the univiews managment port to anything other than 80 it results in either "network is unreachable" or they are online but cannot access or view them remotely and they still reboot anyway.
Changing server port on the univiews to match what it says on the nvr does not work either.
Ports open on router are 80,554,8000.
All cameras and nvr are up to date.
I'm totally confused, I think I've changed every setting on the nvr and cams at this point and I'm lost!

The nvr I have now was a replacement for the same model that died, the first nvr was trouble free with these cameras.
The company I got the nvr from don't want to know, they said it's the hilookvision app on my phone causing the problem as it's the wrong app even though it is the correct app (can't understand the logic behind that).

Sorry about the lengthly post, just trying to give as much info as I can!

Please can anyone help me I'm losing my mind with this!

Thank you.
 

alastairstevenson

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Ports open on router are 80,554,8000.
I'm totally confused, I think I've changed every setting on the nvr and cams at this point and I'm lost!
Despite that the Univiews are connected to PoE ports on the NVR, consider the possibility that the devices are being attacked / hacked as you are providing full access to them from the entire internet.

Suggestion to try :
Connect the NVR to the router, but disable the port forwarding, disable UPnP on the router and on the NVR, and see if that changes anything.
Despite firmware being maybe up to date, there will still be a good selection of security vulnerabilities that may be able to be exploited.
Remember also that letting entire internet in to the NVR also potentially places the other devices and data on your LAN at risk of being exploited.
 

LMN79

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Thank you for your suggestion.
I disabled UPnP on both the router and NVR and closed any open ports on the router and confirmed this with canyouseeme.
Unfortunately the cameras still continue to reboot.
I have been recently reading up on security which I will address when/if I can get this problem sorted.

Any more ideas?
Thanks.
 

Teken

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Post up all the network related settings for the camera, router, NVR.

If your ISP provides a router / modem show the network settings for them to.
 

ThomasCamFan

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The symptom suggests that this might be an IP address conflict. Have you confirmed that your router's network is not already using ANY of the IP's needed by the camera system?

- Thomas
 

LMN79

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Thanks everyone.

I dare say I've not given the correct info asked for below so please let me know what I've missed.


NVR
IPv4 192.168.0.27 HTTP 80
Subnet 255.255.255.0 RTSP 554
Default gateway 192.168.0.1 HTTPS 443
Server 8000


Uniview Camera 1 192.168.254.12
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Gateway 0.0.0.0 HTTP 80
RTSP 554
HTTPS 443
Uniview Camera 2 192.168.254.6
255.255.255.0
0.0.0.0


Router 192.168.0.1
255.255.255.0

I appreciate you all giving up your time to help me with this.
 

Teken

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Thanks everyone.

I dare say I've not given the correct info asked for below so please let me know what I've missed.


NVR
IPv4 192.168.0.27 HTTP 80
Subnet 255.255.255.0 RTSP 554
Default gateway 192.168.0.1 HTTPS 443
Server 8000


Uniview Camera 1 192.168.254.12
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Gateway 0.0.0.0 HTTP 80
RTSP 554
HTTPS 443
Uniview Camera 2 192.168.254.6
255.255.255.0
0.0.0.0


Router 192.168.0.1
255.255.255.0

I appreciate you all giving up your time to help me with this.
Change both cameras to use DHCP and allow the router to hand out an IP address lease. Reboot the two cameras and report back what happens.
 

LMN79

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Both cameras changed to DHCP and rebooted, no change they continue to reboot.
 

Teken

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What do the two cameras show as being their network settings?
 

LMN79

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UNIVIEW 1
192.168.254.12
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 0.0.0.0

IPv6 mode Manual
IPv6 Address - Blank
Prefix Length 64
Default gateway - Blank

MTU 1500
Port type FE port
Operating mode - Auto negotiation

DNS Preferred 0.0.0.0
Alternate 0.0.0.0

Port
HTTP 80
HTTPS 443
RTSP 554

Port mapping Off

UNIVIEW 2
192.168.254.6
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 0.0.0.0

IPv6 mode Manual
IPv6 Address - Blank
Prefix Length 64
Default gateway - Blank

MTU 1500
Port type FE port
Operating mode - Auto negotiation

DNS Preferred 0.0.0.0
Alternate 0.0.0.0

Port
HTTP 80
HTTPS 443
RTSP 554

Port mapping Off


All other settings under network (DDNS, EZcloud, Email, 802.1x) are either off or blank.

I was checking through the NVR log today and noticed that when the cameras go offline there are several entries that for instance starts off by saying camera 3 main stream & substream 'offline time 1 second TCP recv error - recv over RTSP data error'.
The next few entries then increase in offline time until it says 'connect error - connect server error'.
Then 'camera disconnected' followed by 'camera connected' then the camera comes back online again.

Apologies if that info is not relavent I just wondered if that was the cause or result of the rebooting.

Thank you.
 

Teken

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Based on the information you provided the two cameras still use the same IP address. Have you set the two cameras to DHCP?
 

LMN79

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Yes, they still kept rebooting when both set to DHCP.
I only changed them back to static to take note of the network settings, when set to DHCP there is no info on screen.
 

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LMN79

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I forgot to mention that when the cameras are set to DHCP the IP addresses remain the same as before on the NVR even after cameras and NVR are rebooted.
 

Teken

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The first problem is the cameras are not obtaining the new IP address lease from your router.

  • Disconnect the NVR from the network
  • Factory (hard) reset both cameras
  • Set both cameras to DHCP
  • Verify in the router both cameras can be seen and obtain a new IP Address lease.
  • Login to the cameras web interface.
  • Review the error logs as it relates networking.

Monitor and report back your results.
 

LMN79

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IPv6 mode can't be changed.


OK so just to be clear I should:
Disconnect NVR from router.
Factory reset cameras.
Connect camera to laptop and login using the factory IP?
Change to DHCP and then plug cameras back into NVR?

Also my router can't see my cameras just the NVR.
 

alastairstevenson

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OK so just to be clear I should:
Disconnect NVR from router.
Factory reset cameras.
Connect camera to laptop and login using the factory IP?
Change to DHCP and then plug cameras back into NVR?

Also my router can't see my cameras just the NVR.
I don't believe that will do anything useful.
The NVR does not provide a DHCP service rather it just administers the camera settings - what it does do when any 'Inactive' (ie reset to defaults) Hikvision or HiLook cameras are plugged in to the PoE ports when the ports are in 'Plug & Play' mode is to 'Activate' the camera and configure the admin password and set the IP address to match that set on the PoE port it's connected to. It does this using the Hikvision command and control protocol.

cameras are a mix of hilook, hiwatch and uniview, the cameras affected are the 2 univiews.
What transfer protocol did you use for the Uniview cameras?
I'm guessing maybe ONVIF, or perhaps a 'Generic RTSP' if you create the 'Custom protocol' with the needed RTSP string in it.

For a non-Hikvision camera such as the Univiews, connected to a PoE port, the following steps should allow the camera to connect :
In the NVR web GUI, for the PoE channel you want to connect the camera to, change the mode to 'Manual' instead of 'Plug & Play'.
Add the admin password that will be used by the camera.
Select the transfer protocol that you have found works OK with these cameras.
Note down the IP address that has been assigned to the channel, it will be something like 192.168.254.x

On the camera - ensure the admin password is the same as was set on the NVR PoE channel.
Change the camera network settings to :
Default gateway=192.168.254.1
IPv4 address=what was set on the NVR PoE channel.
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
DNS=the IP address of the LAN router.

Now connect the camera to the NVR PoE channel. It should connect OK.
 

LMN79

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alastairstevenson
The cameras are ONVIF and connected exactly as you describe, there are no issues connecting it's just keeping them online when the NVR is plugged into the router.

anotherone
I'll try that later.

Thanks all.
 

LMN79

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I disconnected one Uniview camera from the NVR and the connected NVR to the router and the remaining Uniview still reboots.
 
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