New NVR Setup - Please help me - can't find devices

Daniel Martin · Feb 20, 2019

Hi,
So before I start, I am a complete newbie, so apologies in advance if what I say is not techy or correct but this is what I have done so far....

I purchased a Annke POE NVR, I have it connected to my router and I have purchased some generic POE PTZ cameras from ebay. I have connected the camera directly to my router via cat5e and i can see the camera if i login to the IE browser webpage, via its IP address which it came with out the box.

Now, when i connect the camera into one of four POE ports in the NVR, And perform a device search, nothing appears. Im so lost on what to do or how to add it, I've tried manually adding but really getting nowhere with this.

The cameras I have are: 4MP 1080P FHD IP Smart Dome Camera Infrared PTZ Network PoE RJ45 Security CCTV 889251495106 | eBay

And the NVR:
ANNKE 4CH 5MP NVR Onvif 2.4 Email Alert for Surveillance Security POE System 1TB | eBay

Can anyone help?? Thank you so much
Dan

SouthernYankee · Feb 20, 2019

I can not find the PDF manual for this NVR.
Only connect one camera to the NVR to start.
It is likely that the NVR ports are on a different subnet than the camera is on. So The IP address in the camera is set incorrectly and can not be found by the NVR. Some of the NVRs will not automatically find and set the IP address in the cameras that are not from the same manufacturer.

You need to find information on what the subnet of the NVR ports are ?

GCoco · Feb 20, 2019

What protocol are you using. The cameras probably need to us ONVIF which is a universal camera protocol.

alastairstevenson · Feb 20, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
I purchased a Annke POE NVR, I have it connected to my router and I have purchased some generic POE PTZ cameras from ebay.

With apologies for the question - what makes you believe the cameras are compatible with the NVR?

Daniel Martin · Feb 20, 2019

SouthernYankee said:
I can not find the PDF manual for this NVR.
Only connect one camera to the NVR to start.
It is likely that the NVR ports are on a different subnet than the camera is on. So The IP address in the camera is set incorrectly and can not be found by the NVR. Some of the NVRs will not automatically find and set the IP address in the cameras that are not from the same manufacturer.

You need to find information on what the subnet of the NVR ports are ?

Hi, Thank you for your reply, I have only tried one camera for now. I have attached the guide for your reference, thank you again for your help. So do you think I need to do something about the cameras setup whilst i have it plugged into my router directly?

GCoco said:
What protocol are you using. The cameras probably need to us ONVIF which is a universal camera protocol.

I really do not know what that means tbh, sorry

alastairstevenson said:
With apologies for the question - what makes you believe the cameras are compatible with the NVR?

No apologies needed, good question, I just thought they would work tbh. I was told by a friend they would, that is as far as my research went, sorry. This is not my field of expertise, as you can tell

alastairstevenson · Feb 20, 2019

There are no specifications in that Guide, but it has the flavour of a Dahua re-brand.

Daniel Martin said:
I was told by a friend they would

Ask your friend if it was because he/she believes the NVR supports ONVIF cameras.
That's the only hope of the cameras being able to be connected, but even if both cameras and NVR support ONVIF, there is still no guarantee of compatibility.

A good rule for a first system is not to mix and match brands - though even devices from the same brand may not work together.

Daniel Martin · Feb 20, 2019

They do both support ONVIF. This is mentioned in both the camera guide and within the NVR it allows me to specify this too when trying to setup cam manually

alastairstevenson · Feb 20, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
They do both support ONVIF.

Well, that's a good start.
Then there is the 'ONVIF port' that needs to be determined.

Suggestion (though I'm guessing a bit about the NVR):
Install 'ONVIF Device Manager' from sourceforge.net

Connect a camera to the router, as you have done before, so it's IP address is in the same range as the PC.
ONVIF Device Manager will find ONVIF devices on the address range of the PC automatically.
Provide it with login credentials, at the top left of the window.
Select the camera, click the Identification page, and check the port value in the URL at the bottom of that page. If there is a colon at the end of the IP address, the numbers after it. If no colon, the port is 80.
You would normally need this when configuring an ONVIF camera connection in the NVR web GUI.
In the NVR web GUI, for the camera configuration, determine what IP address the NVR expects to find the camera on and note it down.
Select the ONVIF protocol, add the port you found in ODM, add the logon ID and password.

In the camera web GUI, change the network IP address to match that you noted down from the NVR.
Disconnect the camera from the router and connect it to the port on the NVR that you have just configured.
Hopefully the camera will connect.

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

alastairstevenson said:
Well, that's a good start.
Then there is the 'ONVIF port' that needs to be determined.

Suggestion (though I'm guessing a bit about the NVR):
Install 'ONVIF Device Manager' from sourceforge.net

Connect a camera to the router, as you have done before, so it's IP address is in the same range as the PC.
ONVIF Device Manager will find ONVIF devices on the address range of the PC automatically.
Provide it with login credentials, at the top left of the window.
Select the camera, click the Identification page, and check the port value in the URL at the bottom of that page. If there is a colon at the end of the IP address, the numbers after it. If no colon, the port is 80.
You would normally need this when configuring an ONVIF camera connection in the NVR web GUI.
In the NVR web GUI, for the camera configuration, determine what IP address the NVR expects to find the camera on and note it down.
Select the ONVIF protocol, add the port you found in ODM, add the logon ID and password.

In the camera web GUI, change the network IP address to match that you noted down from the NVR.
Disconnect the camera from the router and connect it to the port on the NVR that you have just configured.
Hopefully the camera will connect.

Hi, So far that has gone amazingly, but I got a bit confused when you mentioned to look out for the colon on the ip address, So i have attached what i see when i look at the identification screen, your help is much appreciated... Thanks

TonyR · Feb 21, 2019

In ODM, I believe your screenshot is from the "General" category, "Identification".
Instead, look farther down the column, in the next category and click on "Live View".
Look at URL under your cam's live image; it will appear as something like:

Code:

rtsp://192.168.1.105:554/cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0&unicast=true&proto=Onvif

Furnish a screenshot of that to @alastairstevenson , if you would.

alastairstevenson · Feb 21, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
you mentioned to look out for the colon on the ip address,

alastairstevenson said:
If no colon, the port is 80.

You have the correct screenshot, there is no colon, so the ONVIF port=80 to use in the camera configuration screen of the NVR.
It's not uncommon for the ONVIF port to be something like 8899 or 888 etc, but in this case it's 80.

Also - as @TonyR is suggesting - if connecting as ONVIF proves troublesome, the NVR may also provide the ability to connect the camera as an RTSP stream, in which case the needed rtsp string can be found as specified.

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

So when I plug the cam iinto the NVR, and perform a search, nothing is found, have logged into the NVR web portal and this is what i see, PFA....

alastairstevenson · Feb 21, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
So when I plug the cam iinto the NVR, and perform a search, nothing is found

I think as these are "other brand" cameras, you need to do a manual configuration using the ONVIF protocol selection.

I suspect that will be under the Remote menu of the web GUI.
Don't enable PPOE - that's nothing to do with cameras.
And your network settings can be left as-is, you are able to access with no problems.

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

Ok, so i try and add it manually and its just offline.... I have attached pics of what i configured and end result...

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

alastairstevenson said:
I think as these are "other brand" cameras, you need to do a manual configuration using the ONVIF protocol selection.

I suspect that will be under the Remote menu of the web GUI.
Don't enable PPOE - that's nothing to do with cameras.
And your network settings can be left as-is, you are able to access with no problems.

So, I spoke to Annke via email and they sent me this guide, which i followed,
Annke KB - How to connect onvif camera to NVR via the router ?

And now that my camera and my nvr are both directly plugged into my router, i was able to detect the camera via the NVR and then add the device to the device list, i updated the username and password and the status was online, but then when i try to preview the live screen, its just black, with a green letter 'C' in the bottom left corner, so i then disconnect the cam from the router and now plug it into the POE port 1 in the NVR, and now the status has dropped and unable to display anything?? So is this something to do with the bit rate or something image settings related?

Update: Changed some of the bitrate settings to match what the camera settings were set to, and now I can see the cam on my NVR screen, however, the cam is still plugged directly into the back of the router, when i unplug and plug into the back of the nvr in poe port, i get no connection and timed out request??? Could this be a network switch setup requirement on the NVR?

alastairstevenson · Feb 21, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
I spoke to Annke via email and they sent me this guide, which i followed,

That was very helpful of them.

Daniel Martin said:
when i unplug and plug into the back of the nvr in poe port, i get no connection and timed out request

The NVR PoE ports will operate on a different IP address range than the addresses on the LAN with the router.
You need to find out somehow what that address range is, and change the camera IP address (you can do this when plugged in to the router) to match what the NVR PoE port is expecting.

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

alastairstevenson said:
That was very helpful of them.

The NVR PoE ports will operate on a different IP address range than the addresses on the LAN with the router.
You need to find out somehow what that address range is, and change the camera IP address (you can do this when plugged in to the router) to match what the NVR PoE port is expecting.

How do I find out what the range is on this thing??

alastairstevenson · Feb 21, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
How do I find out what the range is on this thing??

Not having used that model - I don't know for sure. But maybe others who have will comment.
But I'd expect the PoE interface IP address to be listed in the network settings.

Daniel Martin · Feb 21, 2019

alastairstevenson said:
Not having used that model - I don't know for sure. But maybe others who have will comment.
But I'd expect the PoE interface IP address to be listed in the network settings.

I found this earlier....

alastairstevenson · Feb 21, 2019

Daniel Martin said:
I found this earlier....

That's promising.
So - a suggestion:
With the camera on the router, access the camera web GUI and change its IP address to 10.1.1.100 and set the default gateway to 10.1.1.1 and subnet mask to 255.255.255.0
Let the camera reboot.
Don't worry that the browser will no longer connect to it.

Connect the camera to an NVR PoE port.
Access the NVR web GUI and do the 'Manual add' and set the target IP address to 10.1.1.100 with ONVIF and the known logonID/password.
When you had the camera working OK connected to the router, was the port in the NVR manual add set to 80?

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New NVR Setup - Please help me - can't find devices

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