Camera dropped off the network - what's left apart from a faulty cam?

[ipOsX]

One of two DS-2DE2A404IWDE3 cams (and 8 Hikvision cams in total) has suddenly gone "offline" and nothing I have tried will bring it back. What have I missed - or is it looking like a camera fault? The others all continue to work normally.

It's about 6 months old and was working fine until it dropped off. Neither iVMS-4200 nor SADP Tool sees it as an online device. IE won't connect to its web page. Rebooting software and the connected POE switch, ethernet hub and hard-wired router mesh node hasn't helped. I have also switched cables around between hub ports in case one was faulty and I have tested all the connected cables apart from the one which comes through the outside wall. It definitely has the right IP address - at least it was right yesterday. I have a static IP and no NVR - the cameras record to internal SD cards.

Unfortunately, it's the high one and I'm not man enough to get up there even if I had the right ladder so it means a call-out. But before I do that, is there anything I might have missed?

 

[fenderman]

One of two DS-2DE2A404IWDE3 cams (and 8 Hikvision cams in total) has suddenly gone "offline" and nothing I have tried will bring it back. What have I missed - or is it looking like a camera fault? The others all continue to work normally.

It's about 6 months old and was working fine until it dropped off. Neither iVMS-4200 nor SADP Tool sees it as an online device. IE won't connect to its web page. Rebooting software and the connected POE switch, ethernet hub and hard-wired router mesh node hasn't helped. I have also switched cables around between hub ports in case one was faulty and I have tested all the connected cables apart from the one which comes through the outside wall. It definitely has the right IP address - at least it was right yesterday. I have a static IP and no NVR - the cameras record to internal SD cards.

Unfortunately, it's the high one and I'm not man enough to get up there even if I had the right ladder so it means a call-out. But before I do that, is there anything I might have missed?

There can be many reasons for this, including the cable itself, the plugs/crimp, poor waterproofing/improper installation causing water to enter the connection or if you didnt properly setup the camera and allowed upnp/port forwarding, you camera could have been reset to factory defaults though sadp would normally find it. Does the switch show a connections is being made to the camera?

 

[ipOsX]

The switch light is on but the hub port light isn't. The cables are tested and good. It has been dry and warm for a fortnight. The camera was professionally installed. Next step is to get up there and check the camera connections and then bring it down and bench test, which is tiresome.

 

[fenderman]

The switch light is on but the hub port light isn't. The cables are tested and good. It has been dry and warm for a fortnight. The camera was professionally installed. Next step is to get up there and check the camera connections and then bring it down and bench test, which is tiresome.

What do you mean by switch light. The term hub is antiquated, so its unclear what you are differentiating when you use hub and switch lights. "professionally installed" is a very loose term. There is no way you tested the cables and connectors as you said you did not climb up to the camera.

 

[ipOsX]

I did say in my OP that I haven't yet tested the cable from the camera. I have tested all the indoor/accessible cables.

This camera connects to a Ubiquiti POE switch which displays a power light. This switch connects to a TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Desktop Gigabit Ethernet Switch/Hub but the port isn't lit up albeit other cams connecting to it are working fine. Switching the offline cam to a known working port doesn't help.

The switch/hub is connected to a Linksys Velop mesh node which is hardwired to my Linksys router. Both are working fine.

If there's nothing else for me to check, I'll call out my man and his ladder.

 

[msquared]

You have the camera connected to a POE switch, then that switch connected to another switch, which is connected to a mesh node, then connected to your router? Sounds like you should start eliminating some of these middle-men network devices. Consider starting with eliminating the node, leaving the camera on the POE switch. This is assuming you have a static IP on the camera. Can you connect the pc you access the camera with to a port on the POE switch? ie. take the node and the tp link switch out of the mix. You have too many network devices between your access and the camera to properly diagnose the issue.

 

[alastairstevenson]

This camera connects to a Ubiquiti POE switch which displays a power light.

But not 'link detect'?

This switch connects to a TP-Link TL-SG1005D 5-Port Desktop Gigabit Ethernet Switch/Hub but the port isn't lit up albeit other cams connecting to it are working fine.

Well that's a bit weird, and worth checking out.
Maybe it's not the camera after all.

 

[ipOsX]

You have the camera connected to a POE switch, then that switch connected to another switch, which is connected to a mesh node, then connected to your router? Sounds like you should start eliminating some of these middle-men network devices. Consider starting with eliminating the node, leaving the camera on the POE switch. This is assuming you have a static IP on the camera. Can you connect the pc you access the camera with to a port on the POE switch? ie. take the node and the tp link switch out of the mix. You have too many network devices between your access and the camera to properly diagnose the issue.

It's alive! You prompted me to get out the long spare cable and connect the POE switch directly to a different hub and that brought the camera back.

Upon further investigation, the TP-Link switch, which is in my son's bedroom, had been inadvertently powered down for a couple of days because he used a remote wi-fi power switch to reboot another device in his room - stupidly hitting the "All Off" button and then using just the button for his specific device to turn it on again. So the other ethernet devices plugged in to the switch weren't working either - but he hadn't noticed because he was using wi-fi and not ethernet, fooling him into thinking that the hub was working.

Thanks to you and the others for your help. I'm sorry that my son has been exposed as dumb as he troubleshoots the network where he works. But the camera is back - without any call-out.

 

[ipOsX]

Btw, my LAN and cameras are connected together with lots of ethernet hubs and I have no problems at all [apart from a dunce for a s on]. My four Linksys Velop mesh nodes are linked together with Cat6 and each node connects to a POE switch and a cheap unmanaged hub [all gigabit]. So instead of wiring my external cameras up to a central processing unit, I just punch through the nearest wall and connect to its closest POE switch. This method was partly forced on me as I don't have an accessible or contiguous roof space, my house having been much extended over the years. But I don't seem to lose anything with all the connections. My gigabit fibre LAN delivers over 900Mbps at each of the four nodes via ethernet and over 500Mbps around each node via wi-fi. The wall plate router where the fibre enters the house delivers 940Mbps so I'm getting very close to that everywhere. It's a drawback with these nodes that they only have two RJ45 ports so the hubs are compulsory to allow me to hardwire devices to each node.