Can't access Dahua LPR camera via its IP address anymore

[montavuebabe]

I have this PoE Dahua LPR camera and I am connecting this to 12V DC power and the ethernet cable going directly to the router. Whenever I try to access the IP address of the camera in the browser, the page takes forever to load (10+ mins) and even if it does, it just shows a frozen video feed. I know the IP address of the camera because it's static and shows up on Dahua's IPconfig tool.

Here's the router TCP info:

IP: 192.168.0.15
subnet: 255.255.255.0
gateway: 192.168.0.1

IP address of camera:

192.168.0.70

Even if I connect the camera directly to my laptop via DC power and ethernet adapter (and wifi turned off), I still experience the same connectivity issue. I modify the laptop's ethernet TCP to be on the same network as that of the camera like this

Ethernet TCP info:

IP: 192.168.0.31
subnet: 255.255.255.0
gateway: 192.168.0.1

Interestingly, if I do a ping on "192.168.0.70" in both of these cases I notice packet drop as some of the packets timeout

PING 192.168.0.70 (192.168.0.70): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=7.140 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=3.014 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=3.403 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2.960 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=3.541 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 7
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=3.517 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=3.230 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.70: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=2.973 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 11

HOWEVER, If I connect the camera via ethernet cable (with or without DC power) directly to my NVR, which itself is not connected to the router or any PoE switch, EVERYTHING works perfectly. I'm able to login in to the IP address and see the video feed.

Here's what I have tried & found no success:

• I have reset the camera multiple times
• tried different computers with ethernet ports
• rebooted the router
• tried other ethernet cables

I am at my wit's end of this and have spent 1 week trying to diagnose the issue. Dahua support doesn't know what's going on either. I was able to access the camera's IP just fine through the router for 6 months before this issue started.
What can this weird behavior which prevents me from accessing the camera through its IP?

 

[alastairstevenson]

What can this weird behavior which prevents me from accessing the camera through its IP?

Maybe a duplicate IP address on the LAN?

HOWEVER, If I connect the camera via ethernet cable (with or without DC power) directly to my NVR, which itself is not connected to the router or any PoE switch, EVERYTHING works perfectly. I'm able to login in to the IP address and see the video feed.

So it works OK when the LAN is not connected.
With the PC on the LAN, and the camera disconnected, does a ping to the camera IP address give a response?

 

[Flintstone61]

Your router/switch is a suspect possibly. If its a Router with a 4 port switch in back, then the traffic on that thing is bogging it down, or some setting on the router is goofy.

 

[Flintstone61]

Clearly the camera works fine.

 

[Flintstone61]

Your network has a problem

 

[montavuebabe]

Maybe a duplicate IP address on the LAN?

So it works OK when the LAN is not connected.
With the PC on the LAN, and the camera disconnected, does a ping to the camera IP address give a response?

@alastairstevenson There's no duplicate IP address on LAN. With the camera disconnected, the IP address gives no response and I have validated that through router admin page as well to make sure there' no static IP conflicts.
This issue occurs even when the camera is not connected to any router.

 

[montavuebabe]

Your router/switch is a suspect possibly. If its a Router with a 4 port switch in back, then the traffic on that thing is bogging it down, or some setting on the router is goofy.

@Flintstone61 Even when I'm not on the network or connected to any switch, the packet timeout continues to happen. If I plug the camera into DC power supply and then connect the ethernet cable to it where the other end is connected to an ethernet port of a laptop, the packet timeout still happens. The laptop at that time is not connected to any other network (wifi is turned off) and the camera is the only device on the ethernet. Using this same setup with the laptop, if I plug in a different camera, I don't see any packet loss and everything works normally.

 

[Flintstone61]

Perhaps the voltage difference between POE and 12VDC wall wart is making some difference? If you say it works fine on NVR poe port, maybe your 12vdc is not enough power

 

[montavuebabe]

@Flintstone61 I'm not an expert at electrical specifications but the following power supply is what I have been using. Would really appreciate if you can help me understand if this should suffice

This is the power supply specs for the LPR camera


This is the DC power adapter I'm using when connecting directly to PC


Alternatively, even if I connect my LPR camera directly to a network switch and plug in another ethernet cable from my PC to the switch to be able to view the camera, I still get packet loss. The network switch isn't connected to the router and wifi is off on PC. In this case, there're no other cameras wired to the switch.

Here's the power specs of the 8-port gigabit TrendNet switch:
8-Port Gigabit PoE+ Switch | TRENDnet - TRENDnet TPE-TG83


Do you think I'm using a wrong power DC adapter or network switch?

 

[looney2ns]

The DC adapter is not beefy enough. You need a power supply that is rated for 12vdc, @2amps.
The one you have, is only rated at 1amp.
The other issue is possibly related to cable that has not been properly terminated.
Are you using Pure Solid Copper cable of at least 24awg in size, and not copper clad aluminum.
No flat or skinny ethernet cables used?

 

[montavuebabe]

The DC adapter is not beefy enough. You need a power supply that is rated for 12vdc, @2amps.
The one you have, is only rated at 1amp.
The other issue is possibly related to cable that has not been properly terminated.
Are you using Pure Solid Copper cable of at least 24awg in size, and not copper clad aluminum.
No flat or skinny ethernet cables used?

@looney2ns I see. I think I don't have exactly 12vdc/2amps power supply handy with me; will need to buy one. And yes the cable is pure copper CAT6 cable of 24AWG; it's pretty heavy and fat.
Since I'm having the same issue with a network switch (not connected to a router) that has the following power specs, would running the camera purely on POE using this switch be getting enough power?

 

[Flintstone61]

wrong 12vdc supply

 

[Flintstone61]

Use a POE switch and ditch the wall warts if possible. Good for testing, but 1.0 amps are ok for non-ptz cams.

 

[montavuebabe]

@Flintstone61 Okay; I have a question on if the power supplied by my current POE switch is adequate because I also see packet loss when the camera is connected to it:

If the POE+ switch adapter outputs 55VC, 1.3A (specs posted above) with the switch having a total POE budget of 65W and 30W of POE power per port, is that not enough for my camera as long as that's the only device connected to the switch?

The camera works fine when directly connected to the NVR and the only difference I can see between NVR and the POE switch with respect to power supply is that the switch is 1.3A whereas the former is 1.8A. But the power in the POE+ port for both NVR and the switch seems to be 25-30W whereas the camera needs 20W (camera specs above in above thread). Does that look okay to you?

NVR power specs:

 

[Flintstone61]

Some Poe switches are 10/100.
Some Poe switches are 10/100/1000( Gigabit) .
what is yours?
Some 10-100 switches I've tried would flake out loading the web interfaces of the cam because the network is saturated at 65Mbps of cam stream already.
1000Mbps switches can handle more data.
Not sure why your camera " works" on NVR and NOT switch. has to be a network/router/issue or something.

 

[Flintstone61]

Some routers are complete garbage as well.
what is the make / model of router?

 

[looney2ns]

@looney2ns I see. I think I don't have exactly 12vdc/2amps power supply handy with me; will need to buy one. And yes the cable is pure copper CAT6 cable of 24AWG; it's pretty heavy and fat.
Since I'm having the same issue with a network switch (not connected to a router) that has the following power specs, would running the camera purely on POE using this switch be getting enough power?

View attachment 209100

Yes, IF that switch is working correctly, then yes it should work just fine being powered by POE.
As a test, connect the camera to the POE switch, and to your laptop with a know good factory made ethernet cable.
Don't connect anything else to the poe switch during this test.
Leave the router out of it at this time.