Dahua "cable disconnected" every now and then

[GregP]

Hi,

I bought 3 Dahua (knockoffs?) off Aliexpress some time ago -> DAHUA English 2MP POE IR Eyeball IP Camera IPC HDW5231RP Z sd slot Starlight network web Cam IPC HDW5231R Z DH IPC HDW5231R Z -in Surveillance Cameras from Security & Protection on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group

I didn't have much luck from the very beginning - struggled with PoE, learned that the FW crash when they are in the normal LAN network. After a while a gave them an another go and managed to hook 2 of them in a separate subnet to my old PC running Blue Iris, which is the first software I tried which implements motion detection correctly.

I cannot the third one to work since it seems to be unstable / faulty.
It disconnects the ethernet every minute or so, after that web stops responding and streaming freezes as well.
I tried different PSUs, cables, reset via web page, hard reset with the button inside the cam and I am running out of ideas.
I might try to reflash / update the FW but since the origin of this HW is unknown there is a chance I'll brick it in the process.
Here are the symptoms:
FW version:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/OhHmOBCDI5cuXXTx1

Any ideas? I PMed a kind guy from Ali store however I do not put much hope in the after-sales support if you know what I mean.

Cheers,
Greg

 

[GregP]

Camera log confirms reboot/startup sequence approx every 2 minutes.
It doesn't even last long enough to update the FW via web - i found the official FW here -> IPC-HDW5231R-Z | Dahua Technology - Dahua Technology

 

[bp2008]

The only time I had a dahua camera in a boot loop like this, I was able to upload new firmware through the web interface, and it didn't reboot during the update. It was years ago with an old PTZ and the fault had been that I'd put the wrong PTZ firmware on it.

Might be safer to investigate possible tftp update methods, as those would kick in before the camera fully boots, and presumably the failure causing the reboot would not occur during the upgrade process.

 

[GregP]

I am able to log in via telnet - any clue where to look for a reason of reboot?

 

[alastairstevenson]

I am able to log in via telnet - any clue where to look for a reason of reboot?

As an off-the-wall experiment, change the default gateway in the network settings to an unused IP address in the same network range and see if that makes any difference.

 

[cor35vet]

Have you tried powering it over the 12V DC pigtail instead of PoE ?

When you are in telnet you can do:

killall sonia
sonia

to check the output of the main process. Doing dmesg -w in another window might also show something.

If you do want to upgrade the firmware, this should be the latest one: http://ftp.asm.cz/Dahua/kamerove_systemy/_Firmware/04IPC/05-Eco-savvy 3.0/DH/DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.460.0000.10.R.20170523/DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.460.0000.10.R.20170523.bin

 

[GregP]

Have you tried powering it over the 12V DC pigtail instead of PoE ?

When you are in telnet you can do:

killall sonia
sonia

to check the output of the main process. Doing dmesg -w in another window might also show something.

If you do want to upgrade the firmware, this should be the latest one: http://ftp.asm.cz/Dahua/kamerove_systemy/_Firmware/04IPC/05-Eco-savvy 3.0/DH/DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.460.0000.10.R.20170523/DH_IPC-HX5X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.460.0000.10.R.20170523.bin

It is powered from 12v PSU all the time, passive Poe PSUs didn't work for me and I have no proper 802.3af source. I made it to work by removing SD card which was used to record the footage in a loop and another hard reset. Is it something that was fixed I the new firmware?

 

[GregP]

As an off-the-wall experiment, change the default gateway in the network settings to an unused IP address in the same network range and see if that makes any difference.

the gateway points to non-reachable address since i implemented a poor man's logical separation on another IP subnet. All the cams suffered from reboot loop in the past while they were in my home LAN

 

[alastairstevenson]

Yes, that's what I was thinking of, the firmware bug that caused a periodic reboot when one of the phone-home internet destinations was taken offline.

 

[GregP]

Yes, that's what I was thinking of, the firmware bug that caused a periodic reboot when one of the phone-home internet destinations was taken offline.

Was it fixed in the recent firmware?

 

[GregP]

Hi, the problems have disappeared after FW update. Thanks for your support. Cheers