Dahua IPC-HFW1230S Broken P2P

[jackal992]

Hi!

First of all compliments for this forum. It has really given me already so many useful information in the past months. I read a huge amount of threads and ended up buying some Dahua varifocal turret starlight cameras (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE) and a NVR (NVR4216-4KS2) plus an external POE switch. It takes time to setup everything and I am still working on it, but the system works. I still have to tweak the image quality parameters and setup the IVS rules.

In the heat of the moment I bought a Dahua IPC-HFW1230S to evaluate a cheaper model to possibly increase the system in the future with some additional cheap cameras for some less critical places.
I did not find many reviews, but I read this one of a very similar model, the IPC-HDW1230s, whose pictures seemed good enough for my purpose: Review-Dahua IPC-HDW1230S Lite series 2mp turret.

I live in Italy and bought the camera from a (supposedly) official European reseller. With respect to the others cameras, bought directly from Dahua Italy (which does not sell this model), this came with just English, French and Spanish.
The camera seems to be an official international model, with the logo and the possibility to upgrade firmware.

Now, the camera works fine, except for a very simple feature, the P2P connection. I know that you will say it is useless and possibly dangerous, but it is a matter of principle to me. The port forwarding configuration is working obviously, but I inevitably need P2P for the Lechange app, should I ever use it...

Obviously the other cameras and NVR are in the same network, connected to the same switch, behind the same router, and they all work fine in P2P.
Actually P2P should be pretty straightforward, so it seems absurd to me that this feature is broken.

I tried setting the camera with a static IP, with DHCP, rebooting it, resetting it. Nothing.
The camera has internet access as all the others, for instance it gets the time from NTP.

Again, port forwarding works fine, but the GDMSS app in P2P mode returns "failed to connect".
The funny thing is that the "Easy4ip/lechange" service is green and "online".
I tried disabling and enabling it vainly.

Do you have any suggestions or tests to pinpoint the problem?

The camera was shipped with the firmware 2.622.00BY000.0.R, Build Date: 2018-03-19.
I contacted the seller which gave me a way older one: "General_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream2_V2.460.0000.15.R.20170907".
Funnily enough the camera refuses to install this firmware for a "mismatch".
But from this firmware I inferred that I could look for any "IPC-HX2X3X" firmware, so I downloaded the latest universal PAL/NTSC one from Index of /images/Firmware, specifically the "DH_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Internal_PN_V2.640.0000002.0.R.180523". Again unfortunately I encountered a mismatch.

Finally I was able to trace down the series-code of the camera to the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4".
This is because apparently my cam is a "DH-IPC-HFW1230SP-0280B-S2" (under the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4") and not a "IPC-HFW1230S" (under the "IPC-HX2X3X").
So I found the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4_Eng_P_V2.622.0000000.9.R.180131" firmware which was installed correctly, but unfortunately the P2P problem is still there. It says it is online but it does not work.

What can I do?

Thank you very much and sorry for the long message.

 

[fenderman]

Hi!

First of all compliments for this forum. It has really given me already so many useful information in the past months. I read a huge amount of threads and ended up buying some Dahua varifocal turret starlight cameras (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE) and a NVR (NVR4216-4KS2) plus an external POE switch. It takes time to setup everything and I am still working on it, but the system works. I still have to tweak the image quality parameters and setup the IVS rules.

In the heat of the moment I bought a Dahua IPC-HFW1230S to evaluate a cheaper model to possibly increase the system in the future with some additional cheap cameras for some less critical places.
I did not find many reviews, but I read this one of a very similar model, the IPC-HDW1230s, whose pictures seemed good enough for my purpose: Review-Dahua IPC-HDW1230S Lite series 2mp turret.

I live in Italy and bought the camera from a (supposedly) official European reseller. With respect to the others cameras, bought directly from Dahua Italy (which does not sell this model), this came with just English, French and Spanish.
The camera seems to be an official international model, with the logo and the possibility to upgrade firmware.

Now, the camera works fine, except for a very simple feature, the P2P connection. I know that you will say it is useless and possibly dangerous, but it is a matter of principle to me. The port forwarding configuration is working obviously, but I inevitably need P2P for the Lechange app, should I ever use it...

Obviously the other cameras and NVR are in the same network, connected to the same switch, behind the same router, and they all work fine in P2P.
Actually P2P should be pretty straightforward, so it seems absurd to me that this feature is broken.

I tried setting the camera with a static IP, with DHCP, rebooting it, resetting it. Nothing.
The camera has internet access as all the others, for instance it gets the time from NTP.

Again, port forwarding works fine, but the GDMSS app in P2P mode returns "failed to connect".
The funny thing is that the "Easy4ip/lechange" service is green and "online".
I tried disabling and enabling it vainly.

Do you have any suggestions or tests to pinpoint the problem?

The camera was shipped with the firmware 2.622.00BY000.0.R, Build Date: 2018-03-19.
I contacted the seller which gave me a way older one: "General_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream2_V2.460.0000.15.R.20170907".
Funnily enough the camera refuses to install this firmware for a "mismatch".
But from this firmware I inferred that I could look for any "IPC-HX2X3X" firmware, so I downloaded the latest universal PAL/NTSC one from Index of /images/Firmware, specifically the "DH_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Internal_PN_V2.640.0000002.0.R.180523". Again unfortunately I encountered a mismatch.

Finally I was able to trace down the series-code of the camera to the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4".
This is because apparently my cam is a "DH-IPC-HFW1230SP-0280B-S2" (under the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4") and not a "IPC-HFW1230S" (under the "IPC-HX2X3X").
So I found the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4_Eng_P_V2.622.0000000.9.R.180131" firmware which was installed correctly, but unfortunately the P2P problem is still there. It says it is online but it does not work.

What can I do?

Thank you very much and sorry for the long message.

Sorry for your OCD affliction.
If you insist on being foolish and using dahuas p2p, why are you connecting to the camera rather than connecting to the NVR?

 

[jackal992]

It is a matter of principle. I can choose to disable P2P or lock it down from the firewall or setup a VPN as many of you do, but it has to be my choice.
Should I ever want to use P2P, I want to know that everything works. It has to. As simple as this.

 

[fenderman]

It is a matter of principle. I can choose to disable P2P or lock it down from the firewall or setup a VPN as many of you do, but it has to be my choice. As simple as this.

I understand. That "principle" is called OCD by medical professionals...knock yourself out. Why would you ever want to use P2P you are not making any sense here...are you saying that you may want to be a complete fool in the future? Even if you do decide to use p2p, you would be connecting to the NVR not the individual camera.

 

[looney2ns]

Hi!

First of all compliments for this forum. It has really given me already so many useful information in the past months. I read a huge amount of threads and ended up buying some Dahua varifocal turret starlight cameras (IPC-HDW5231R-ZE) and a NVR (NVR4216-4KS2) plus an external POE switch. It takes time to setup everything and I am still working on it, but the system works. I still have to tweak the image quality parameters and setup the IVS rules.

In the heat of the moment I bought a Dahua IPC-HFW1230S to evaluate a cheaper model to possibly increase the system in the future with some additional cheap cameras for some less critical places.
I did not find many reviews, but I read this one of a very similar model, the IPC-HDW1230s, whose pictures seemed good enough for my purpose: Review-Dahua IPC-HDW1230S Lite series 2mp turret.

I live in Italy and bought the camera from a (supposedly) official European reseller. With respect to the others cameras, bought directly from Dahua Italy (which does not sell this model), this came with just English, French and Spanish.
The camera seems to be an official international model, with the logo and the possibility to upgrade firmware.

Now, the camera works fine, except for a very simple feature, the P2P connection. I know that you will say it is useless and possibly dangerous, but it is a matter of principle to me. The port forwarding configuration is working obviously, but I inevitably need P2P for the Lechange app, should I ever use it...

Obviously the other cameras and NVR are in the same network, connected to the same switch, behind the same router, and they all work fine in P2P.
Actually P2P should be pretty straightforward, so it seems absurd to me that this feature is broken.

I tried setting the camera with a static IP, with DHCP, rebooting it, resetting it. Nothing.
The camera has internet access as all the others, for instance it gets the time from NTP.

Again, port forwarding works fine, but the GDMSS app in P2P mode returns "failed to connect".
The funny thing is that the "Easy4ip/lechange" service is green and "online".
I tried disabling and enabling it vainly.

Do you have any suggestions or tests to pinpoint the problem?

The camera was shipped with the firmware 2.622.00BY000.0.R, Build Date: 2018-03-19.
I contacted the seller which gave me a way older one: "General_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream2_V2.460.0000.15.R.20170907".
Funnily enough the camera refuses to install this firmware for a "mismatch".
But from this firmware I inferred that I could look for any "IPC-HX2X3X" firmware, so I downloaded the latest universal PAL/NTSC one from Index of /images/Firmware, specifically the "DH_IPC-HX2X3X-Rhea_Internal_PN_V2.640.0000002.0.R.180523". Again unfortunately I encountered a mismatch.

Finally I was able to trace down the series-code of the camera to the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4".
This is because apparently my cam is a "DH-IPC-HFW1230SP-0280B-S2" (under the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4") and not a "IPC-HFW1230S" (under the "IPC-HX2X3X").
So I found the "DH_IPC-HX1XXX-Eos4_Eng_P_V2.622.0000000.9.R.180131" firmware which was installed correctly, but unfortunately the P2P problem is still there. It says it is online but it does not work.

What can I do?

Thank you very much and sorry for the long message.

As I noted in the review, unless something has changed, there are several issues with this cam.

 

[jackal992]

Eventually I was able to make P2P work. After the firmware update I did not reset the camera, foolishly; as soon as I performed the reset the P2P started working. I can now happily disable it, knowing that if I need it it's working. Thank you

 

[fenderman]

Eventually I was able to make P2P work. After the firmware update I did not reset the camera, foolishly; as soon as I performed the reset the P2P started working. I can now happily disable it, knowing that if I need it it's working. Thank you

thank god, we were worried.