Dahua NVR Reboots during the day

[HMS]

I was seriously looking at getting one of these to replace my BI system but after reading all this I'll be sticking with BI. It's solid and reliable. Definite case of the grass not being greener.....

What was your reason for wanting to replace the BI if its solid and reliable?

 

[aristobrat]

One question I do have is, when a trigger is tripped, does the NVR record a separate clip for this, or just put 'markers' on the existing 24/7 stream it's already recording?

It records a separate clip, which brings up the second issue I have...

That separate clip doesn't always start with an iframe at the beginning of the file, so when you view it back, the player may skip playing back all of the frames before the first iframe, which can cause a jump or ghost effect. Changing your iframe setting to match your fps setting can minimize this, but it doesn't eliminate it.

Let me know what Andy says about a refund. As much as I don't want to mess with BI, I may have to. I just tried to make a video for someone of Tripwire activity on one camera and the jumping/ghosting made it look beyond amateur.

 

[essjay]

What was your reason for wanting to replace the BI if its solid and reliable?

I wanted a neater solution, that's all. But I'm not going for aesthetics if the machine doesn't work. No other reason I was looking to change. Also realised I like having BI running on my workstation PC so it's easy to flick open the app and take a look. Also the BI companion iPhone app is very good.

Btw, I'm recording 6 X 3MP cameras and a handful of lower resolution ones at 15fps. BI is using 10% CPU (i7-4790 non-K) and 2GB RAM so not very resource hungry.

 

[Tygunn]

Smart move. Seriously thinking of sending mine back to Andy for a refund. If a new firmware update shows soon that resolves this for the rest of you, great. Otherwise, back to China this goes.

To be honest, the NVR just doesn't feel like a polished or reliable platform at all. I'm tempted to just send mine back if I can as well. I thought to use it as a backup recorder, but I can just buy SD cards for all the cameras and get the same capability that way.

Prime example; I did have motion detect setup to record events from the Hikvision camera; it turned off at some point. I had a HARD time getting it to turn back on. Now it seems to be on.
Another time I had ZERO event recordings on a friday; turns out my record schedule changed to NOT record events on fridays.
While setting it up, I had a LOAD of instances where I thought I did something, but went back to the settings screen it turned out my setting didn't take.
The IVS is pretty neat but it took a lot of twiddling to get the NVR to record the events properly.

The continual reboots are the nail in its coffin. Not only is losing video annoying, but the device makes LOUD beeps when it reboots. Although the NVR is hidden away in a closet, the loud beeps are audible anywhere in the house, especially in the middle of the night.

 

[aristobrat]

Ha, my NVR is still in my bedroom. The loud beeps are not fun to wake up to! lol

 

[Tygunn]

Dahua support wants me to try disconnecting all the cameras and see if it prevents the reboots. Hrrrm. Maybe once I get my Blue Iris setup all tweaked.... But not when I "rely" on it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[aristobrat]

Dahua support wants me to try disconnecting all the cameras and see if it prevents the reboots. Hrrrm. Maybe once I get my Blue Iris setup all tweaked.... But not when I "rely" on it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

That's a crazy ask from them, IMO. Seems like they'd be wanting to see log exports to see the events before/after the reboots.

 

[Tygunn]

That's a crazy ask from them, IMO. Seems like they'd be wanting to see log exports to see the events before/after the reboots.

I see where they're coming from though. It's an intermittent failure and without more information they can't really make an accurate diagnosis.

That said I don't have the patience to disconnect all the cameras and reconnect them, or factory reset and reconfigure everything. The cameras themselves are reliable and work fine.

My serial cable arrives tomorrow so I'm going to keep a continual capture of the console from the NVR. I'm hoping I can catch the reboots and be able to provide more detailed logs.

That's a crazy ask from them, IMO. Seems like they'd be wanting to see log exports to see the events before/after the reboots.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[weigle2]

Dahua support wants me to try disconnecting all the cameras and see if it prevents the reboots. Hrrrm. Maybe once I get my Blue Iris setup all tweaked.... But not when I "rely" on it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

As all my reboots are the result of an IVS event trigger, of course that will solve the problem! LOL Reminds me of an old Frank & Ernest joke, "We provide Hardware, Software and Nowhere" when asked about support. Obviously, we need to get past first level support to someone that knows about this problem. I bought my NVR5216-4KS2 from the new batch Andy received right after the Chinese New Year Holidays were over. When was yours purchased?

 

[Tygunn]

As all my reboots are the result of an IVS event trigger, of course that will solve the problem! LOL Reminds me of an old Frank & Ernest joke, "We provide Hardware, Software and Nowhere" when asked about support. Obviously, we need to get past first level support to someone that knows about this problem. I bought my NVR5216-4KS2 from the new batch Andy received right after the Chinese New Year Holidays were over. When was yours purchased?

Seems especially funny if the error code means there is a video decoding error. You definitely can't have that problem if there is no video.

I bought mine a few months ago. I don't think the firmware has changed yet.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Talos77]

I was considering a dahua NVR and a couple of the Starlight cams but after seeing this issue, and it being an ongoing one that also affected the 4xxx series I'm now leaning back towards a Hikvision setup. Doesnt matter if the dahua cams are better than the hik of they aren't recording when you need them I guess...

Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk

 

[HMS]

any update @Tygunn ??

 

[Tygunn]

any update @Tygunn ??

No crashes so far. Of course!

It seems the Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies!

 

[Del Boy]

I was considering a dahua NVR and a couple of the Starlight cams but after seeing this issue, and it being an ongoing one that also affected the 4xxx series I'm now leaning back towards a Hikvision setup. Doesnt matter if the dahua cams are better than the hik of they aren't recording when you need them I guess...

Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk

Do some more research. A few people have a minor problem with a Dahua NVR. Hundreds come here with issues with Hikvision. Yet you lean more to the latter now?

Every setup can have teething issues, if you want no install problems get a analog cabled kit but be prepared for rubbish quality.

IMHO, asking you to remove cameras one by one to diagnose the issue is a sensible approach. Maybe this is why support elsewhere is so bad because people don't want to help themselves by doing what support ask. I have fixed many setups (including on here) by taking the same approach. When people say I don't want to try that because I'm a magician at CCTV but came here for help then ah well, that's their choice. Some try it to humour us and find out we were right all along.

@Tygunn, I personally favour auto-rebooting the NVR on a weekly basis, some are ok monthly - others never but I don't like that as these are mini computers essentially.

 

[tigerwillow1]

I was considering a dahua NVR and a couple of the Starlight cams but after seeing this issue, and it being an ongoing one that also affected the 4xxx series I'm now leaning back towards a Hikvision setup. Doesnt matter if the dahua cams are better than the hik of they aren't recording when you need them I guess...

Sent from my XT1635-02 using Tapatalk

Speaking from limited experience, both Dahua and Hikvision products are embarrassingly buggy. Most of us use only a subset of the features, so a particular device that works well for one person might be unusable for another. I started with rebranded Hikvision and switched to Dahua. I have the dropped frames bug. There's no sugar-coating it, it's totally nasty. I don't have the random reboot problem. In the end, the summary is that for my usage I'm better off with Dahua's bugs than with Hikvision's bugs.

 

[Tygunn]

Speaking from limited experience, both Dahua and Hikvision products are embarrassingly buggy. Most of us use only a subset of the features, so a particular device that works well for one person might be unusable for another. I started with rebranded Hikvision and switched to Dahua. I have the dropped frames bug. There's no sugar-coating it, it's totally nasty. I don't have the random reboot problem. In the end, the summary is that for my usage I'm better off with Dahua's bugs than with Hikvision's bugs.

That's a very good point. The big thing to note is that if we bought well tested PRO video cameras we'd be spending FAR more than we did on these. So as much as it sucks to have bugs, we've paid FAR less than what pro systems costs, so as the saying goes, "You get what you pay for".

I've got the missed frames bug too. Now that my blue iris system is fully up and running (and not missing frames), I'm going to switch my NVR to 24/7 recording only so it'll hopefully NOT have the missed frames issues.

 

[Tygunn]

Update: My wife is working from home and has been complaining about the intermittent loud beeping from the hallway. That means the NVR has rebooted a couple times today at least. When I get home I'll look through my logs and see what I caught!

 

[DavidDavid]

My wife also brings up the beeping and just asks "is that you?" luckily a "yeah" response is enough and I don't have to explain that the very expensive camera system i spent months researching and installing is not working properly.

 

[Tygunn]

My wife also brings up the beeping and just asks "is that you?" luckily a "yeah" response is enough and I don't have to explain that the very expensive camera system i spent months researching and installing is not working properly.

Hahah, yeah, I hear you on that. My system has become a money pit.

 

[DavidDavid]

I mean, I'm fine with what I spent, but I really do wish it would work properly.

I'm really hoping you find something useful with your testing!