Dahua Starlight IPC-HDW5231RN-Z not working :(

Can you directly plug in and power the cam into your PC?


Not Easily, I have to use a lift to get to the camera as well as the electrical box with POE, I just ordered a stand alone POE injector so when and if I have to take it down to trouble shoot I will have a POE to test with.
 
Not Easily, I have to use a lift to get to the camera as well as the electrical box with POE, I just ordered a stand alone POE injector so when and if I have to take it down to trouble shoot I will have a POE to test with.
if you login to your router, can you find its mac adress there, and block its WAN connection? when blocking mine from WAN i found it when selecting "show offline client list" in router.
 
if you login to your router, can you find its mac adress there, and block its WAN connection? when blocking mine from WAN i found it when selecting "show offline client list" in router.

When I log into router I see a list of attached devices and it's not on it. I am not even sure my netgear R4500 can show an offline client list.
 
maybe you can just unplug the WAN cable from your router and see if cam works again?
Left it unplugged for about 10 minutes and never came back online. I do have another camera (HFW4231S) attached to the same POE switch (BV-Tech POE-SW501 BV TECH 10/100Mbps 4 Port) and it's rock solid. I even swapped the cables around last week but didn't make a difference. It's been off line for most of the afternoon, waiting to see if comes back up this evening or in the morning and then I can grab the FW version info.
 
As an Amazon Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
If there was a bug that reset the camera's IP to the original default, and you have multiple cameras that all experienced the same glitch, then they will all fight over the same original IP address and have IP address conflicts thus seeming to keep "going offline and online every 10 seconds". Try disconnecting every camera from your switch and only plug one in and see if it gets that original IP and stabilizes. Then you can update and change the IP back and do this one at a time. It's just like if you buy 5 new cameras you can't plug them all in simultaneously to configure them, you have to do it one at a time because they are all fighting for the same ip. That's my theory anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Mine is back online and I grabbed the info

Software Version2.460.0000.7.R, Build Date: 2017-03-06
WEB Version3.2.1.427921
ONVIF Version2.42
 
For the record I only have one IP camera. Every other device on my network has its own IP and those addresses haven't changed for years. A conflict is very unlikely. The outside attacker scenario sounds more plausible even if that too is a stretch.

Now I hesitate buying more of these cameras. Kind of expected more. I mean, I've had several raspberry cameras online for years, even port-forwarded, and they have been running great. Buy a dedicated IP camera from a leading manufacturer and it breaks down after having been plugged in like four times.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mike Mo
Now I hesitate buying more of these cameras. Kind of expected more. I mean, I've had several raspberry cameras online for years, even port-forwarded, and they have been running great. Buy a dedicated IP camera from a leading manufacturer and it breaks down after having been plugged in like four times.
Dahua cameras are one of the most reliable cams on the market...I have many of them installed for years without issue..there are integrator who install thousands of these with minimal failure...there is something unique going on with the few cameras that failed...
 
Has anyone checked logs for anything odd when the camera first went offline?

I ask because I have some odd log entries for about a week ago on an 8231 bullet which was offline for a short time but came back online with different settings? I have a possible culprit that is innocent, but beginning to wonder as I'm not big on coincidence...
 
I'm not having issues but I have all my CAM blocked from accessing anything and isolated on their own LAN. One thing I noticed on my IPC-HDW5231R-Z cameras is they attempt to connect out to the internet all the time. From monitoring with Wireshark they continually attempt to resolve dms.easy4ipcloud.com. One would have generally thought disabling Easy4ip would prevent this from occurring, but no. I love the CAM but don't trust the firmware when it comes to security.
 
Update a wrong firmware? Seems can totally dead
The firmware i upgraded to was DH_IPC-HX6X3X-Rhea_Eng_P_Stream3_V2.460.0000.7.R.20170306.bin
I've tried connecting the camera directly to another PC and still getting the issue of getting a few pings then they go. Unable to access the web console at all for the camera.
 
Does your camera allow you to get the login database by requesting http://<camera ip>/current_config/passwd ? If so it could be a target for WAN-based attacks (or I guess even targeted by some malware that's resident on your own LAN).

It's worth checking your router DMZ and PnP settings (both are best left disabled unless you actually need them), and also a good idea to port scan your own WAN IP just to see what's actually listening on it.

(Not by any means saying that the camera problems are caused by malware, but it can't hurt to check for obvious risks)
 
Does your camera allow you to get the login database by requesting http://<camera ip>/current_config/passwd ? If so it could be a target for WAN-based attacks (or I guess even targeted by some malware that's resident on your own LAN).

It's worth checking your router DMZ and PnP settings (both are best left disabled unless you actually need them), and also a good idea to port scan your own WAN IP just to see what's actually listening on it.

(Not by any means saying that the camera problems are caused by malware, but it can't hurt to check for obvious risks)

Can i ask, where you put /current_config, what would i put in there? My user name for the camera? DMZ is disabled, i have Upnp which is currently enabled.
 
So good news I suppose, I managed to restore the camera to life using the unbricking thread (Dahua IPC unbricking / recovery over serial UART and TFTP) and files I extracted from the same file that previously bricked the camera (despite flashing from a direct PC-Camera connection).

I have now created an access restriction rule in Tomato for the MAC address. Hopefully this will be enough. Would be very interested in finding out what is happening here ...
 
I'm not having issues but I have all my CAM blocked from accessing anything and isolated on their own LAN. One thing I noticed on my IPC-HDW5231R-Z cameras is they attempt to connect out to the internet all the time. From monitoring with Wireshark they continually attempt to resolve dms.easy4ipcloud.com. One would have generally thought disabling Easy4ip would prevent this from occurring, but no. I love the CAM but don't trust the firmware when it comes to security.

Same with a new SD29204T-GN that I got regardless of any settings. About every 10 seconds it attempts to phone home to that host. As you say it's easy enough to block and doesn't appear to be anything particularly malicious but I still don't like it. Disappointed to hear that it's the same with the HDW5231R-Z. Probably applies to all of them running the same base firmware version. Most just aren't looking for it and/or haven't noticed. On the positive side I've watched it fairly closely since and haven't seen anything else sketchy that it's doing.
 
Last edited: