Help needed! Recording outages with Dahua NVR

Forgot to ask but after I resetted the NVR and logged into the cams I noticed the motion detection and tripwire settings were still there. I didnt end up factory defaulting the cams as I wasn't sure that was required.

Also I noticed this disconnection event type under Abnormality setting which I have enabled but not sure what the purpose is given there isnt an ability to send email of a disconnection? Not sure why you would "Record" for a disconnection and also not sure what is "Relay-Out" meant to do here.

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The network disconnection could be from a variety of natural or intentional reasons. Having the cams record on the chance that one of them might help capture footage of the cause of disconnection.

The relay-out option is to potentially trigger an external resource when the noted event occurs. Sounding a physical alarm, causing a light to come on, etc
 
Thanks
SpacemanSpiff said:
The network disconnection could be from a variety of natural or intentional reasons. Having the cams record on the chance that one of them might help capture footage of the cause of disconnection.

The relay-out option is to potentially trigger an external resource when the noted event occurs. Sounding a physical alarm, causing a light to come on, etc
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Thanks spaceman. But once the cam is disconnected doesn't that mean it can't record on the hdd in the nvr? I am currently recording 24/7 does that mean I don't need to enable this disconnection setting?
 
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I do not disagree with your point. It tough when the manufacturer does not provide its intention/definition of the screen shot noted. Could simply be that they used the firmware of another NVR, and never removed the features that are unused for your model.

It is 100% speculation on my part that any network disconnection activity could (hopefully) be detected and cause the remaining devices to record. Whether it be a single camera, or multiple cams. As you pointed out, if the NVR is disconnected it will simply capture footage of the NVR's 'loss of signal/video' notification. At the least, you would know why the NVR stopped receiving footage.
 
To minimize potentially lost recordings you can enable ANR as well, you will need a SD card in every camera though.

From Dahua wiki:
ANR: It is to save video to the SD card of the network camera in case the network connection fails. The value ranges from 0s～ After the network connection resumed, the system can get the video from the SD card and there is no risk of record loss.
 
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I am new to all these cams but agree for some of the dahua settings its not clear from the wording what it actually means. So far the reset seems to have solved some of my issues as I used to get quite a few cam disconnected emails overnight and when i woke up i was pleasantly surprised i didnt get any. Hopefully there are no recording dropouts in the coming days. Will report back!
 
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gengar said:
Thanks. My tabs are a bit different to yours. I have "Cam offline" which is presume is the same thing? Anyway I enabled and ticked the box but now I am getting these CAM offline emails even though the cams are still online. Is there something I am missing?

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Another good sign. I am finally getting proper cam offline emails! I used to get these false email alerts every few minutes (even though the cam was still connected) but I just tested it and I got a notification when I unplugged the network cable and also got another email saying the cam is back online when i re-plugged back the network cable. So far no false email alerts after almost 24 hours now!

Big thanks to @bigredfish
 
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Its been over a week now and all is well. I did have one cam drop offline shortly after power was restored following a power outage but now at least i get a notification when the cam goes offline. A quick reboot of the NVR and all four cams were back online. So far I haven't experienced any drop out in recording like before so seems the issue is fixed.

I did have one question which hoping someone may know. When i search through playback in know I can filter to only see "motion" but then it includes all motion like insects flying, branches moving around in the wind etc. Is there a way to just filter for SMD people? I have setup alert on the mobile app to only get notification of SMD people and vehicle so seems there is a way to differentiate general "motion" and SMD but can't seem to find a way to filter it in either the NVR webpage or SmartPSS. Any one any idea?

PS: I did try to disable motion detect on the camera but it said if it would also disable SMD which i need...
 
I’d have to research a bit but it could be because your NVR firmware doesn’t support SMD, thus no way for it to differentiate from regular MD recording. Often the cameras outpace the NVR in features.
 
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bigredfish said:
I’d have to research a bit but it could be because your NVR firmware doesn’t support SMD, thus no way for it to differentiate from regular MD recording. Often the cameras outpace the NVR in features.
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Ah i see. Not a big issue for me as I have setup tripwire so based on that i should be able to narrow down the time that I need to look at. Thanks again bigredfish! Can't thank you enough for helping me sort out these issues!
 
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I must have jinxed myself. After the power outage a few days ago, one of the cameras is now getting disconnected about once every two days. Its always the same camera (its Channel 1 in my screenshot below) but happens at different times. The good news is that I get an email alert of the disconnection so I reboot the NVR and its back online. Its only happened after the power outage so I am thinking (hoping) the sudden power outaged stuffed up something with the cam or the NVR.

I can reset the NVR but wondering if there is something else I can try before resetting the NVR that is less drastic so I dont have to setup everything again. For example, can I delete the cam in the camera list page and wait for the NVR to detect and add it back like when i first set it up? Any help appreciated!

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Does it only happen at night when IR is on?
 
Camera 1 just went offline again. Its getting a bit more frequent. That was the 2nd time today. I am probably going to bite the bullet and reset the NVR again and see if that fixes the issue.
 
Can you isolate your NVR from the internet? It would be interesting to see after 24 hours if you still get dropouts.

Also are you using P2P or is it disabled?. Disable for this 24 hour test.

Next I would try unplugging all but 1 camera in the first port for 24 hours and seeing if that camera drops out..,
 
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I have an NVR (older 4208) that does something similar. occasionally When we get a short power outage, one or two cameras don’t come back online automatically. I have to reboot the NVR, and sometimes it takes 30 min or more for the NVR to auto discover them. Once it does, they stick and I do not have dropouts. I don’t have to reset the NVR.
It seems to be something to do with that short outage messing up the auto discovery sequence. It only happens a handful of times per year so I haven’t worried about it.

But with yours dropping cameras after initially rebooting and recording for a time, I suspect something else contributing
 
bigredfish said:
I have an NVR (older 4208) that does something similar. occasionally When we get a short power outage, one or two cameras don’t come back online automatically. I have to reboot the NVR, and sometimes it takes 30 min or more for the NVR to auto discover them. Once it does, they stick and I do not have dropouts. I don’t have to reset the NVR.
It seems to be something to do with that short outage messing up the auto discovery sequence. It only happens a handful of times per year so I haven’t worried about it.

But with yours dropping cameras after initially rebooting and recording for a time, I suspect something else contributing
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Thanks for sharing. I also notice a couple of the camera names not sticking and default back to "camera 1” not sure if related. Anyway I should have time over the weekend to do a reset again. Thanks for ur help mate!
 
Have you checked with Andy to see if there is newer firmware for your NVR?
 
SpacemanSpiff said:
The relay-out option is to potentially trigger an external resource when the noted event occurs. Sounding a physical alarm, causing a light to come on, etc
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Does the relay-out option belongs to the NVR Alarm-out port or to the camera alarm output ?
 
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