IP Cameras keep timing out when the router is added to the POE switch

[Ron4000]

Hi all,
I hope someone has seen this before or is able to shed some light or point me in the right direction!
I am in the process of switching from a Dahua NVR to BI

I have the cameras as well as the BI PC connected to a POE switch (unmanaged) and all works great.

However as soon as I connect the router (internet) to the internet port on the POE switch, the cameras start intermittently timing out, then coming back again.
BI does successfully connect to the internet so it appears all is working except for the fact that the cameras constantly time out and come back.

Any ideas?

 

[catcamstar]

Hi all,
I hope someone has seen this before or is able to shed some light or point me in the right direction!
I am in the process of switching from a Dahua NVR to BI

I have the cameras as well as the BI PC connected to a POE switch (unmanaged) and all works great.

However as soon as I connect the router (internet) to the internet port on the POE switch, the cameras start intermittently timing out, then coming back again.
BI does successfully connect to the internet so it appears all is working except for the fact that the cameras constantly time out and come back.

Any ideas?

Hi Australia!
I think it would help us when you explain which router you have, how your NVR was set-up (eg. where was that router then connected), how your router was configured (DHCP ? IP reservations for NVR/cameras), how your cams were configured (fixed ip, DHCP?), did your subnet change etcetc.

Now it is guessing about the what's and how's - I SUSPECT your cams to be on DHCP, and your router is bit over-active and hands out new ips. Best practice is to put fixed IPs in camera's anyhow.

If you would like to add an additional layer of security, you might opt to add an additional NIC in your BI pc so your POE switch with all the cameras are separated from your home LAN.

Good luck!
CC

 

[Ron4000]

Hi Australia!
I think it would help us when you explain which router you have, how your NVR was set-up (eg. where was that router then connected), how your router was configured (DHCP ? IP reservations for NVR/cameras), how your cams were configured (fixed ip, DHCP?), did your subnet change etcetc.

Now it is guessing about the what's and how's - I SUSPECT your cams to be on DHCP, and your router is bit over-active and hands out new ips. Best practice is to put fixed IPs in camera's anyhow.

If you would like to add an additional layer of security, you might opt to add an additional NIC in your BI pc so your POE switch with all the cameras are separated from your home LAN.

Good luck!
CC

Thanks for your response catcamstar!
It has definitely given me a few leads to work with.
Apologies now that you have asked, it is clear there is a lot of information missing in my initial request.. I will try to fill in a few blanks.

My initial NVR setup was quite seamless.. connected the cams (dahua 4631C) to the NVR and the NVR to the router as per the normal set up for the NVR (Dahua 5216).
The NVR seemed to put the cams on their own subnet (10.1.1.1...) and my normal submit is 192.168.1.1...
All worked fine however I wasn't happy with the NVRs capabilities so I decided to try BI

My router is a Netgear XR500 running DDWRT
I believe it is running DHCP mode as I have never played around with this.. it assigns things their own IP as normal

During this latest setup, when each cam is connected to the network they tend to all give themselves the IP 192.168.1.39 (i think). Some of them gave themselves initially a 10.1.1.something IP as I believe they brought that over from when I was using an NVR
Nevertheless, I used the Dahua ConfigTool each time to assign them an IP on my current subnet (e.g. 192.168.1.201 - 202,203) , and I was able to use this to connect from BI.
I haven't done anything in the router to reserve this IP for them or .. I didn't think I needed to. I also have not performed the security recommendations yet.

Does that seem to be set up correctly?
Given I have assigned the cameras an IP using config tool (and they are accessible on these IPs), do you think I need to do anything more on the actual router to ensure it doesn't mess with them?

 

[catcamstar]

Thanks for your response catcamstar!
It has definitely given me a few leads to work with.

Does that seem to be set up correctly?
Given I have assigned the cameras an IP using config tool (and they are accessible on these IPs), do you think I need to do anything more on the actual router to ensure it doesn't mess with them?

There is one thing that bothers me in your explanation (which does help!): you state your ran configtool on your pc (the bi pc?) to setup the ip addresses in the cams. Where is your router in that scenario? Unplugged? And your BI pc has which IP?

In any case, setting up your network the way you do, is "asking" for troubles. The moment the DHCP service (in your netgear/ddWRT) is handing out ip's you have configured staticly in the cams, they drop of the network anyhow.

My suggestion (this is going to sound like high school homework): take a sheet of paper, make a small table, write each cam, its name and ip address. Connect the network as it should be (Router connected - NVR disconnected). Connect each cam piece by piece on the POE switch and configure that camera IP (like you did) in Configtool and push it to the camera. Check if camera "homepage" work (eg http://cam-ip/). Then login into your netgear, and make sure you either LIMIT the dhcp range (eg .200+ when your cams are <.100) OR you work with static IP reservations ( for example: How to set a Static IP on a DD-WRT router – albertogonzalez.net)).

If all this does not work, I suggest, as a best practice, to simply start over from scratch: unplug the NVR, factory reset the cams and repeat the procedure mentioned above.

Good luck!
CC

 

[Ron4000]

There is one thing that bothers me in your explanation (which does help!): you state your ran configtool on your pc (the bi pc?) to setup the ip addresses in the cams. Where is your router in that scenario? Unplugged? And your BI pc has which IP?

In any case, setting up your network the way you do, is "asking" for troubles. The moment the DHCP service (in your netgear/ddWRT) is handing out ip's you have configured staticly in the cams, they drop of the network anyhow.

My suggestion (this is going to sound like high school homework): take a sheet of paper, make a small table, write each cam, its name and ip address. Connect the network as it should be (Router connected - NVR disconnected). Connect each cam piece by piece on the POE switch and configure that camera IP (like you did) in Configtool and push it to the camera. Check if camera "homepage" work (eg http://cam-ip/). Then login into your netgear, and make sure you either LIMIT the dhcp range (eg .200+ when your cams are <.100) OR you work with static IP reservations ( for example: How to set a Static IP on a DD-WRT router – albertogonzalez.net)).

If all this does not work, I suggest, as a best practice, to simply start over from scratch: unplug the NVR, factory reset the cams and repeat the procedure mentioned above.

Good luck!
CC

I thought it was fine because the routers status page was showing the cams with their correct IP address, and it didn't appear to be trying to assign their IPs to something else at all..
However - as far as I can see, assigning the cameras their own static IP in the routers admin seems to have fixed the issue.
Thanks!

 

[catcamstar]

I thought it was fine because the routers status page was showing the cams with their correct IP address, and it didn't appear to be trying to assign their IPs to something else at all..
However - as far as I can see, assigning the cameras their own static IP in the routers admin seems to have fixed the issue.
Thanks!

Never assume the obvious. Although the First Law (of "I, Robot" ) states robots have to obey their masters, routers remain stupid machines

Good luck!
CC

 

[TonyR]

FWIW, I always set the cams, NVR's, network printers, etc. to static IP's that are outside the router's DHCP pool (above .199 usually) and don't concern myself with reserving those IP's in the router, as most ISP-furnished modem-router-AP combos in my customer base around here don't provide that feature to begin with.

Never had a problem doing it that way.

Glad to hear that apparently @catcamstar has you on the right track.