Lorex NVR and FTP

[br719]

Hi,

I think I made a mistake. Sorry for the long post... I purchased a Lorex 16 channel kit with NVR model NR916X and installed it in a small business. I have a Netgear ReadyNAS with WD purple drives that was intended to be used as extra storage so that we would be able to maintain up to 30 days worth of video history. When setting up the FTP connection on the NVR, it looked good at first. I was able to successfully test the connection and then did a test for Channel = 1, Weekday = <current day>, time period = 0-23:59, and options checked for MD and Continuous. Looking on the NAS, I was actually shocked to see a file show up immediately and start to grow with every refresh (nothing ever works on the first try). Then it was all downhill.

I went back to the NVR and changed the parameters for Channel to All, and the Weekday to All. I clicked OK and got the success message. Back on the NAS, I noticed about half of the channels started to show up. Not great, but at least it was something. I kept clicking refresh to watch the file sizes and almost immediately noticed some of the channel files stopped growing. About 4 of the channels stopped when the files were under about 75MB with one down to about 15MB. The others stopped when the file size was between 700-850MB.

Back on the NVR, everything looked OK. I went out of the FTP setup screen and when I went back in, I noticed that the Channel and Weekday parameters were reset to Channel 1 and the current day. I changed them back and saved, got the OK message and went back to the NAS. Nothing. I then changed the NVR setting to just use channel 1 on the current day and checked the NAS again. Nothing. Then I restarted the NVR and tried again on just channel 1. It started recording a single file again but stopped around 800MB. I then tried multiple permutations of channels, weekdays, time periods, continuous and MD. I initially left the file size parameter at zero and also tried changing that to random file sizes. None of it worked and I can't get it to do anything now. As a side note, every time I went out of the FTP setup screen and came back in, the channel and weekday were reset to channel 1 and the current day. I don't know if it was actually reset, or if it was just the display that showed the reset. All other parameters were retained.

The manual does not even contain the word FTP and completely skips this part of the setup. I have found very little help on the Internet except for one guy who seems to have gotten it to work with snapshots. I also wasted an hour on the phone with "Support" who I suspect was giving me the troubleshooting steps for a microwave oven. In the end, her expert opinion was that I needed to "call FTP" for help.

With this being relatively simple to setup, I don't think I have missed anything but I thought I would post here in the hope that maybe there is a setting somewhere that I didn't turn on. I'm already disappointed with the limited ability to fine-tune the system in our environment and now this is adding to my buyer's remorse. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would really like to get this running but in the event that the FTP process just doesn't work, what would be my best option going forward to have FTP capability?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TonyR]

I also wasted an hour on the phone with "Support" who I suspect was giving me the troubleshooting steps for a microwave oven. In the end, her expert opinion was that I needed to "call FTP" for help.

"Call FTP" !! LOL!
I commend you for keeping your sense of humor . I wish I had a similar setup with an NVR, NAS, etc. so I could help you but I'm a Blue Iris guy.
But I am curious...what are your options under "storage"? Wouldn't that be the more appropriate place to find a network device like a NAS?
Whenever I FTP, I send only relatively small files (HTML, JPG's) out over the Internet to a web page.

 

[br719]

LOL, I forgot to ask her for the number to call FTP! After about 5 minutes, I knew the support call was going nowhere but decided it was the only option I had at the time. She wasn't able to comprehend what was going on. She asked if I had a laptop so she could start a web meeting and see my screen. I said I was on a server, but yes. Her response was along the lines of "OK, but do you have a laptop?"

But I am curious...what are your options under "storage"? Wouldn't that be the more appropriate place to find a network device like a NAS?

Unfortunately the options are very limited. The NVR comes with a 3TB drive and has a second empty bay. According to the documentation, it supports up to 8TB in each bay so I could have 16TB available on board which is not enough but better than what's there now. However, there would be no redundancy. Sadly there are no options in the Storage section to connect to any network devices.

 

[catcamstar]

Interesting question, never tested FTP though. As lorex is bitwise similar to the dahua NVR, I compared your screen with mine.

Have a look at

https://dahuawiki.com/FTP/FTP_Setup_Core_FTP_Server

step 12 & 13, it looks the same as yours. So if you choose "channel -All" and "days -All", and have "record snapshot" in your motion detection triggers, doesn't this save the snapshots into your FTP?

I personally would "record 24/7" locally on the NVR disks, and offload the snapshots towards your NAS. If FTP does not give you the required flexibility, you could work around the APIs to "query" for last events and then grab those clips from the NVR. Bit complex.

Keep us posted on your results!
CC

 

[br719]

Thanks CC. I stumbled on the Dahua wiki page as well which initially gave me some hope. I assumed that since Dahua and Lorex were essentially the same, that the features would work the same and be supported the same. However, Dahua seems to support their FTP while Lorex does not. They have scrubbed their site and all documentation of any mention of FTP, even though the option is still there. I have an email conversation with Support where I've tried to explain that the problem is with the NVR, not the NAS, but they ignore that and in every response put in a disclaimer saying "The case will be closed as resolved due to we do not support that feature due to it depends on a third party device."

I haven't had any luck with snapshots yet but I am sure that is user error. And to be honest, I'm not very familiar with them and how they would differ from motion detected events. I've seen the settings in 3-4 different menus and I just haven't played with it enough to get it to work. One of my tasks this week is to educate myself and see if I can get that to work as a test.

I haven't looked at any APIs; I didn't even know Lorex had exposed APIs. That may be an option.

I'm a little surprised that I seem to be on an island here. Have I approached this from the wrong angle? The overall objective is to have about 30 days of video history with some redundancy (i.e. RAID 5). With the number of cameras we have, that's about 24TB. Ideally we want the history to be on a network device separate from the NVR. What does everyone else do?

 

[mat200]

Thanks CC. I stumbled on the Dahua wiki page as well which initially gave me some hope. I assumed that since Dahua and Lorex were essentially the same, that the features would work the same and be supported the same. However, Dahua seems to support their FTP while Lorex does not. They have scrubbed their site and all documentation of any mention of FTP, even though the option is still there...

HI @br719

Does the Lorex version of the Dahua OEM firmware show the same ftp options as specified in the Dahua wiki? or have they materially changed it? ( my assumption is they would leave it in... )

 

[br719]

Hi @mat200,

The Lorex UI is exactly the same as the Dahua wiki. I attached a screenshot of the Lorex FTP settings and it looks identical to the screenshot in step 12 on the Dahua wiki.

The process worked briefly so the plumbing is there. Does anyone know if there are any system log files that I can access that might show what's going on behind the scenes?