Lost all IP cameras in my network - how to reset?

[anhel]

My IP cameras were working fine up until 3 weeks ago. I have them all connected to a POE switch and I access/view them using an Amcrest NVR.
Cameras: Some of them are Lorex LNB8005 and some of them are Reolink RLC-420.

The NVR is reporting "The login return time is up". I tried to just restart everything, but still the same. I even deleted them from the NVR and tried to set up again. Cameras themselves does not seem accessible anymore.

Next I was trying to access the cameras through my PC. Since Windows 11 Edge browser does not support just accessing the camera web interface, I tried Chrome, which now also do not support accessing camera web interfaces.
I sent a ping to the cameras through command prompt. Get message "Destination host unreachable" for all of them.
I then tried to reset the cameras to factory settings. At least started with one. But here I am lost. According to Lorex the default IP Address for the Lorex cameras will be 192.168.1.108. This is not reachable either.

What could be wrong, and maybe more important why did all my cameras all of a sudden stop working at the same time?

I was afraid they might have been hacked and someone changed the IP addresses I setup, but the odds should be pretty good that they have not been able to get through my usser and password.
But how do I verify this, when I am unable to reach them?

 

[samplenhold]

They are all accessed through a POE switch. Is the switch working? Does it have power? Do the link, POE and ACT lights work? Does it show POE Fault? What if you connect a computer directly to the POE switch? Can you then access the cams? Will ping report? What switch is this?

 

[anhel]

All lights are on at the POE switch where it is expected. The cameras turn the night LED's on an off so I assume the POE switch is working for at least providing power to the cameras. It has 16 channels. I use channel 1 to connect into a Netgear GS305 unmanaged switch. CHannel 4 on the comes from POE switch. It does not have any light on or even blinking though. Not sure if it had or should have. I moved channel 2 cable over to channel 4 on the network and it is blinking then.
This setup has been working for at least 5 years now. Never touched it.

 

[anhel]

All lights are on at the POE switch where it is expected. The cameras turn the night LED's on an off so I assume the POE switch is working for at least providing power to the cameras. It has 16 channels. I use channel 1 to connect into a Netgear GS305 unmanaged switch. CHannel 4 on the comes from POE switch. It does not have any light on or even blinking though. Not sure if it had or should have. I moved channel 2 cable over to channel 4 on the network and it is blinking then.
This setup has been working for at least 5 years now. Never touched it.

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How do I go about connecting a computer directly to the POE switch. How do I access the cameras from there? Don't I need to go through my network anyway for that? And how is that different than current setup where the POE switch goes into the Netgear which is also has one cable going to my desktop?

 

[samplenhold]

The first question I should have asked you was...did ANYTHING change three weeks ago when this stopped working? Updates to the cam firmware, the NVR, your network? Any power outages or lightning storms?

So it appears that the POE switch is powering the cams. So that switch is probably not the problem. But you do have some kind of connectivity issue. From what I understand, your cams are connected to a 16 channel POE switch (make and model?). That switch is connected to the Netgear GS305 switch. From there your Amcrest NVR is connected and your desktop.

How do I go about connecting a computer directly to the POE switch. How do I access the cameras from there? Don't I need to go through my network anyway for that? And how is that different than current setup where the POE switch goes into the Netgear which is also has one cable going to my desktop?

So since the link light on the GS305 is not on, then something is amiss there. If you can connect the NVR directly to the 16 channel POE switch, does everything work out? Same thing for your desktop. Instead of plugging the desktop into the GS305, plug it into the 16 channel POE switch.

 

[anhel]

The first question I should have asked you was...did ANYTHING change three weeks ago when this stopped working? Updates to the cam firmware, the NVR, your network? Any power outages or lightning storms?

So it appears that the POE switch is powering the cams. So that switch is probably not the problem. But you do have some kind of connectivity issue. From what I understand, your cams are connected to a 16 channel POE switch (make and model?). That switch is connected to the Netgear GS305 switch. From there your Amcrest NVR is connected and your desktop.


So since the link light on the GS305 is not on, then something is amiss there. If you can connect the NVR directly to the 16 channel POE switch, does everything work out? Same thing for your desktop. Instead of plugging the desktop into the GS305, plug it into the 16 channel POE switch.

Sure, I can try that. However, both desktop and NVR only have one network port each. So then they will not be connected to my LAN. How do I then access the cameras etc?

 

[anhel]

The first question I should have asked you was...did ANYTHING change three weeks ago when this stopped working? Updates to the cam firmware, the NVR, your network? Any power outages or lightning storms?

No changes made - no firmware updates, no NVR updates, no network updates. We had some power outages, but everything came back to normal after these.

So since the link light on the GS305 is not on, then something is amiss there. If you can connect the NVR directly to the 16 channel POE switch, does everything work out? Same thing for your desktop. Instead of plugging the desktop into the GS305, plug it into the 16 channel POE switch.

I connected the NVR directly to the POE switch, and ran the Smart Add to find cameras. No cameras added. Message: There is no IPC. Please check the network and operate again.

 

[wittaj]

Most of us do not have cameras going thru a router.

What is the IP address subnet of your cameras?

Did you manually set the IP address or using DHCP?

Do you have a power supply you can try one camera or a different POE switch

Simply plug the computer into an available POE port on the switch. The switch auto-negotiates that the laptop doesn't need power.

And then put the laptop on the same subnet as your cameras if it is different.

It sure looks like maybe the port that the switch is hooked to for the rest of the system is out or the IP subnet changed.

Draw out an network topology with IP addresses for each device and see if something changed.

 

[anhel]

I think I have found the root cause. I plugged in one of the cameras into a power supply and took the network cable from a device that is connected and working (my NAS drive) and connected that to the camera. Viola! Working.
Just to make sure I took the same camera out to my Netgear switch, plugged it into the same port. The ATC light came on right away and the camera is working.
So, I think the POE switch is toast.

I've had this switch for at least 10 years, so maybe it's time to get a new one anyway.

Does anyone have any advice on a good 8 port Gigabit PoE switch? As cheap as possible, of course.

 

[VorlonFrog]

Cheap enough?

 

[samplenhold]

I have one of these for a few years now and it works great.

Amazon.com: NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged PoE+ Switch (GS308PP) - with 8 x PoE+ @ 83W, Desktop or Wall Mount : Electronics

 

[looney2ns]

Going cheap with a POE switch is not a good idea.
I suggest the POE switch that @samplenhold suggested above.