Hello everyone,
As most first posts on these forums seem to be seeking help with a particular problem, I thought I'd be a little different and use my first post to offer a 'possible' solution. Or, more accurately, a workaround as opposed to an actual solution.
Like John A, I have also 'upgraded' to the M series NVR from an I series and I too am experiencing similar problems to those which he describes.
Background details:-
My previous NVR was a DS-7716NI 14/16P which had 11 IP cameras connected. I started with 4MP cameras and slowly added to my system over time including three 4K cameras until I was beginning to exceed my incoming bandwidth limit. Varying the camera settings allowed the NVR to function adequately although slightly sluggish in operation when accessing the menu.
I operate the NVR by having a 4k monitor directly connected via HDMI.
When I read about the release of the new M series NVR's with higher incoming bandwidth allowance I decided to purchase the DS-7716NI-M4/16P model.
This new NVR was set up using the same settings as my previous model although I now only have 9 cameras connected. (A combination of Hikvision Turret and Cube models) The 9 cameras are connected to the PoE ports D1 to D9. Within a few minutes of getting the system up and running I started to notice certain cameras were pausing intermittently on the live view display. This pause would last anywhere from half a second up to 5 seconds and then the view would catch up again. Also, after leaving the system running for several hours I was seeing some of the cameras dropping out altogether for a few seconds before resuming their picture. These picture drop outs seemed to be occurring completely randomly. After a few days I looked at the reporting log files under Maintenance / Log Info / Exception and several instances of 'IP Camera Disconnected' were showing in the list. Again these disconnects all seemed to be occurring at random times. One day I got 32 camera disconnects and the following day just 2. An average seems to be around 16 to 20 camera disconnects in a 24 hour period.
I left the system running for about a week and the same pattern was repeating with constant camera disconnects being reported. However, after further investigation I noticed that only the cameras on D1, D2, D3, D4 and D9 were suffering from these disconnects. Cameras on D5, D6 D7 and D8 never reported any disconnects at all. The same cameras which were disconnecting are also the ones suffering from the live view pauses. D5,D6,D7 and D8 never pause during live view.
D1 has a 4K camera connected and so does D6 and D7.
Today, while trying once again to solve this problem I decided to swap cameras between D1 and D7. Both are 4K cameras, one of which is suffering disconnects (D1) and the other which isn't (D7). A short time later I observed the camera now connected to D1 to be suffering the live view pauses but the camera now on D7 was working fine. This pointed to a problem with D1 PoE port and not the camera.
The next step in my investigation was to remove the camera from D1 and plug it into the D16 PoE port. That was about 4 hours ago now and since doing that I haven't seen a pause from any of the 9 cameras in live view or any camera disconnects reported. I know it's only 4 hours but I can tell that the system is running much more smoothly now since removing the camera from the D1 port.
I've no idea if this is a complete coincidence or a temporary thing, only time will tell.
John A was suspecting a power supply problem on the PoE ports. In my case I didn't think that was the problem because the camera drop outs last a few seconds and the picture comes back on in live view. If the power to the camera had been lost even for a split second then the camera would have to boot up again which would take a good 30 seconds or so. Also, the power for each camera is showing to be around 4 to 5 Watts and all the cameras combined are using around 16% of the total available.
My initial thoughts were pointing towards a network settings error somewhere causing a conflict. Unfortunately my understanding of networks is very limited and I don't have sufficient in depth knowledge to know if one or more of my settings is incorrect. JB1970 mentions also having 9 cameras on a 16 channel M series and all are running without any problems. It's obvious from reading his posts that his (or her) knowledge of networks is far superior to mine so maybe I've got a setting wrong somewhere which could be causing this problem.
My NVR might have a fault with the D1 port or as I say, it might be a network setting error. But, at the moment things seem to be working OK. I'll leave it a few days and report my findings back on here. I'm never going to have 16 cameras installed on my system so being unable to use D1 isn't really a problem to me.
I would be interested to know if this workaround solves a similar problem that anyone else might be experiencing.
I purposely haven't included the various camera models because everything worked fine with the previous NVR so I'm almost certain it isn't a camera or connecting Cat 5 cable issue.
Sorry for the long introductory post on the forum but I've tried to explain things as clearly as possible.
John H.
I've just had another thought. Maybe the M series models are not suitable for anyone named John.
As most first posts on these forums seem to be seeking help with a particular problem, I thought I'd be a little different and use my first post to offer a 'possible' solution. Or, more accurately, a workaround as opposed to an actual solution.
Like John A, I have also 'upgraded' to the M series NVR from an I series and I too am experiencing similar problems to those which he describes.
Background details:-
My previous NVR was a DS-7716NI 14/16P which had 11 IP cameras connected. I started with 4MP cameras and slowly added to my system over time including three 4K cameras until I was beginning to exceed my incoming bandwidth limit. Varying the camera settings allowed the NVR to function adequately although slightly sluggish in operation when accessing the menu.
I operate the NVR by having a 4k monitor directly connected via HDMI.
When I read about the release of the new M series NVR's with higher incoming bandwidth allowance I decided to purchase the DS-7716NI-M4/16P model.
This new NVR was set up using the same settings as my previous model although I now only have 9 cameras connected. (A combination of Hikvision Turret and Cube models) The 9 cameras are connected to the PoE ports D1 to D9. Within a few minutes of getting the system up and running I started to notice certain cameras were pausing intermittently on the live view display. This pause would last anywhere from half a second up to 5 seconds and then the view would catch up again. Also, after leaving the system running for several hours I was seeing some of the cameras dropping out altogether for a few seconds before resuming their picture. These picture drop outs seemed to be occurring completely randomly. After a few days I looked at the reporting log files under Maintenance / Log Info / Exception and several instances of 'IP Camera Disconnected' were showing in the list. Again these disconnects all seemed to be occurring at random times. One day I got 32 camera disconnects and the following day just 2. An average seems to be around 16 to 20 camera disconnects in a 24 hour period.
I left the system running for about a week and the same pattern was repeating with constant camera disconnects being reported. However, after further investigation I noticed that only the cameras on D1, D2, D3, D4 and D9 were suffering from these disconnects. Cameras on D5, D6 D7 and D8 never reported any disconnects at all. The same cameras which were disconnecting are also the ones suffering from the live view pauses. D5,D6,D7 and D8 never pause during live view.
D1 has a 4K camera connected and so does D6 and D7.
Today, while trying once again to solve this problem I decided to swap cameras between D1 and D7. Both are 4K cameras, one of which is suffering disconnects (D1) and the other which isn't (D7). A short time later I observed the camera now connected to D1 to be suffering the live view pauses but the camera now on D7 was working fine. This pointed to a problem with D1 PoE port and not the camera.
The next step in my investigation was to remove the camera from D1 and plug it into the D16 PoE port. That was about 4 hours ago now and since doing that I haven't seen a pause from any of the 9 cameras in live view or any camera disconnects reported. I know it's only 4 hours but I can tell that the system is running much more smoothly now since removing the camera from the D1 port.
I've no idea if this is a complete coincidence or a temporary thing, only time will tell.
John A was suspecting a power supply problem on the PoE ports. In my case I didn't think that was the problem because the camera drop outs last a few seconds and the picture comes back on in live view. If the power to the camera had been lost even for a split second then the camera would have to boot up again which would take a good 30 seconds or so. Also, the power for each camera is showing to be around 4 to 5 Watts and all the cameras combined are using around 16% of the total available.
My initial thoughts were pointing towards a network settings error somewhere causing a conflict. Unfortunately my understanding of networks is very limited and I don't have sufficient in depth knowledge to know if one or more of my settings is incorrect. JB1970 mentions also having 9 cameras on a 16 channel M series and all are running without any problems. It's obvious from reading his posts that his (or her) knowledge of networks is far superior to mine so maybe I've got a setting wrong somewhere which could be causing this problem.
My NVR might have a fault with the D1 port or as I say, it might be a network setting error. But, at the moment things seem to be working OK. I'll leave it a few days and report my findings back on here. I'm never going to have 16 cameras installed on my system so being unable to use D1 isn't really a problem to me.
I would be interested to know if this workaround solves a similar problem that anyone else might be experiencing.
I purposely haven't included the various camera models because everything worked fine with the previous NVR so I'm almost certain it isn't a camera or connecting Cat 5 cable issue.
Sorry for the long introductory post on the forum but I've tried to explain things as clearly as possible.
John H.
I've just had another thought. Maybe the M series models are not suitable for anyone named John.