Smart Event not working with POE switch?

[SVXskuse]

My system was orignally setup with a DS-7608NI-I2 / 8P NVR, one DS-2CD2347G2-LU colorvu camera and three DS-2CD2346G2-IU darkfighter cameras, all cameras plugged directly into the NVR. I recently added a fourth DS-2CD2346G2-IU darkfighter camera. But to save running another ethernet cable to the back of the garden, I put a POE ethernet switch (designed for CCTV) on the end of the camera 4 cable and plugged camera 4 and the new camera 5 into it. So now I have cameras 1,2 and 3 directly connected to the NVR, cameras 4 and 5 connected to the NVR through a switch. I hope that makes sense. All of the cameras seem to be communicating, working correctly and recording video.

All of the cameras are setup to capture "intrusion" smart event, sound the beeper and email me pictures. What I have noticed is that cameras 4 and 5 are not registering the intrusion events. I can walk around in front of them and there are no beeps and no emails. I've checked all the settings I can think of and they are all identical. Camera 4 used to work, and nothing has changed on it except that it is now connected through a switch. Camera 5 is the new one, and I've had a go at updating the firmware in case the firmware it came with was duff, but nothing changed. I'm completely stumped. I don't know what to try next.

Have you seen this before?

 

[JB1970]

My system was orignally setup with a DS-7608NI-I2 / 8P NVR, one DS-2CD2347G2-LU colorvu camera and three DS-2CD2346G2-IU darkfighter cameras, all cameras plugged directly into the NVR. I recently added a fourth DS-2CD2346G2-IU darkfighter camera. But to save running another ethernet cable to the back of the garden, I put a POE ethernet switch (designed for CCTV) on the end of the camera 4 cable and plugged camera 4 and the new camera 5 into it. So now I have cameras 1,2 and 3 directly connected to the NVR, cameras 4 and 5 connected to the NVR through a switch. I hope that makes sense. All of the cameras seem to be communicating, working correctly and recording video.

All of the cameras are setup to capture "intrusion" smart event, sound the beeper and email me pictures. What I have noticed is that cameras 4 and 5 are not registering the intrusion events. I can walk around in front of them and there are no beeps and no emails. I've checked all the settings I can think of and they are all identical. Camera 4 used to work, and nothing has changed on it except that it is now connected through a switch. Camera 5 is the new one, and I've had a go at updating the firmware in case the firmware it came with was duff, but nothing changed. I'm completely stumped. I don't know what to try next.

Have you seen this before?

No, it should work as normal. I've used that method several times - adding a PoE switch and added as many as 4 cameras to the original link. I don't think it should matter but what I normally do when adding a switch onto a PoE channel is to disable plug and play for the channels to be used and manually add the cameras (ensuring the IP addresses are well out of the way of what the NVR would assign). I'd do it like this and the order of these steps is important:

1. From the camera details page make a note of the current NVR assigned IP address for cameras 4 & 5 (192.168.254.xxx)
2. Unplug the cable that does cameras 4 and 5 from the NVR
3. Set a laptop IP manually to 192.168.254.100 (to avoid it getting a 169.254 address due to absence of a DHCP server and connect the cable to laptop
4. Login to camera 4, then in network settings change the IP address (and nothing else) to 192.168.254.104. Save, accept the reboot and repeat for camera 5 (change IP to 192.168.254.105)
5. In the NVR edit the two channels - 4 & 5. Change plug and play to manual, enter the IP address that you've changed the cameras to, and if different to the NVR, enter the admin password and save.
6. Reconnect the cable to channel 4 PoE port.

The reason for the order of those steps is that if you manually set a cameras IP and connect it to an NVR channel that is set as plug and play, if the passwords match after a short time the NVR will just overwrite the IP again, undoing your manual change.

 

[SVXskuse]

Thanks for the reply. All my cameras are setup like manually with static IP address. I used to be a computer network engineer, so I understand that stuff very well and I like to know what IP address each device is on.
I agree that it should work as normal, but it doesn't seem to. I've been carefully going through the settings on each camera trying to find something different about those two, but there is nothing obviously wrong.

 

[JB1970]

All my cameras are setup like manually with static IP address. I used to be a computer network engineer, so I understand that stuff very well and I like to know what IP address each device is on.

I usually do the same and simply add 100 to the channel number (making the manually configured addresses 192.168.254.101 - 116) As well as knowing what address a particular camera is on, it makes it so much more straightforward when upgrading a camera as I just manually activate the new one with the correct IP and swap it out.

I've been carefully going through the settings on each camera trying to find something different

If you're going through settings directly in the camera's web interface, this could well lead to misconfiguration. Carry out all configuration of the cameras using the NVR's local interface or web interface. Once complete the few settings that may not be available in the NVR (min/max target size, target validity etc) can be added by accessing the camera directly. If cameras are connected to an NVR and settings are configured directly in the camera, the NVR may not read those altered settings until the camera reconnects after an NVR reboot. I'd shutdown, power down and restart the NVR, then once the cameras are back up, go through all of the settings on the NVR only.