Dahua NVR 5216 4ks2e No motion?

[TooManyBeers]

Hey all, I recently purchased a system from Andy with 8 dahua ip cams. All installed and by default was recording continuously which I didn't want. I'm pretty tech savvy but I can't for the life of me figure out why motion detection won't work. I've been through all the google searches, manuals, to the best of my knowledge it is set up correctly.. Only cam1 will let me draw a region. Everything is on the latest firmware. This nvr is a piece of junk! I feel like I wouldn't be having this problem if I went with my first instinct and got hikvision, but dahua had such a strong following on this forum and you can't beat andy's prices..

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[catcamstar]

Hi,
it is a cumbersome process finding all the required switchboard settings to the success recipe within this NVR. Just to make sure we didn't miss any hidden one:
- in your first screenshot: there's a "setup" button, does that lead to a pop-up with "D1" selected? If not, then the NVR does not record anything.
- if you don't see any "regions", you can try the following:
--> either connect a screen/monitor to the NVR, then you have all possiblitities (even with "sensitivity on motion detection") on setting the motion detection schemes
--> either login directly on your camera's (top "SETUP" and then registration -> follow the InternetExplorer "E" icon). Check over there if Motion Detecion is setup like it "should" be in the NVR.

My guess is that the settings are not propagated well into the camera's. Suggestion: Factory reset cams, unplug all UTP cables, factory reset NVR, thén plug in 1 cam in D1. Try to set it up correctly. Then add cam 2 in D2. Then you can "simply" copy the config from D1 to D2. And you continue like this.

Hope this helps!
CC

 

[cuz]

I think it may be time to try this. I’ve been playing with my NVR and cameras quite a bit and changed many things. It’s time to reset everything back to factory defaults and start over for real.

 

[catcamstar]

I think it may be time to try this. I’ve been playing with my NVR and cameras quite a bit and changed many things. It’s time to reset everything back to factory defaults and start over for real.

Indeed, like with many things in life: reset to defaults, start over with the latest & greatest settings.

 

[c hris527]

Hey all, I recently purchased a system from Andy with 8 dahua ip cams. All installed and by default was recording continuously which I didn't want. I'm pretty tech savvy but I can't for the life of me figure out why motion detection won't work. I've been through all the google searches, manuals, to the best of my knowledge it is set up correctly.. Only cam1 will let me draw a region. Everything is on the latest firmware. This nvr is a piece of junk! I feel like I wouldn't be having this problem if I went with my first instinct and got hikvision, but dahua had such a strong following on this forum and you can't beat andy's prices..

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sometimes to get that working, you need to clear ALL recording from the time lines, save, then go back and reset them and save again, I run into that quite a bit. Same thing with checking off motion with the cams, undo motion, save then re check and save.

 

[TooManyBeers]

I figured it out, in the camera webpage not nvr you have to set the sensitivity level, by default it was at zero on all cams. Once that was set motion worked immediately. This may be common understanding but for me I had to figure it out the hard way, the camera is the part doing the actual motion detection, the nvr only records the stream. I think all settings (record resolution, frame rate, codecs) need to be set directly on the camera, whenever I tried to make the changes on the nvr or nvr web interface or smart pss they wouldn’t stick. Hope this helps anyone in the future.

 

[c hris527]

I figured it out, in the camera webpage not nvr you have to set the sensitivity level, by default it was at zero on all cams. Once that was set motion worked immediately. This may be common understanding but for me I had to figure it out the hard way, the camera is the part doing the actual motion detection, the nvr only records the stream. I think all settings (record resolution, frame rate, codecs) need to be set directly on the camera, whenever I tried to make the changes on the nvr or nvr web interface or smart pss they wouldn’t stick. Hope this helps anyone in the future.

You should be able to make basic changes from the NVR for all that stuff fyi, I have Quite a few NVR's out there and some had issues like you did. Usually a firmware update on the NVR AND cams solved it. Once you get everything set the way you like it, Backup your config file for the NVR and Cameras in case you get it messed up again. Dahua as of late seems to be the king of firmware hell, fix one thing and screw two things up.

 

[TooManyBeers]

You should be able to make basic changes from the NVR for all that stuff fyi, I have Quite a few NVR's out there and some had issues like you did. Usually a firmware update on the NVR AND cams solved it. Once you get everything set the way you like it, Backup your config file for the NVR and Cameras in case you get it messed up again. Dahua as of late seems to be the king of firmware hell, fix one thing and screw two things up.

Ya I agree, for the most part it looks like most of the controls are in the nvr. For some reason im guessing current nvr firmware is the issue, changes in nvr don't "stick". The camera's are pretty good though, I am impressed so far. I upgraded from an old qsee dvr with old analog dahua cams. Huge upgrade! Now i'm going to test using h.265 smart codec and see if motion still works as good as it is or if it misses anything, currently I have all the cams on regular h.264

 

[tigerwillow1]

About changes "sticking": On many configuration pages you have to click a "save" button before exiting the page. It's often not obvious and I still get bit by this after having learned it many times. When I'm thinking clearly, after I make a change I exit the page I made it on, then go back to see if the change is still there.

About the "piece of junk" comment in the first post: No question that the Dahua firmware is full of bugs. It has trended overall better over time. Don't assume the Hikvision grass is greener. I started out with a rebranded Hikvision NVR a couple of years ago and after switching found the Dahua nvr to have (believe it or not) less bugs and (believe it or not again!) a more intuitive and easier to use UI. With all of the firmware upgrades by both companies. 2 years is an eternity, and the situation might be different now. But at least at that one point in time, my first instinct to go with the Hikvision architecture was the wrong choice.

Adding on edit: one thing I really appreciate about the 5216-4ks2 is that in 2 years of 24x7 operation it has to my knowledge never crashed or needed a manual reboot. If it did crash, it recovered by itself without me detecting it.

 

[TooManyBeers]

About changes "sticking": On many configuration pages you have to click a "save" button before exiting the page. It's often not obvious and I still get bit by this after having learned it many times. When I'm thinking clearly, after I make a change I exit the page I made it on, then go back to see if the change is still there.

About the "piece of junk" comment in the first post: No question that the Dahua firmware is full of bugs. It has trended overall better over time. Don't assume the Hikvision grass is greener. I started out with a rebranded Hikvision NVR a couple of years ago and after switching found the Dahua nvr to have (believe it or not) less bugs and (believe it or not again!) a more intuitive and easier to use UI. With all of the firmware upgrades by both companies. 2 years is an eternity, and the situation might be different now. But at least at that one point in time, my first instinct to go with the Hikvision architecture was the wrong choice.

Adding on edit: one thing I really appreciate about the 5216-4ks2 is that in 2 years of 24x7 operation it has to my knowledge never crashed or needed a manual reboot. If it did crash, it recovered by itself without me detecting it.

Ya I did hit the save button everytime(it gave the "save successful" message), I have the oem firmware, not sure if the version with the dahua logo is any different other than the logo. It all works good now that I got motion to work, my only complaint is by default they shouldn't have the sensitivity turned all the way down so people who *think* they know it all but really don't like myself get frustrated over something stupid like motion detection. I know alot of people say ivs is the way to go and motion isn't that good but the 6 cams I have indoors are all in a static environment and motion is working EXACTLY as it should be. Even the 2 I have outdoors motion is working great, I do have ivs set on those just to play with. My apologies on bashing dahua in the first post, for what it's worth I like the dahua products better than hikvision. I do wish I would have not gotten 3 mini domes, turrets are far superior in every way. In fact I'll most likely be swapping those out asap.