Odd Glitch - Camera HTTP Port Changes Spontaneously

[Don Cohen]

This is a weird one, but it has happened sporadically, perhaps 6 to 10 times over the last 6 months or so.  It involves 2 Luma 510 series IP bullet cameras: one is labelled Drive (for Driveway), and the other called Patio.  Every once in a while, when looking at the camera feeds within Control4, the camera view for Drive is showing for both cameras.

In Composer Pro, I've discovered that when this happens, the HTTP Port for the Patio Camera is now 65001, the same as it is for the Drive Camera, while it should be 65002.  I can post screen captures showing this if that would help.  When it happens, I just have to change it to 65002, set it, refresh navigators, and all is back to normal.  But then it will crop up again sometime down the road.  Checking the Luma 510 NVR, the Port numbers are as they should, so the cameras display properly when accessed via the Luma App, Internet Explorer, etc.

I will periodically go into Composer Pro to change or add programming for various reasons, but *never* do anything pertaining to the cameras - and why would I?!  It just seems that every once in a while, just the fact of opening Composer Pro, and doing something/anything, will somehow trigger this Port change.

Any ideas on why, or even how, this could happen, and what I can do to prevent it?  It's easily fixed, but it is inconvenient, and potentially embarrassing if happens to occur when demoing the system for someone!

[lippavisual]

Is all firmware up to date, including the cameras?

[Don Cohen]

20 minutes ago, lippavisual said:

Is all firmware up to date, including the cameras?

Thanks for the reply.  I hadn't checked this, and found:

Drive and Patio Cameras: V5.5.52 build 181220

SnapAV's current firmware as of 5/6/2021: V 5.5.52 build 210429

I guess there's no reason not to update these, although it's hard to connect the problem I'm seeing with the camera's firmware, since everything on the Luma side seems to be working fine.  On the other hand, the release notes for this firmware indicate that access in Chrome should now work, which would be nice.

I'm always a bit hesitant to do firmware updates on devices that are working well, but seems like I should.

Just out of curiosity, can one revert to a prior firmware should problems arise?

Thanks again.

[lippavisual]

I’ve never needed to revert firmware, so don’t no that.

But usually some firmware is released so that it either adds features or bug fixes.  Good place to start is to make sure everything is up to date, then you can troubleshoot if the problem persists.  Tech support would most likely have you do the same.

these NVRs usually write over the camera settings or at least set what’s required, so wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just a mismatch in firmware between the products.

[Don Cohen]

Ok, so I downloaded the Firmware File for the LUM-510-BUL-IP-GR, which is the model of the 2 cameras in question: X10_IPC_5.5.52_210429.zip.  Extracting it, there is a single file, digicap.dav, which I placed on my Desktop.

I logged into the Drive camera, went to Maintenance, Update, and when I click Browse, and navigate to the Desktop, it doesn't "see" the file, despite the fact that it's there.  I put a copy in the default location the Browse function goes to, Documents, but still no joy.

I'm doing this using Internet Explorer, logging in using the Link present in the Configuration page of the NVR itself.  I also logged in directly to the IP address of the camera itself, but had the same problem.  Is there a different way to log into the camera to update the firmware?

The Browse function here also acts a bit weird: it doesn't see the other files and folders on the Desktop, even though it shows *.* as the file criterion.

Update: I just found that if I manually type in the file name, digicap.dav, into the "File name" field in the browse window shown above, it will then show it on the camera's configuration page, even though it didn't actually show the file in that folder:

The release notes for the firmware indicate something odd as well:

"Once you have downloaded the firmware to your local computer, click Browse and navigate to it (DVR files have a .dav extension, while NVR files have a .mav extension)."

I only see the .dav file in the zip file, and I do have an NVR.  I don't know if it's 'expecting' an *.mav file, but in looking through SnapAV's downloads, didn't see anything other than the .zip file I mentioned above.

I haven't yet told it to do the update, using the digicap.dav file, since the instructions seem to indicate I should be using an *.mav file.  Maybe that's just for the situation where I would be updating the NVR's firmware, rather than the cameras.  But I would hate to brick the camera by using the wrong firmware file.

Thanks.

[Don Cohen]

To follow-up on this:

I contacted Snap AV Support, and they suggested running IE 'as administrator', and that worked.  The file then showed up in the Browse window, and the updates proceeded uneventfully.

Whether or not this fixes the original problem I posted about, time will tell, as there never seemed to be anything specific that triggered it.

Any other thoughts always welcome.

[msgreenf]

IE? You know that went EOL in April. You really should be using edge, chrome or Firefox. 

[Don Cohen]

1 hour ago, msgreenf said:

IE? You know that went EOL in April. You really should be using edge, chrome or Firefox. 

Yes, I'm aware.  In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to upgrade the firmware is that one of the improvements is the ability to use Chrome to access Luma devices, and not have to rely on IE.  So basically I was in a Catch 22 situation - I needed to use IE to update the firmware in order to even have the option to use another browser.

Interestingly, I can now access the camera's video using Chrome, but only by navigating to the individual camera's IP address (e.g. 192.168.254.2).  If I go to the Luma NVR (also 510 series), which does have the most current firmware, the video feed from these cameras does not show up.  It accesses them differently (e.g. 192.168.104.100:65001).  I've asked SnapAV about this, but they haven't replied yet.  It's the same with Edge.  So unless I have something misconfigured (which is possible), I still need IE to show all the cameras in one Window.

[Don Cohen]

Well, it happened again.  I found that the Driver for the Luma IP Cameras had an update available, so I did the update.  I hoped that this might fix the issue where the video feed from the 2 Luma cameras don't show up when logged into the NVR using Chrome (it works fine in IE).  I next rebooted the Controller.  I then checked the camera view in the Control4 App and found that once again, the Driveway feed now showed for both Driveway and Patio.  And the HTTP Port for the Patio camera, which should be 65002, had changed back to 65001.  Very frustrating.  And it didn't fix the problem when using Chrome.

So I'm back to square one.  I have confirmed that I now have the most current Firmware and Drivers for the Luma IP Cameras, but still have both problems:

1. Something spontaneously changes the HTTP Port for one of the cameras from 65002 to 65001 (perhaps during a reboot of the Controller?)
2. Despite the claims that the firmware updates for the Luma NVR and Cameras would enable viewing of the camera video feeds in Chrome, that only works when logged into the individual IP's for each camera, and not when logged into the NVR itself (which is the only way to have all cameras shown in a single browser tab)

Any ideas on how and why this could occur, and suggestions on how to fix either of these, would be appreciated.