None of my Cameras Record

[Revo2Maxx]

So, Something I thought about going over our 2 pictures.. The NVR is a HS model and while I can't get it to trip up no matter what I change to. Maybe over time it will trip or maybe if my system was not setup the way I have it setup. But I thought let see if this helps..

WebUI, log into the NVR, then top left click Storage, then Advanced. In this window click on Main Stream and tell me what you have in there for the HDD of all your Cameras. Now for me I really think this page might be an oversight on the R&D because there is only 1 HDD installed in these and so the settings might not really matter.. But I thought I would cover all bases..

Seeing mine is working I will have you if it isn't setup, I will have you setup your system to use the same.

So back to HDD AKA the first tab on the top, The HDD should say SDA and lets make that 2
Then go to main stream, in 1 click drop down and pick 2 should be only option offered in there, now at the bottom of that screen click on copy and then click all. Apply/Save and again save..
Then go to Sub Stream, in 1 click drop down and again pick 2, then copy again and all and save and again making sure to save at the bottom
Then go to Snapshot and follow same thing in there save and after you do this Reboot the NVR...
After reboot bring up NVR, Storage, and Record and does it offer again the ability to make changes?

In theory the Advanced page is for machines like my 4216E-AI, 5232E-16P and other multi HDD Recorders..

However what is odd is that you said that you Factory Reset the NVR and as long as you didn't restore the NVR from a bad backup it wouldn't matter after a reset if there was something in this page that is making it not work because after a Factory reset it should..

Next and something you can try. Not all machines have a Reset button in the HS family.. Doing a Hardware Reset if you in fact have a hardware reset button might fix this. If you take the Top off and you do in fact have a little black button in the NVR I would try to do a Reset from the button. If you don't have a button it can't be reset from a switch and can't even reset jumping pins like you can on some cameras as there is other things missing that is needed to make it work...

If everything I have offered here will not fix your NVR it is going to need to be repaired. If you are in the USA I would be willing to send you my 4108E-HS and I would be willing to dive into the NVR to see what is damaged in the Circuit..

1 More thing, If you have an extra Thumb drive. Take your mouse and connect to the front of the NVR, Take your Thumb drive and connect to back of the machine. Let it run an hour after you plug in drive. Reboot the Machine, then let it run another hour. Then Reboot the Machine and after 10min remove the thumb drive and in there will be some TECH Trash Dumps with in 4 files. Some might be in Chinese, if it is only in that format would need to try again but at some point a full English dump will happen.. Would look something like

<6>[ 1.715626] ntfs: driver 2.1.32 [Flags: R/W].
<6>[ 1.715811] jffs2: version 2.2. (NAND) © 2001-2006 Red Hat, Inc.

[hawkeye62]

Thanks Revo, you have just given me a job that will occupy my waking hours for tomorrow.

Just one question. Can we narrow the issue down to replace the HDD or replace the NVR? I am willing to do either or both to get this issue resolved.

Best regards, Jim

[Revo2Maxx]

Well it is hard to say. I don't want you to have to buy a new unit without knowing if this one is really dead?

So not everyone has extra HDD laying around and if you do then I would try adding 1. Or another thing you could do is remove the HDD that is there now and see if the dotS come back. I know that without a HDD on my unit the ability to change is there.. This is almost why I think there is either a Software issue *New Firmware* and reset can solve this or there is a damage to the circuit.

Here is the idea from this. With bad software the system fails to load HDD part of the NVR. With bad Hardware when the system is booting up and doing the checks that you can see within the Data Dumps if the software gets to the point where it should load the HDD info while doing the system check if it fails it turns off the system kind of as a fail safe.

What is odd is that the NVR knows there is a HDD there. IT can read what size and that you had space left and even after removing recordings after a set time the NVR was able to read and understand what space was cleared up.. So it could be that it is offline from a working standpoint but not from being able to read it. Again could be a part of the system when loading it fails a Check and disables that part from working..

Something that I would try. Not sure it will matter much but idea, With being a 4108 if it is POE and you are connected to POE port, try the camera at 5-8 if setup on the over your local network using NON or even POE NVR just not connected to port, then remove the camera from current channel and using the NVRs GUI click on the + in the Grid mode 9 on channel 5-8 and setup the camera on one of them channels and see if that channel will get the record mode back

[hawkeye62]

OK, Storage>Advanced >HDD. Name sda Group 1.

Main Stream all channels (cameras} HDD Group 1.

Further updates coming.

Regards, Jim

[hawkeye62]

OK! I did have a spare HDD hanging around. It is only 500 GB WD Green. But good enough to use for testing. AND believe it or not, the record page is no longer "dead". Thanks for all of your help Revo! New WD purple soon to be ordered.

Best regards, Jim

[Revo2Maxx]

Awesome glad to hear you got it working again.. Never had mine get that far before making a change of the HDD. Normally mine starts to reboot at odd times and looking in the logs I notice issue with HDD so I change mine out. The 6tb that is about ready to fail is still in the logs says everything is ok. If it was one of my remote locations I would have already changed out the HDD..

[hawkeye62]

I wonder if the failed HDD would still work as a normal HDD in a PC or in a Network storage unit?

Regards, Jim

[Revo2Maxx]

It may, However the last time I tired to use one of my 6tb in my PC it didn't last longer then a month before it was so bad that it no longer worked in my PC. My guess is that not all HDD fail the same way so don't keep it as your only form of storage if the data being stored on it is critical.

[Revo2Maxx]

So tonight I looked at another system that had a abnormal reboot this was an hour after it normally would reboot and now seems that I need to replace this one before my other 6tb one lol.. Looking at this it only has 35k plus hours of use. You can see this is a Seagate HDD and is a Security HDD so I am not sure why it is failing so soon. You can see in the Smart info area it don't say healthy it now says SAVE and this HDD is now going to get changed out.

Thought I would update on what I know about one of my own systems. This might not be how it would work for everyone. But if your HDD does have these issues it really needs to be replaced..

Screenshot (2699).png (52.63 KiB) Viewed 24614 times

[hawkeye62]

Here I am again. Even though the "record" page is alive and well with the "new" HDD, I still can't play back any recordings. Error message says "Camera has no recording". So, I formatted the HDD then did a factory reset from the Web GUI. The reset seemed to go OK, when I logged in it took me to a start page, Country, Language, etc. Then on through to a page where the cameras are added. A search turned up all seven of my cameras. BUT when I added them to the NVR they all had the red radio button on indicating they were not properly installed. I tried everything I could think of to get the radio buttons to turn green. I even went directly to the NVR hardware with no success. One mystery, the HDD status shows that there is only about 50 GB of free space on the 500 G HDD. Immediately after the format it had slightly less than 500 GB of free space on the 500 GB HDD. So, something is recording, but what? Any advice will be appreciated.

Regards, Jim