Why I can't see my D-Link DCS-2100+ from the Internet??? Need Help!

Hello,

I have:

  1. LinkSys Wireless-B
  2. D-Link DCS-2100+ Internet Camera a. http port = 85 b. control port = 5001 c. audio port = 5002 d. video port = 5003

When I try to access the camera at work, I get a warning message (not sure if it's Window's or IE's warning message) but it reads "Because the connection problem of network environment, the transmission protocol changes to HTTP" with the OK button. I click "OK" and the camera always says "Connecting...." but I am not receiving the stream video in the window. I can do remote management on the camera, ex., configure the camera's settings but I am just not getting the video.

The tech guys at D-Link are no help. As soon as they hear the camera is working fine, then that's not their problem.

I've reviewed some of the settings in IE and did not see anything that could cause this problem. I believe it's either a security issue at work or IE setting related. By the way, my machine is W2K PROF and IE v6.0

If you have some ideas or know what the problem might be, please let me know.

Sydney snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

Reply to
Sydney Luu
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Reply to
Airhead

Would assume if its saying; "Because the connection problem of network environment, the transmission protocol changes to HTTP" This would mean your camera is set internally UDP probably by default. Admin login has a connections page offering check boxes for UPD/TCP/HTTP Try choosing TCP - that's what I use for dlink router / dlink dcs2000, with camera set UDP and the dlink di624a router would not work here - and produces same message which goes no where.

Reply to
bumtracks

Is there some reason that you've failed to disclose the exact model of your Linksys Wireless Router? Is it a secret unannounced model perhaps? Fear of numbers?

Looks good so far.

Two possibilities:

  1. Welcome to the joy of proxy servers. Your office apparently (my guess) has a proxy server running for outgoing connections. Any ports not specifically specified in the proxy server is not going to work. The usual default is to redirect the traffic to port 80(http). That seems to be what the message is mumbling. Your port 85 traffic is going out via port 80. Since port 80 is not configured on your unspecified Linksys model router to be directed to the camera, it will try forever to connect to something that's not there.

  1. You screwed up in redirecting the IP ports in your unspecified model Linksys wireless router.

Ahah. A clue. The proxy server apparently is only setup to manage "well known ports" which are those less than 1024. Port numbers greater than 1024 go right through. Change the configuration of your DCS-2100+ to set the http port to 5000. Change the IP redirection in your unspecified model Linksys wireless router to correspond to the port change. It should work.

Yep. Applications support is not provided.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Thanks for responding.

Fear of numbers? Not really. Just didn't think it was neccessary to troubleshoot this problem at the time when I composed this message.

However, here's what I have left out and maybe it's important to know. I contacted two friends of mine who work for different companies and they had no problems seeing my camera. Does this still sound like a port issue?

I believe all ports are blocked at my company except 80. But I will definitely give it a try by changing the camera's + router to point to port 5000 as you suggested. At this point, I am willing to try anything...

Thanks again.

Sydney snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

Reply to
Sydney Luu

Well, there was a possibility that the problem was at your end in your router. Knowing the manufactory, model, and firmware versions are important. However, in this case, it's not at your end.

It's an IP port (proxy server) issue at your company end. Staying away from ports below 1024 should take care of it. The clue was that you were able to access the control ports (5001-5003) but not the web server (http) image port (85). Move the image port and it should work.

I don't think *ALL* ports are blocked because you were able to get to the control ports (5001-5003). If desperate, you can chance the camera image port to 80. However, that will work only if your unspecified router does not expose it web configuration to the internet on port 80, and if the port forwarding will allow redirecting port 80. There are some routers that do this badly so have an accomplis help with the testing from the internet side.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Jeff, again thanks for responding.

I took your suggestion. I reconfigured my router and camera to have my HTTP set to 5000 last night. Tried at work today and still got the warning message. Did not work. If ports like, 21 (FTP), 23 (Telent) are being used at work, could I use one of these as the HTTP? I am not network guy so I don't have the technical knowledge of how ports work.

Also the video control port = 5003, by looking at the description, I thought this was responisble for delivering the video/image, not HTTP=85 which I had it before. Can you clarify these ports? When you make a request to the camera from office and when the signal travels back to office from home, what kind of port information does this signal have? I am just trying to understand how the information is being delivered back to the client/caller. Can you or anyone provide some details to this?

Thanks. snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

Reply to
Sydney Luu

Did you try it with a friend or accomplis when you set it up last night? First you make sure it's working before you try it at work.

Also, what are you using to view the picture? A web browser or the D-Links surveillance software?

You could, but I don't think it's necessary. The trick is to find a port or ports that are not being mangled by the office proxy server. That would be port 80(http). 5000 should have worked, but I can't tell from here what's happening.

Time for some details:

  1. How are you addressing the camera from the browser? It should be something like: http://123.123.123.123:5000 (or whatever) http://123.123.123.123:5003 (not sure if this will work) http://123.123.123.123:80 (the official way) One of these should work. However, I would also try the "Monitor" application, and not the browser. Will your company allow you to install the Monitor application on your office computah?

  1. Are you sure you have the correct IP address for your home system? If DHCP or PPPoE is used, the IP address can change.

  2. Do you have any kind of "personal firewall" running on your office PC? XP SP2 firewall, ZoneAlarm, Kerio, Black Ice, Norton Firewall, McAffee Firewall, etc? These will block outgoing control requests.

Well, have you considered asking the office network guy for some clues as to how his firewall/proxy/IDS system works? It would be easier if I knew what I was dealing with. The important thing is that it does work with other users that don't have a firewall/proxy/IDS in the way.

80 (TCP) HTTP Port (allows access to web-configuration and transmits video if other ports are not forwarded) 5001 (TCP/UDP) Control Channel Port (used to synchronize audio and video) 5002 (TCP/UDP) Audio Channel Port (transmits synchronized audio) 5003 (TCP/UDP) Video Channel Port (transmits synchronized video)

It would seem that you could get video from *EITHER* 80 or 5003. My guess is that the 5003 is only useful to the monitor application.

5001-5003 get used with the various monitor and security applications. If you don't care about audio, port 80 will deliver just video.

This might help: "How do I remotely view DCS-2000 or DCS-5300 series cameras that are behind a router or gateway? "

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Oh, this is cute.
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you look carefully at the Javascript code, they don't use port 80, but have redirected it to port 5004 instead. Well, instead of 5000, try 5004. Perhaps there's some non-obvious magic involved.

Well, the port numbers for the outgoing connections from the camera can be anything between 1024 to 65000. The web servers inside the camera assigns these on the fly, as needed. You can see these in action on your PC with: (open a dos window with Run->cmd or Run->command) netstat -n The numbers after the ":" in the "Foreign Address" column are the incoming port numbers. I don't think you have to worry much about the cameras outgoing port numbers. What's important is the incoming (controlling) port numbers to the camera.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

No, I didn't do this but should have.

Made a wrong choice to set HTTP=21 on Friday. Like I said port 21 is designated for FTP service and the camera has logic to take on FTP requests when it sees 21. What happened was, after reconfiguring both router and camera to 21. When I tried to access camera from Internal LAN, it told me "Access Denied". Apparently I hadn't setup the FTP account on the camera. I couldn't get back to homepage anymore I had to click the "Reset" button to return the camera back to its orignal D-Link's defaults and I had to re-do the camera setup again. Bad decision on my part but you live and learn.

After getting the camera going again, I reconfigured the HTTP=137 and asked a guy at work to try it, it didn't work and he got the same warning message that I had posted originally. I chose 137 since it showed up as being used and under the "Stealth" mode - protected by the firewall.

Yes, I know my WANIP is changing but I have DDNS. Here's how I have been accessing the camera from the Internet:

via Dynamic DNS:

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(orginally set at)
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(orginally set at)

via my WANIP:

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(orginally set at)
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(orginally set at)

I don't care about the audio signal. I only want the video. So what I will do today is reconfigure both the router and camera for HTTP = 80. I just wanted to try this port 80 again. It it fails, I will try:

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since port 5003 will be forwarded to my camera's IP. Again, this is just all trail-and-error.

No software firewall on my work PC other the company's firwall (where and what ever this is).

Reply to
Sydney Luu

Please stay away from port numbers < 1024. I'm fairly sure your company's firewall is "protecting" those ports. If this is gonna work, it has to be done on port numbers >1024. The Javascript example for the MacIntosh I posted may offer a clue. DLlink move the main HTTP port from 80 to 5004. That's worth trying.

Note my URL.

formatting link
's one of the nice things about working with wireless routers and devices. If you screw up, just punch reset and try again. My philosophy is that I can make more mistakes per minute than anyone else. That worked fine until I ran into the medical profession. Their attitude is to make no mistakes, ever. Somehow, they just failed to appreciate my methodology. Oh well.

Your office has a NETBIOS proxy going through the firewall? Yech.

OK. Either of those should work just fine. Actually, we know it works because a while back, other users at other locations were able to access the camera.

Those are two very good tests. Setting it up for port 80 is a good idea because proxy servers almost invariably setup port 80(http) to be pass thru. I'm not sure what 5003 will do, but it's also worth a try.

Well, the key to this puzzle is that firewall, which I'm guessing by the error messages is a proxy server. At least do some internal espionage and try to find out what make and model so that we know what we're dealing with. If my guess is a correct, and your company has a proxy server, simply re-using a port that goes through the proxy will work. Port 80 is my suggested best shot. 8080(http-alternate) is another good one to try. A possible problem with port 80 is that your router may not appreciate redirecting port 80, especially if it is used for remote configuration from the WAN. Just test it from a friends or accomplis's machine before you try it at work.

Also, scanning the firewall from inside with a port scanner is probably a great way to get yourself fired, so I wouldn't do that.

Keep trying and best of luck.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Please re-read the previous 2 replies. He's using a dynamic DNS service and apparently didn't want hackers like me to attack his system by posting the real fully qualified domain name. So, he used a name substitution. There were no IP addresses involved in the command line incantation. If there were, you would be correct to drop the ..com suffix.

Thanks. So much for my proxy server theory, maybe...

My next potentially bad guess(tm) is that the message is coming from the camera. The router would have no reason to switch protocols on incoming traffic. If it really is coming from the DCS2000 camera, then he's able to make the connection through his router, only to be rejected by the camera. It would be interesting to know what happens when "connection problem of network environment" is displayed in the router or camera log pages.

I thought all the outgoing audio and video was UDP. TCP with acknowledgements would have too much overhead and really slow things down. HTTP is always TCP, not UDP. The recommended router configuration:

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both TCP and UDP being port forwarded. It shouldn't really complain about UDP.

I have to remind myself that the camera DOES work through his router from a friends computah via the internet. That means that his camera and router configs are probably fine and that it has to be something at the office end.

At this point, I would fire up a sniffer and see what's going back and forth. However, that's kinda difficult to do from here.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

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.com on end of ip number

4.4.4.10:85 and not 4.4.4.10.com:85

fwiw.; Get nearly if not exact message here; "Because the connection problem of network environment, the transmission protocol changes to HTTP" apparently comes from either my dcs2000 or a di624a router. No proxy involved .

- message has appeared whenever camera is set to stream UDP(UDP=least bandwidth=none or less sync check/correction audio/video)

Reply to
bumtracks

fwiw From a well secured large network IT guy couldn`t complete the connection to dcs2000 here until he dropped most IE Security settings at his workstation, ActiveX snafu I believe.

Reply to
bumtracks

I still can't the video to be displayed in the browser at work. I have further experimented with the following:

  1. Reconfigured HTTP port on router and camera at 5000, 5004, 41300. All these are just trial-and-error and suggested by snipped-for-privacy@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us. Setting ports at high numbers tend to make it worst, not allowing me to get the camera at all from internal LAN (inside the home).

  1. Took a closer look at some of the camera settings and saw "Connection Type". Clicked this button and the available options are UDP, TCP and HTTP in this order listed. Reviewed D-LINK's manual to see what these are. According to manual and for general users, use UDP and TCP. My LinkSys router does not have UDP and currently checked with TCP and HTTP when I did the "Forwarding".

I manually made it to be "TCP" just for trying. Tried at work and still got the original warning message I posted and still no video. Remember I can get to the camera's homepage. With this experiment, I now believe this warning must come from the DCS-2100+ because when I logged on to the camera, I noticed it changed my setting to HTTP. Hence, "Because the connection problem of network environment, transmission protocol changes to HTTP". The camera is really saying, I am changing it to "HTTP" becuase of your network environment setting.

Given a bit info here, maybe you guys could narrow this problem down for me. Is it still port issue? Remember I can get to camera's homepage and confirgue settings.

Thanks for all your help!!

Reply to
sydneyluu

Maybe you can pull a single image? Then maybe make a html page with 5sec java image refresh at least until you figure out how to do the stream. Example DCS-2000 path ... http://logmein:please@192.168.0.26:86/cgi-bin/video.jpg If you can install homewatcher.com maybe it will do video for your desk which would tell you its just your ie settings.

Reply to
bumtracks

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