A word of caution about the QC444

[DaveM 0]

I had quite a bit of trouble getting these to work on my somewhat older Dahua unit.

Since it doesn't seem to be going out at all, make sure you have your DNS set up right. You might even try putting the IP address in instead of the name.

It is getting less and less common for a provider to accept an outgoing email without a username and password. I found that my ISP wouldn't, and the format the DVR was using wouldn't be accepted. I ended up using fastmail.com on the alternate port (587). My ISP was blocking outgoing port 25 as well.

 

Two things you can try. One is to put a sniffer on the DVR LAN port and actually watch what is going on. This can be a real eye opener.

 

The other is to simulate the email exchange using Telnet. This is not really to hard to do, Google "testing SMTP connections" and you can see examples. Basically from a command prompt it goes something like this (from memory, not 100% right):

 

>Telnet 121.111.34.1 587 (port 587)

 

Helo email server name

 

user myusername@host.com

 

User accepted

 

pass mypassword

 

welcome myusername

 

 

At this point you can list out email or create new emails.

(fixed command to be telnet instead of ftp...oops)

[SEANHAWG 1]

Dont give up yet. Setting up email can sometimes be a doozy but its usually just one little configuration thats causing the problem.

 

The reason I instructed you to use Gmail was because that is what I always try first and if that works, then I use re-configure and use my regular mail. The only other thing that I think that may be your problem is your ISP. Your ISP could be blocking your outgoing email ports or they require you to use their outgoing mail server.

 

Before calling your ISP: One other thing you can try is using various different ports. When I first tried it, I was using port 587 and it did not work which is odd because I had port 587 on my other DVR using Gmail and that worked, but for some reason on this DVR it didnt work. But it may work for you. Try using port 587 and port 25 and keep sending emails till one comes through. If you really get desperate you can send the DVR to me to see if I can make it work on my network, if I can make it work on mine, then we can rule out that it may have something to do with your ISP.

[SEANHAWG 1]

One more question. Whenever you send your test emails, does the test email get sent to your inbox?

[rory 0]

instead of the SMTP server name, try it's IP address.

 

ping smtp.myisp.com

 

it will return the IP, enter that in the Server box instead.

Dahua says you can only use the SMTP server name if you set the DNS.

 

See this document:

http://www.dahuasecurity.com/upload/Email%20Function.pdf

 

However I just performed a test using my ISP's SMTP server name and it works with the newer firmware even with no DNS set (default 8.8.8.8 or 0.0.0.0). It may differ depending on one's network setup and or ISP, firmware version, and DVR model.

[SEANHAWG 1]

Also, I was setting up email on one of my other DVR's and I was having the same issues as you which was it was sending me test emails but was not sending me emails on motion. The problem was that I made the mere mistake of forgetting to check the email box under the network settings. Its the small things like that that can screw up the whole endeavor. Not sure if this what problem you are having but make sure the box is checked.

[QC444 1]

UPDATE

 

Email alerts are working Much Better now. (or I fell asleep....some will get it).

 

I eventually found out that for no known reason......setting the motion detect functions simply does not work when done directly on the DVR. But it DOES work if done through Internet Explorer. I have no idea why.

 

Up to now, I did everything directly on the DVR. In other words, I had a mouse connected to the DVR and worked directly on the monitor screen that was connected directly to the DVR, right clicking and using the Set Up menus from there.. To me, this is easier and the menus are in color and easier to use so I did not try Internet Explorer.

 

So, apparently the problem lies in trying to set things up directly to the DVR using the DVR's built in software/firmware rather than using Internet Explorer.

 

They should fix this.

[SEANHAWG 1]

Odd solution but glad that you have it working now!!! The Q-see's must come with a slightly different firmware or something. Not sure why it would do that. At any rate, glad its working now.

[lapolonio 0]

I have a QC444 and been hacking away at this product trying to get it to work the way I needed it to.

 

I have found this site and another site on yahoo that seem to be more helpful than the Q-See tech support.

 

It is interesting that you mentioned that the console (vs the web front end) works better for you, I will try that as well.

 

My goal is to get this device working with an open source software called zoneminder. Blue Iris is another product I am looking at.

 

Anyway ZM is supposed to be able to take a video feed and do processing on it CPU, I have figured out how to collect video from a 4 port capture card, usb video camera, and IP cameras.

 

When an alarm gets triggered, I can have it send an email or even trigger a program to run to talk to my x10 home automation to turn on the lights or stereo.

 

I got a QC444 hoping there would be way to grab a feed from them. I was hoping to get an RSTP feed or even a static image to import into zoneminder. The ftp option filled up my hard drive and was not organized in a way that I could pull up the latest image in an easy manner.

 

The RSTP feed looked promising, but the helpful people at q-see said it is only used for blackberry. I call BS on that.

 

Does anyone know the format I should use to view this video feed via RSTP?

 

Finally, you can read my rant on groups.yahoo.com,

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/q_see_hack/

 

It is post 100, made august 19, 2011. Titled Rants Regarding QC444

 

No yahoo account needed.