Reolink NVR stream: or snapshots.. Please I need help seeing them on hassio

jchurch · September 6, 2019, 10:09pm

So my Reolink NVR arrived and it turns out both our links work and I have mine working in the Sharptools.io dashboard with 2 second image snapshots. Excellent.

trainsafe · September 25, 2019, 8:51pm

Hi guys. Just wanted to drop in and say Thanks to roadkill for this post. I was struggling to integrate my cameras and nothing seemed to work because of the Reolink NVR setup.

It took me a few hours, but I finally got it to work. Roadkill’s instructions were very important, but my system still didn’t work. I putzed with it for a while, and kept getting an error that my NVR’s web client didn’t like the cgi script. It said that cgi access was unavailable.

I finally flashed new firmware to my NVR and cameras (I hadn’t done this since they were installed) and that fixed my connectivity issues. So, if anyone else is struggling, make sure your Reolink firmware is current and then try again.

aq5001 · November 22, 2019, 8:18am

well done
thank you

do you have any idea if like to detect motion from each cam in HA

thanks

jchurch · November 24, 2019, 5:35am

@roadkill247 is your’s still working fine? I found my link still works for a moment until it refreshes but then it breaks in Sharptools.io. I can however refresh over and over in the browser and it’s working perfectly. Any ideas?

joshua_lyon · November 24, 2019, 5:51am

The autorefresh in SharpTools.io appends a unique string to the URL on each refresh as a cache busting technique. (Eg. To make sure you actually get a new image each time)

For example:

&st_uuid=ffc4dece-08ea-46f3-a1e8-1c5629d71e3c

I’m wondering if the NVR doesn’t like this extra parameter. Have you tried getting an image snapshot directly from the camera (assuming that’s possible)?

Edit: I saw your message in the HE community that the cameras are only accessible via the NVR now that they’re connected to it.

roadkill247 · November 29, 2019, 1:36pm

Hi @jchurch,

Can’t say I’ve come across any issues at the moment natively in Home Assistant but I don’t use SharpTools.io, so unfortunately can’t comment.

Hi @aq5001,

I’m currently trying myself to get motion detection working. It might be worth having a look at this thread - Reolink POE IP Camera Setup

jchurch · November 29, 2019, 7:10pm

All good I have learnt a bit since this post. I found a work around by using Android intents as shortcuts so when I clicked it involved VLC to open and show the stream, unfortunately though I started to notice the streams playing and then hanging which seems to be the same issue with the image refreshing I was doing. I’ve put it down to the Reolink NVR struggling at times with CPU and RAM as I see it goes red from time to time in the web client windows console.

In the end I have kept it simple and I now have tiles I just click and it takes a still image. I find this is the fastest method to quickly see what’s going on.

penright · December 13, 2019, 2:03pm

I have this for a URL(s)

stream:
camera:
  - platform: generic
    name: cam 1
    still_image_url: "http://192.168.4.18/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=1&rs=wuuPhkmUCeI9WG7C&user=admin&password=xxx"
    stream_source: "rtsp://admin:[email protected]:554//h264Preview_01_main"

And I get this …

If I post the rtsp url into VLC, I get the stream. If I post the HTTP into chrome I get …

I am suspecting the HA can not get past the snapshot having issues, just a guess.
Am I mistyping something?

Here is the versions of the NVR …

[Edit]
Got the stream to work in HA. When I was pasting the stream, it was the guest browser that HA VM runs in. I had a firewall rule blocking it. I don’t think firewall is the snapshot issue because the firewall rule is allows all traffic from that IP. Also, when I was testing the snapshot I tried disabling all rules to that vlan. I did not try disabling rules for the HA streaming, since VLC streaming was working.

penright · December 16, 2019, 12:25pm

When support at Reolink asked me about the password characters that got me thinking. I do have an exclamation point. I tried escaping it and still did not work. It will be a pain to change the password because I am running the NVR headless. If I do need to change it, can I do it from the client-side? If yes, what are the steps?

http://192.168.4.18/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=1&rs=wuuPhkmUCeI9WG7C&user=admin&password=John1230!

also tried the escaped version …

http://192.168.4.18/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=1&rs=wuuPhkmUCeI9WG7C&user=admin&password=John1230%21

I will post if I learn anything else.

ferraramax · December 16, 2019, 10:14pm

Hi, do you have find a way for get jpeg snapshot of cameras connected to nvr rln16-410?

jchurch · December 16, 2019, 10:27pm

I get snapshots from each of my cameras via the Reolink NVR by going to:

http://YOURREOLINKNVRIP/cgi-bin/api.cgi?cmd=Snap&channel=1&rs=wuuPhkmUCeI9WG7C&user=admin&password=YOURREOLINKNVRPASSWORD

Note: Don’t forget to change the channel number for each one you resolve.

penright · December 16, 2019, 10:36pm

Unless I am looking at it wrong, what I am doing should work. Just don’t see why it does not.

ferraramax · December 16, 2019, 10:49pm

I receive:

Access Error: Not Found

CGI program file does not exist

What model Is your nvr? And what software version you have?

jchurch · December 16, 2019, 10:50pm

Interesting. I have the Reolink NVR RLN8-410-E. I suggest reaching out to their support they are pretty responsive.

ferraramax · December 16, 2019, 11:00pm

Yes i am in contact with reolink support center. now i have sent thay the link of this post. I am not sure, but i think that @penright have the same my problem. Right?

By the way, @jchurch, can you tel me what versione of firmware you have in the nvr? I have the rln8-410 (i think without finale E)

jchurch · December 16, 2019, 11:38pm

Sure I am running this version.

ferraramax · December 16, 2019, 11:49pm

Tomorrow i Will update and let you know of problem Is solved

Harry13 · December 17, 2019, 12:00am

Hi guys
I took the other approach. Connect a separate POE Switch with the cameras and NVR.
Now I have all cameras and NVR on the same network ip. I can access the cameras in HA, via Onvif which is suppose to support push notification and more than what you get with rtsp. Haven’t got that far but it’s working.

roussell · December 17, 2019, 12:05am

This is definitely a firmware problem. I had the exact problem, and while Reolink support was responsive, they weren’t very helpful. My DVR was brand new so I didn’t check the firmware right away, and when I did the version numbers were completely different in formatting so I had no way to know if mine was older or newer.

I decided to go ahead and download the latest firmware for the DVR and for my cameras, and apply them all, doing the cameras first. After I updated to the latest from the Reolink site, everything worked perfectly. No more CGI errors and hassio was happy. It’s been working without issue for two months now so I’d call that a success!

Terry

jchurch · December 17, 2019, 12:36am

Interesting. I was receiving CGI errors only when viewing RTSP streams but the JPG snapshots worked fine. I have since completed the firmware upgrade so maybe I should try this again. Basically I was using Android intents as shortcuts on my sharptools.io dashboard but it just wasn’t consistent enough. Anyways I will attempt this again based on your feedback.

EDIT: no change for me I will just stick to snapshots. Also snapshots on my dashboards are damn fast too.