Amcrest Smart Home "Server" down?

[tgfarrell]

+1 @pcabral 40+ years here in software and I thing thats a sound plan.

Even better, look at what changed on June 12 and work back from there to root cause this issue.

[jack7]

Lets also remember that as of now the Ash21 isn't Server based and the AD110 is..

@Revo2Maxx
The Amcrest Home app is server dependent. All cameras connecting to it are server dependent.

[srags]

Offline in Florida and Ohio

About to be offline for good by returning AD110's to Amazon.. This product is about to get on the CRAP list if not already there.

[tgfarrell]

I've had mine longer than 30 days, i don't think Amazon will let me return it. Have to check.

[Revo2Maxx]

@jack7 Funny thing is that is what was thought or said at the office with my contact at the office and was one reason that i thought it was offline when I had it working on my NVR/DVR but not in the app come to find out last time it was because the app was not running in the Wifi IP but had the hardline IP and once I changed it so it was working on the right IP in the App the Ash21 was working...

When the AD110 went down this time someone with an Ash 42 said they were offline and yet the Ash21 was still online with no fail... Server for a Product line goes down then it would be down for all Products while I can't get the Config back up from the Ash21 as it returns a 404 message I am not 100% in in thought that the Ash21 is Same Server Based and I was told when Server for the SH goes down it should have been for all SH products

So I Guess my message should have read that it isn't on the same Server that is going down... Thanks for Pointing that out

[GaryOkie]

I think I'm a lot closer to understanding what the root issue is. Even though Amcrest is hosting their back-end service on AWS they are apparently not using DNS and maybe not Amazon's advanced global load balancing capability either.

Why else would someone in Amcrest ask us what State we are in? Why is there a hardcoded IP address in the configuration? Does this IP change depending on the timezone selected or when the device is factory reset? This explains why a reset can fix the problem, if Amcrest adjusts the IP that is saved.

It's inexplicable to me why there is a hardcoded IP in the first place. The config also lists dms.zencamcloud.com along with the IP. If the AD110 just connected to the hostname and let DNS do its thing, there wouldn't be a problem like we're seeing.

My router shows repeated "SYN_SEND" connection attempts from the AD110 to 52.3.69.209 which does not respond. Indeed, a simple test is to enter telnet 52.3.69.209 15301 from a command prompt. If the screen clears, it means the server responded on that port, which for this IP, it does not.

However, if I instead run telnet dms.zencamcloud.com 15301 - Bingo! The server responds.

nslookup dms.zencamcloud.com - my Google DNS responds with: 50.19.133.142 & 34.199.92.115 - both AWS servers.

A few days ago, before the outage, my config shows:
"DMSServerAddr" : "dms.zencamcloud.com",
"DMSServerIP" : "52.3.69.209",
"DMSServerPort" : 15301,
"Enable" : true,
"Online" : true

Now, during the outage, the info is exactly the same, except Online is FALSE. So when the SmartHome app connects to the AD110 and it sees this Online False flag, it is then showing "Your device is offline" message.

So all this is proving to me is that the AD110 is just ignoring the hostname (and DNS) and is forcing the connection to a specific IP that may be different depending on TZ at the initial setup.

A factory reset at best is a temporary fix because I sure don't think you can count on a system as huge as the AWS cloud to rely on a static IP for critical connectivity.

[pcabral]

That's interesting if someone has a router with DDWRT or similar they could redirect the IP address to a the alternate working address and see if their offline status goes away. I would try it but I just recently performed a hard reset.

[Revo2Maxx]

Ok well I was able to get mine up and running on a Reset as others have stated at first try was having issue with Hotspot but after turn off the hotspot and back on I got it to connect without issue...

I am not sure but I am going to guess that as stated before by another member that it might have to do with IP following because the IP it was on before being reset at the server is not the ip it is working on right now it is different IP address

[GaryOkie]

@pcabral - I was already looking into doing exactly what you suggested - redirecting the IP via the router instead of doing a reset. I believe DDWRT's GUI makes this rather simple.

I have an ASUSWRT/Merlin router which doesn't have this feature integrated in the GUI, but it may be possible via an iptables update. Still trying to figure out how it's done.

Any tips?

[pcabral]

I was going to google ddwrt until it worked....;p