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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => IP Cameras => DCS-942L => Topic started by: jabauer650 on December 01, 2012, 11:29:28 AM

Title: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: jabauer650 on December 01, 2012, 11:29:28 AM

I have been trying to connect a camera to the wifi router at my mother's assisted living facility.  The password has a special character, "!".

After hours waiting on the phone with tech support, they confirmed that only letters and numbers are supported.  Guess i have to take it back.

Incidentally, the software is changing "!" to "%21", which is the escape sequence used in URL's.  The camera software isn't mapping it back.  Should be fixable in firmware.

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: JavaLawyer on December 01, 2012, 01:27:22 PM

Thanks for sharing this with the community.

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: jabauer650 on December 01, 2012, 02:42:21 PM

Thanks.

Unfortunately, I can't change the wifi password.  Is there any other workaround or another product someone can recommend?

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: JavaLawyer on December 02, 2012, 07:03:13 AM

Nothing that comes to mind. As far as passwords are concerned, the admin password (at least on the DCS-932L) is also restricted to 8 alphanumeric characters.  By the way, what camera model do you have?

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: jabauer650 on December 02, 2012, 08:54:13 AM

Sorry, should have included that... DCS 942L.  Firmware version is 1.11. 

(I see that 1.12 is now available and would try that but the rel notes don't mention fixing the bug.)

The only other workarounds i can think of are:
- Pay for cable internet and router, which is ~$40/mo.
- Convince IT person at the facility to provide access via another password.
  (Am trying this now.)

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: jabauer650 on December 05, 2012, 01:33:08 PM

Follow up on why i think this is a bug and question about workaround:

As mentioned above, I use the configuration utility to provide the password, which includes an exclamation mark.  When i click 'details' in that utility, it shows a password where the exclamation mark is replaced by %21.

What i believe is happening is that the configuration utility is performing URL-encoding of the URL it is POSTing/PUTing to the camera's web server.  (For a description of URL-encoding, see http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/topics/urlencoding.htm)

So i can think of a couple possible fixes/workarounds:
  - Fix the camera firmware that receives the encoded characters to un-encode them
  - Perhaps: Is there a way i can provide the password directly rather than via the config utility?
    E.g., could i use my home router to "talk" to the camera's web server and set the password directly?
    (The camera is at my mother's facility an hour away, or i'd just try this myself.)

Title: Re: Wifi password with special characters not supported
Post by: JavaLawyer on December 05, 2012, 01:46:19 PM

If the router supports WPS, which most do, you should be able to establish a handshake between the two devices.