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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => IP Cameras => DCS-825L => Topic started by: troetelturk on December 31, 2013, 02:23:46 AM

Title: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: troetelturk on December 31, 2013, 02:23:46 AM
I just bought the DCS-825L and it's been a real pain getting it up and running.
The manual sucks and the phone support desk in the Netherlands never picks up the phone.

Some things to share with you all to avoid (some of) the same problems.
I just started typing and I'm sure I will need to change the text afterwards.
But it's a start... Hope it will save you time.

The issues I faced when setting up the camera
- When setting up the camera, you'll need to change the password. Choose a password shorter than 9 characters (so max. 8 ) and without special symbols. I had a special symbol in it which doesn't work (but of course it doesn't tell you so.... it just stupidly accepts).
- The password of your WIFI LAN may not contain special characters! (RIDICULOUS). I had to change my WIFI password of my router because it contained a special character. It took me hours before I figured this out because the stupid app never even gives an error message or whatever.

The issues I faced after being able to connect the camera to my WIFI network
- Firmware update: After setup you'll need to login via mydlink.com. It will prompt you to upgrade your firmware (if applicable). I had to use Chrome, it didn't work via IE.
- E-mail notifications: I searched every menu in the iOS and Android Mydlink Baby Cam app to setup the e-mail notifications, but was unable to find anything. Nothing in the user manual (of course). Finally I figured it out. You need to login to Mydlink.com in order to set up e-mail notifications via the SETTINGS tab
- If you try to connect to the camera via your computer by using the IP address it will prompt for a username. The username is "admin". THIS IS MENTIONED NO WHERE in the manual. Took me half an hour as well to figure this out... The password is the password you create when you first set up the camera.

The issues I still face
- I can't figure out how to get push messages from the iOS and Android app when the app is running in the background. You don't get any alerts!!! Only if you have the app running in the "dashboard" view you'll get alerts (this also only worked for me in the Android app). This is really bad, because the product advertisements all mention push notifications (even a picture of an icon with a notification in iOS). This is not true!!
- The Mydlink Baby Cam apps are very very slow, both on iOS and Android.
- E-mail notifications can only be sent to 1 email address, which is the profile address. This sucks and can only be CHANGED, additional email addresses can not be added.
- Mydlink.com is very very slow and takes ages to load. Once loaded, changing tabs means loading all over again... sometimes up to 10 minutes.

I hope someone from D-link will read this post and start improving things..............

Happy year end,


A very frustrated user  ??? :'(
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 06, 2014, 11:30:34 AM
I agree with everything you state, I am in the same situation as you. Message saying much notice in the background and it's all a lie, at least after the last upgrade of the application for android sound is not cut, because before the application were dating and you had no notifications or sound in the background.

I think the camera can do much more with good apliciones and good support, he has not either an embedded web server? So they could have more control over the camera and not rely on mydlink.com to arrive or not the notification emails. Say if you have web server but when accessing the IP of the camera the following message: "File not found".

I have an open case in Dlink notifications so as I feel CHEATED by dlink. I hope someone from Dlink read this and do something.

Regards,
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: igoramadas on January 06, 2014, 01:04:36 PM
I contacted their support and they said a future firmware update will fix some issues and enable the web interface. The bad part? There's no schedule / deadline so all we can do is wait (or return the camera within 30 days).
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 06:16:35 AM
What firmware build comes preloaded on your DCS-825L?
There is a firmware v1.01 posted here: DCS-825L - Firmware version 1.01b3327 - Comments & Observations (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=57312.0)
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 06:38:41 AM
What firmware build comes preloaded on your DCS-825L?
There is a firmware v1.01 posted here: DCS-825L - Firmware version 1.01b3327 - Comments & Observations (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=57312.0)

As the firmware is installed? mydlink.com jumps from the automatic update of firmware
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 06:46:47 AM
As the firmware is installed? mydlink.com jumps from the automatic update of firmware

Can you log into the DCS-825L web UI login if you enter the camera IP address from a PC on the same LAN as the camera?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 06:48:42 AM
Can you log into the DCS-825L web UI login if you enter the camera IP address from a PC on the same LAN as the camera?

No, if I put the ip of the camera in the browser gives a 404 error
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 06:51:37 AM
I can't find much on this product in the way of a user manual other than the Quick Start Guide which is rather brief as far as details are concerned. The support site offers the FW for download, which implies there is a means of uploading to the camera.

There's no advanced configuration/settings page on mydlink that indicates the currently installed FW?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 06:54:16 AM
I can't find much on this product in the way of a user manual other than the Quick Start Guide which is rather brief as far as details are concerned. The support site offers the FW for download, which implies there is a means of uploading to the camera.

There's no advanced configuration/settings page on mydlink that indicates the currently installed FW?

From the mobile app mydlink baby I see I have this version of firmware installed which was installed about two weeks ago from mydlink.com, believed it was a new version fixing bugs
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 06:56:07 AM
So firmware is automatically pushed to the camera? Is there an option to proactively  install specific firmware from a local source?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 06:59:35 AM
No, after the camera record in mydlink.com enter this site and I update it from there
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 07:02:26 AM
Two questions:

(1) You mentioned that FW was installed ~2 weeks ago.  Was that FW automatically updated or did you update the firmware manually?

(2) Not clear on your last reply as well. . . Do you have an option to manually select a local FW source (e.g. local PC hard drive) to upload firmware from?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 07:07:39 AM
NO! Manually can not access the camera or via web or telnet or ssh only through the website www.mydlink.com.
Approximately two weeks ago in www.mydlink.com to check that the camera looked through the web and I showed up a pop-up with a new version of firmware to update. WHOLE PROCESS WAS MADE THROUGH WWW.MYDLINK.COM

You understand now? If there is possible way to locally access the camera as I do not know, but it's not like traditional dlink cameras.
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 07:12:13 AM
Thanks. . . .
This is certainly a departure from other D-Link network cameras.  I'll remove the download links to avoid confusion with other camera owners.  ???  :-\  ???
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: luyggy on January 07, 2014, 07:39:28 AM
Yes! be better since the camera has no settings via website. I think I read that it will have a future firmware
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: JavaLawyer on January 07, 2014, 07:44:33 AM
Yes! be better since the camera has no settings via website. I think I read that it will have a future firmware

Done. . .

Please feel free to express your comments (good and bad) here: DCS-825L - Cumulative Firmware Release Notes (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=57313.0)

Post items you would like to see in future firmware here: DCS-825L - Firmware Wishlist (http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=57316.0). The wishlist is no guarantee for future development, but D-Link does visit these boards.
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: bnuff on January 07, 2014, 03:35:38 PM
Yes I agree that installation was a bit frustrating although I appear to have shot myself in the foot a little with this one.  At some point in the past I had disabled UPnP on my home router.   If you have gone through the set up for one android device, you need to have UPnP enabled for a second android device to be able to find the camera on your network.  Either that or you reset your camera back to defaults, connect one device but choose to only use the ad-hoc network, connect the next device to the camera, then finally  put the camera onto the home wireless network. Needless to say getting to both solutions took more than several hours of installing, uninstalling, connecting, disconnecting and a fair bit of waiting.

Like others here I am hoping that some app and firmware updates improve the device.  My current gripes, in no particular order, are.

After starting the app I have to press the reconnect button up to five times which can take a few minutes to get connected.
Every now and then the camera drops out and I have to reconnect, which as mentioned earlier doesn't happen quickly.  Longest I have been able to stay connected is about an hour.
If the camera is turned off it loses its date/time and has to be manually reset.  This takes 30 seconds in the android app.  Either put a shortcut in so it can sync with the android device or let it connect to an NTP server.  I can see that with a security camera this would not be an issue but by its nature you want to move a baby camera around the house as you move the child from cot to bassinet to play area.
None of my devices will capture images or video  locally or at least I cannot find where they have gone.  Yes I looked in photos and mnt/sdcard/dlink but no images anywhere  and when I try to look at them from the app nothing happens at all.
I have put a 32 GB micro sd card into the camera which is capturing video and stills.    If I try to view these through the app, the app crashes just as it displays the calendar, again on both my devices.  If I try to view through the mydlink site using any of chrome, iexplorer or firefox on a windows pc, I can see the videos exist but cannot actually view them.  I have downloaded the add in.  The only way I can see them is by taking the card out and putting it into my pc.
If the app is in the background I don't seem to get the alerts until I bring the app to the foreground.  A bit scary this one.
Viewing the camera from the mydlink site through the android app has about a 40 second delay but viewing from my windows pc doesn't.  Weird that one.  Is my windows pc finding the camera feed locally or is it just the android app is so slow.
Oh yes and finally the android app is so slow.  Press settings and wait about 9 seconds.  Press camera settings and wait 5 seconds.

So to sum up.  Am I pleased to have the camera.  Well yes but it does need some improvement.  Dlink have tried to put all sorts of features into the camera but haven't quite got there.  The image is good and the night vision is excellent.  It plays music and monitors the temperature.  The core is there for a fantastic device.  Please Dlink get some additional dev time put in to get this working properly. 

I am using a Google Nexus 5 and a Nexus 10 both on Kitkat 4.4.2.  Wireless network is a BT home hub 3a with excellent coverage throughout the house. 
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: BeautifulSeas on January 08, 2014, 01:02:30 AM
I just wanted to second the comments on here really. I just purchased a new DCS-825L as it seems to be one of the few baby monitors that does everything that I want it to...apart from work!

It constantly failed to on the finial part of set up so I reset and went through the process again. It let me get as far as registration then stayed on that for in excess of 10 minutes so I went through it again. I tried to set up the account via the website but incredibly the setup wizard list does not include this model!

I then tried without the drink account and it constantly failed. All in all I've been at it for approx. 3 hours.I'll give it one final go but it really is too difficult. The price drew me to it being honest as it wasn't as much as the Withings one but the old adage "you buy cheap, you buy twice" seems to be haunting me. Can anybody offer any tips or links to the DCS-825L setup wizard for Mac please?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: bnuff on January 09, 2014, 02:10:37 AM
Hi BeautifulSeas,
From what I can see this camera will only allow an initial setup from an ipad or android device.  As such I don't think you can set it up with a mac or a windows pc.  All I can suggest you try is to borrow an ipad or android device and set the camera up the first time on that.   I only have experience with android but that went pretty well with a single device.  Use the borrowed device to link the camera to a mydlink account. Once you have done that you should be able to connect to the camera from the mydlink site using a web browser on your mac and view the camera from there.  Again I have only done this on a windows pc but hope it works as well on a mac.  Obviously, once you have established a link from your mac remove the app from the borrowed device so it can no longer connect.  I can confirm that if the android app is uninstalled from a device, if you rediscover the camera after a re-install you are required to input the password again i.e. the password doesn't get cached or left behind for future installs.  This may be different for an ipad.

The downside of this will be that you are viewing remotely, even when at home so you will have to see what sort of delay you get.  My windows pc had no delay but my android devices really lagged.  Hopefully the mac will behave like the windows pc. 

This isn't an ideal solution but may let you work around the issue for the moment. 
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: BeautifulSeas on January 09, 2014, 02:43:47 AM
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

I actually tried to connect to the camera with my iPhone initially but only got as far as stage 7 of 8 in the app. The final part kept failing and I never actually got it working. It seems the camera wouldn't actually connect to my router. After 3 hours of trying, and a very long phone call to their customer support, we all gave up. The program for the Mac was only when it wouldn’t let me connect to mydlink, which i thought may help, so i tried the online version. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my original post.

Their support staff promised me a call back by a senior specialist at 10am this morning so I took a few hours off work to make sure i was home when they called…which they never did. They were not available when I called as they were "too busy" at the time. I rang at about 4:45pm and spoke to somebody else at length, without joy but he promised to get a manger to call me back before 5pm but if he couldn’t he would call me himself before 5pm. Again he didn’t (9:40pm here now)

To be honest the customer support was so poor and I took far too long trying to get it to work that I decided to take it back to JB Hi-Fi and they gave me a full refund. I will give the Withings one a go, hopefully with more success.

Thanks again.
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: igoramadas on January 19, 2014, 10:45:33 AM
I just sent mine back to Amazon.

Tried installing and reinstalling at least 5 times, but the web viewer (via mydlink) simply would not work. Tried on my Windows tablet, my MacBook and an old Android phone - no success. And the app running on an old iPhone 4 is simply laughable - not sure how it passed Apple's QA!

I will need a baby cam only in a few months, so maybe by the time the little kid arrives D-Link will have sorted out all these problems and I might try buying another one again.

Too bad, for now :-(
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: kimos on February 06, 2014, 01:30:32 AM
I agree with the orginal poster. We are being cheated by Dlink. There no push notification!!!
Dashboard notification is not a PUSH NOTIFICATION.
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: penga25 on February 08, 2014, 09:48:35 AM
so i've been trying for a few hours now to get this to work, and after being stuck on step 7 of 10 on setup i called tech support to be told that WEP passwords don't "really" work and i need to reconfigure router and all my connected devices to WPA2.  when will WEP passwords work for setup, i have printers, speakers and many other items connected to my network and changing the encryption isn't an option. 

WEP is a very popular and common password encryption, is there a fix in the works or should i return this now?  i used the direct connect function and the camera quality is great but i need to be able to view it outside my home
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: zannadj on February 10, 2014, 09:41:18 AM
so i've been trying for a few hours now to get this to work, and after being stuck on step 7 of 10 on setup i called tech support to be told that WEP passwords don't "really" work and i need to reconfigure router and all my connected devices to WPA2.  when will WEP passwords work for setup, i have printers, speakers and many other items connected to my network and changing the encryption isn't an option. 

WEP is a very popular and common password encryption, is there a fix in the works or should i return this now?  i used the direct connect function and the camera quality is great but i need to be able to view it outside my home

I have the same problem, the DCS-825L does not accept the WEP password with 24 characters although the latest update installed.
Many have a connection with the router repetition (WDS) and therefore have a WEP password.
It can be also fixed the problem?
Title: Re: Installation is far from easy!
Post by: troetelturk on February 19, 2014, 10:53:28 AM
Quick update:
- somehow my camera died. Suddenly it wasn't working anymore.
- returned it via webshop
- d-link did not (could not?) explain why it wouldn't power on anymore
- I received a new camera

Now I have to setup up everything again....
Wish me luck...

That said, I second everything said about the poor help desk.
As mentioned in my opening post, I never got any response from the help desk after giving them calls and dropping them emails on all the problems I faced.
They promised to get back to me when I called them, but never did.