Unable to Connect Camera error

[amhsus]

Hi,
Thanks for this application. However I have not been able to get this working. I see the below error. I do start LiveStream on the HiBird app and typed in the IP address to connect. Below are the versions. I wanted to know if I am missing something or the firmware updates has made this impossible to work hereafter.

App Software version: V3.8.1
Firmware: K8R1SYwG203

  Could not reach the camera at #####.

Make sure:
1. The camera app is open and streaming
2. You're on the same Wi-Fi network
3. The camera is powered on

Thanks!

[R-T-B]

Same issue, same firmware. I am guessing the firmware update broke this app. Sad.

[Fe2-O3]

Hey @amhsus @R-T-B — sorry for the slow reply, and thanks both for the detail (especially the matching firmware K8R1SYwG203, that was useful).

It might not be firmware. I hit "Could not reach the camera" repeatedly on my own setup this week, and when I dug in, none of it turned out to be firmware — it was bugs on my end:

1. The camera's DHCP IP had drifted and the app couldn't recover. "Find" ignored whatever IP you typed in, and "Connect" ignored discovery entirely — so they failed in different ways and neither told you the truth.
2. Discovery only guessed a hardcoded range (192.168.1.80–90), which is useless if your router hands out anything else. Mine had moved to .225.
3. These cameras sleep between motion clips, so a single one-shot connection attempt fails constantly by design — and the app reported that normal state as a hard error.

There was also a completely separate bug that would have bitten you right after connecting: the app only ever looked in 100SYCAM/101SYCAM, but the camera rolls forward to new folders once one fills up. Mine is on 102SYCAM/103SYCAM now, so even a perfectly good connection listed zero files. If you get connected and see an empty list, that was why.

v0.09 is up: https://github.com/Fe2-O3/HumDrop/releases/tag/v0.09

It replaces both buttons with a single Connect, identifies the camera by its MAC address (stable across IP changes) after actively refreshing the ARP table, adds a background watcher that auto-connects the moment the camera wakes, and discovers the DCIM folders at runtime instead of assuming their names. macOS, Windows and Linux builds are all attached.

One caveat, so I'm not overselling this: I am still on older firmware than you two, so I genuinely cannot reproduce your exact case. If your firmware closed telnet on port 23, none of the above will save you and it really is a firmware break. That's the key thing your test will tell us.

If it still fails, this one command separates the two possibilities cleanly:

arp -a | grep -i 50:5a:65

(On Windows: arp -a | findstr /i 50-5a-65)

• Prints an IP → the camera is on your network and reachable at the ARP layer, so the problem is the telnet port — that would point at firmware.
• Prints nothing → the camera isn't associating with your network at all, which is a different problem entirely, would be helpful to know your MAC address privately since that's how it knows what device to connect to.

Either way that tells us far more than the error dialog does. Thanks for your patience on this, and sorry it took a real-world failure on my own camera to shake these loose.

[R-T-B]

Its all good, will test soon.

Out of curiousity what port is the telnet open port supposed to be on? Portscans against my camera reveal nothing. It does seem port 23 is closed by default.

EDIT:

just read "If your firmware closed telnet on port 23, none of the above will save you and it really is a firmware break. "

Well darn. That does seem to be the case.

[Fe2-O3]

Typically port 23 if the camera is connected. Try the new v0.10-b3. When it can't connect it offers to scan the camera and tell you what's actually listening. It checks every port, so if your firmware moved telnet it'll find it and use it.

Also, could you post the first three of your camera's MAC? Mine start 50:5a:65. That's the only thing HumDrop looks for when it searches the network, so if yours differ it'll never find the camera no matter what telnet is doing.

[R-T-B]

Sure, when I get home I will be happy to check all of that. May be a day or two as I am presently on a brief excursion.

Thank you for your efforts.

[Fe2-O3]

Just checking in, no rush, hope you had a great time.

[R-T-B]

Oh sorry I forgot to try this when I got back! I am on it now...

EDIT: Unfortunately it does not work. See below for the result. It finds the camera now, but no telenet or open ports, even with camera view opened well in advance:

Not it may be possible to mod the firmware to work with telnet again, I don't think they are signed, but I have no idea how I'd go about getting an image... and you'd probably have to do some DNS sniffing and trickery to get the device to update to it.