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Reolink Camera not working on VM

f825_633
On our wavelength

Hello All.

I have a couple of Reolink cameras I have been given for test. When they were being used on a differnent connection they were viewable by the cloud app. Testing them on a VM connection they constanty disconnect from the app.

I've tried direct ethernet into the modem and via wireless.

I have also tried a EE 4G hotspot connecting them wirelessly and they are stable. its something odd with the VM internet connection.

Heres a traceroute ont he VM connection.

1 * * *
2 hers-core-2a-xe-810-0.network.virginmedia.net (80.3.33.113) 8.467 ms 12.502 ms 11.464 ms
3 * * *
4 tclo-ic-3-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net (212.250.25.62) 8.458 ms 13.780 ms 8.364 ms
5 52.95.218.110 (52.95.218.110) 8.619 ms 9.586 ms 9.514 ms
6 54.239.100.134 (54.239.100.134) 16.926 ms 54.239.100.94 (54.239.100.94) 17.023 ms 54.239.100.54 (54.239.100.54) 17.524 ms
7 54.239.100.97 (54.239.100.97) 18.347 ms 54.239.100.163 (54.239.100.163) 30.076 ms 54.239.100.139 (54.239.100.139) 15.647 ms
8 54.239.45.227 (54.239.45.227) 35.032 ms 54.239.42.109 (54.239.42.109) 44.861 ms 54.239.42.107 (54.239.42.107) 24.001 ms
9 54.239.47.6 (54.239.47.6) 31.227 ms 52.93.128.160 (52.93.128.160) 28.339 ms 54.239.47.6 (54.239.47.6) 27.430 ms
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 ec2-34-240-214-13.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (34.240.214.13) 23.995 ms * 20.667 ms

Heres the traceroute on the original connection. which is stable.

 

traceroute to 34.240.214.13 (34.240.214.13), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 lo5-t6-bng1.router.uk.clara.net (80.168.0.6) 9.358 ms 9.275 ms 9.210 ms
2 tengige0-0-0-3-t6-mse1.router.uk.clara.net (195.157.0.1) 9.879 ms 9.830 ms 9.858 ms
3 be1-t40-mse1.router.uk.clara.net (195.157.3.18) 10.058 ms 11.883 ms 11.824 ms
4 be1-t40-mse1.router.uk.clara.net (195.157.3.18) 9.415 ms 9.422 ms 9.337 ms
5 195.66.225.175 (195.66.225.175) 10.021 ms 9.922 ms 9.907 ms
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 ec2-34-240-214-13.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com (34.240.214.13) 18.550 ms 18.456 ms 20.294 ms

 

30 REPLIES 30

DJ_Shadow1966
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hello

VM have not done packet inspection since 2009 and then it was only a trial.

Regards Mike

I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media. Learn more

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thats not true. If you read their privacy policy there is info in there.

Also, if you setup a remote site with ifperf and bounce some traffic off it and back again you'll see someting interesting.

They also inspect traffic to prevent certain torrent connections as well as other file sharing mechanisms.

What they say and what they are doing are quite different.

Do you have UPnP enabled?

I've got 7 Reolink cameras on my VM connection (over a few years & a variety of types), and haven't had any issues with them.

Sometimes using the mobile app I get a temporary issues connecting to one of them, but a quick refresh in the app has always sorted it out.

No Upnp here.

No-one should be using it, gaping security risk but thats for another thread, not in here.

Can you tell me which IP p2p.reolink.com resolves too please? - maybe you're on a different rendevous server than me?

I've had similar problems with not being able to view Reolink cameras remotely.
My cameras are connected to the Reolink NVR and that is connected to my Virgin Hub.

I've also considered the problem to be to do with Virgin Mobile, as I can use the Reolink app to successfully connect to all cameras when I am out of the house if I use O2 or EE, I can also connect if I use WIFI when I am out, but if I try and connect using my Virgin Mobile phone, it will not connect.
This is not limited to me either, my wife's Virgin Mobile phone also cannot connect to them.

That being said, there have been rare occasions where after several minutes it will connect, but this is rare and never happens straight away.

I've had this issue now since changing my phone to Virgin Mobile, and have just learnt to live with the inconvenience as I suspected I had no hope of being able to speak to anyone who could help resolve the issue if it was at all possible. It's just annoying and frustrating that most of the time, I cannot access my cameras remotely now.

Hello.

Trying to get VM to take an interest was pointless, heres what I did instead.

Put the modem into modem mode and turned off sharing and wifi. That directly passes through the connection to an internal device, then I bought an SG3100 from netgate and a unbiquity access point. that restored my wifi and provided an internal connection. This was only part of the solution as VM are still blocking the traffic going to the reolink server so the cammeras were not visable when connected to someone elses wifi or even virgin media mobile.

I then setup an AWS account which is free and on that setup a free virtual computer on the AWS platform and selected Amsterdam as the datacenter, the point was to be outside the UK. Then on that machine I setup a VPN server. On the SG3100 there is a facility to set it as a VPN client so I connected it to the VPN server now in Amsterdam. On the SG3100 I only route the traffic destined for reolink via the VPN so VM cannot set it and therefore cannot block it.

It all works 100%. From reolinks perspective the cameras are on an internet connection in Amsterdam, when I open the reolink app on the phone or the laptop when on someone elses wifi it goes to reolink and then onto the endpoint in amsterdam. Other than a little and its really tiny lag it now just works.

I've also experimented with routing certain film providors traffic via the VPN too as a test. Works!

I appreciate this might be outside the scope of some people but it does show you can get around the problems if you need to.

Crikey! Well done for finding a way around it, it’s a shame it doesn’t just work without all the effort. 
mom not sure if I have exactly the same problem as you however, as I have no issue connected to my reolink nvr if I use any remote WiFi, or a mobile phone on O2 or EE. I have also tried Vodafone without any problems as well. This leads me to think it could be something to do with Virgin Mobile. But I suppose it could be a combination of factors between Virgin media and Virgin mobile. It’s just strange how I have no issues if I use a different network. 
Thanks for your update though. 🙂

I can confirm your experience with Reolink NVR and Virgin Media Business a 100%. I have been struggling with this for a few days now. At first, I thought the NVR was faulty, so I brought the NVR from another location, and it also started to have the same problem (unable to access from outside of the local Virgin Media Business network). I have multiple Reolink setups around the world with Comcast, Rostelecom, and even Virgin Media Home, and it all works smoothly. I’m totally convinced that it’s Virgin Media Business blocking the connection now. I was going to use the router in “modem mode”, but after reading your messages it looks like it would be hopeless too. Moreover our business Hitron router doesn’t have the function to disable “RG Function”, where it says it should be in their guide, this option is just missing. Now I cannot even set the router to modem mode! The fact that you had to do the VPN solution and it works, and Virgin Media provides no reply whatsoever is shocking.

The interesting part is that the same setup works for me (for remote access) on Virgin Media Home network, but not on Virgin Media Business network. It would be great if some of the VM technical stuff (who actually knows anything about sysadmin) would be able to provide help here. I've just spent some time in "online chat technical support" who told me they don't even know what "modem mode" is, and have no stuff who can advice why the feature to enable it is missing from our business router. Might be the time for a switch! I really don't want to bother with setting up VPN in Amsterdam 🙂

I’ve solved the problem by remembering that our business has a static IP address, and so after configuring port forwarding on the router, I’m able to have a stable connection to NVR by adding it by IP address (as opposed to UID). I think Virgin Media is blocking the P2P traffic used by the Reolink P2P system to determine where the NVR is located (if you add it by UID to the app), and this blocking just falls under the same umbrella of VM blocking the other P2P file sharing traffic. They don’t block the actual video streams, just the P2P traffic that happens when Reolink servers and NVR communicate.