Hikvision Hilook flapping switch port

I just got a Hikvision Hilook IPC-D650H after hearing good things about the brand. First thing I did was plug it into my POE+ L3 core switch for configuring (instead of mounting up a ladder and then finding an issue like this one). I watched my DHCP server for it to take an address so I could jump onto the web console but nothing showed up. After a long wait and power cycling the camera I looked at the switch logs. There were no IP Helper events and the switch port was going offline/online about every 60 seconds (flapping).

I reached out to Doris CCTV who supplied the unit (via Amazon) at a great price and with next day delivery. They responded within minutes telling me to use the SAPD tool found here. Thank you Peter!

The manual that comes with the camera has some broken English around the DHCP statement. I read the instruction optimistically taking from it that DHCP was enabled by default. But it turns out it is not. You need to use the SAPD software to find and “Activate” the device first (by setting an admin password) before you can enable DHCP. Once this is done it took an IP in the VLAN it was assigned.

Tip: If you’re plugging the device into an enterprise switch like I was with multiple VLANS then I suggest you ensure the camera and your workstation are in the same VLAN. I presume SAPD is connecting to the camera at Layer 2, because the camera had a default IP in the 192.168.1.x/24 subnet which would not route on the VLAN I had assigned the interface to.

Hope this saves someone some googling.

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