Hikvision DVR connection to BGW320 problem

The IPv4 108.195.x.x is your Public Dynamic Address... it's how to get to your network from the Internet.  192.168.1.254 is the Private IPv4 on your Gateway's LAN side, it's how you talk to it from inside your network.  This is true of pretty much any home Gateway router.

How do you know the DDNS cannot update?  How is it trying to update?

You can use 8.8.8.8 as a DNS server for your clients inside your network, but you cannot get the AT&T Gateway to give out that as the DNS provider, or get the Gateway to use it as its DNS provider; you'll have to manually configure it.

An option used by many is to get your own router and connect it behind the Gateway in IP Passthrough mode.  That lets you pass all the traffic from the Internet through the Gateway to a router that you can control better (set DNS, etc.).

I have the DVR programmed with the address, user name and password of the ddns server. Anytime the ip address changes it will report the new external ip address so it will know where to send the remote viewing client to access their recorder. It is not sending the update of the new ip address (evidenced by it never changing to the new external ip address.) I know the port forwarding is working because I manually changed the ip address at the ddns server and I can access the recorder as normal.  For the prim and alt dns server programmed into the recorder I have always 8.8.8.8 and 4.2.2.2 with the ipv4 gateway as the router address which in this case is 192.168.1.254   This doesn’t work. But without a workable dns server accessible from the Lan side the Hik-connect cloud services and email functions will never work. Surely there is something I can do to find an acceptable dns server address to allow this recorder to work without disabling the modem’s router and adding a second router which would have to have the wifi access point also. What does the rest of the world do for surveillance video recorders?  I put one on an AT&T fiber router a couple months ago and didn't have any problem. I’ll have to go back and see what the model number was. I am not the sharpest tack in the box when it comes to the IT field but I have usually been able to accomplish getting it going, until now. All I am reasonably certain of is the I have a dns server problem. Normally the Hikvision cloud based services works everytime when you have the correct lan gateway address and a viable dns server address. 

PS when I try to send an email test which worked and succeeded on the previous xfinity service, the recorder replies “Failed to send test email. DNS failed” 

same with the ddns update, it fails to update with the same settings that used to work. 

“Failed to send test email. DNS failed” 

What mail server do you have the recorder configured to contact to deliver the e-mail?

ddns update, it fails to update with the same settings that used to work. 

Could you share what those settings are?

Also the system with ATT fiber that I didn’t have problems with a month or two ago was not the fiber modem. Turns out from my photos I was dealing with a fiber gateway (most likely in ip pass through mode) with a BGW 210-700 behind it which is a WiFi Router (not the fiber gateway)

I don't have their DVR but I can't use Gmail's smtp server for my Hik cameras.  I get the same error as you. 

I don't see any mention of DNS in that error, but you can use whichever servers you want by specifying them on that first page.   That way the AT&T gateway doesn't get involved.

Actually Hikvision says thats either the only email they recommend or at least the one they say will work. Not sure about the port number. They say use 25 or the one I have in there if 25 is blocked. Everything there worked with the Xfinity provider and an arris modem just the day that we changed to ATT. The error message actually specified dns failure in place of that error message when I was trying other dns address. I changed it back to the router’s gateway address and it showed that message. That being said the presenting problems of email not working, hik-connect cloud server not connecting and ddns server not being able to send an update of the new ip address are all symptoms of not having an appropriate dns server specified on the network page. Again all of which were working with the router’s lan ip address and 8.8.8.8 as the dns address. It’s frustrating to think that something as advanced as a fiber modem/router doesn’t have the capabilities of more primitive technology. I am hoping to learn that I am just ignorant in some areas and that there is an easy fix by way of settings to accomplish the same thing that I have done on 50 some-odd other recorders that I have installed. The cloud connection typically works without any port forwarding or anything other than a google dns server address and the routers lan gateway address. 

I was able to connect to SMTP.GMAIL.COM on port 587 using an unencrypted connection... looks like a normal ESMTP server.  See Google's article here, https://support.google.com/a/answer/176600?hl=en , paying special attention to section 2, for more information on SMTP to G-mail.  

When I attempted to just visit dynupdate.no-ip.com, I was redirected to noip.com, but I cannot create the entire request string as documented at https://www.noip.com/integrate/request  .  You might try to build the entire URL as documented and test it from a PC just to see what sort of reaction you get, or if you get some helpful message in the browser.

@Eaglecarver 

It looks like you might have a simple configuration error in your first Configuration Page settings:

The last entry is set to 192.168.254.1 when I am guessing it should be 192.168.1.254 (within valid range you set) based on the rest of you data on the screen. What exactly does this field mean to your Configuration?

You also should just leave the DNS settings on  that page to 8.8.8.8 (Google DNS) and maybe 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) as the Secondary.

Turns out from my photos I was dealing with a fiber gateway (most likely in ip pass through mode) with a BGW 210-700 behind it which is a WiFi Router (not the fiber gateway)

This is a bit confusing and we really need to know if there is a third-party router setup to use IP Passthrough mode and what LAN networks the BGW210-700 is set to use since it's default is 192.168.1.254 and you are using the same network.

One of your photos showing the equipment would help. The BGW210-700 is both the Fiber Gateway and a Router / Wi-Fi unit. It would be connected to a small white box (normally a Nokia 010). It would also be helpful to see 2 additional tabs of your Configuration pages: General and NAT.

IP Passthrough mode is setup in the BGW210-700 and we need to know which mode is being used to pass the DHCP Public WAN address of the BGW210-700 to your configuration. There are 3 modes:

• DHCPS-dynamic: The public WAN IP address is delivered by the AT&T provided RG's DHCP server to the first device that requests a DHCP address on the LAN.
• DHCPS-fixed: The public WAN IP address is delivered by the device's DHCP server to the device whose MAC address has been specified.
• Manual: A LAN device must be manually configured with the AT&T provided device's assigned WAN IP address and gateway information. To use this method, you will need to contact Customer Care to obtain your Wan IP Address, default gateway, and subnet mask.

I would always pick DHCPS-fixed. This way if for any reason the WAN IP address changes you don't care and with DHCPS-dynamic can be messed up if someone connects directly to the BGW210-700 and grabs makes the first DHCP Address after the BGW210-700 restarts for any reason.

Dave