I actually never ended up using it. I just run Blue Iris on my server to control the cameras. I believe that there’s a pretty decent support for a smartthings/blue iris integration, but I’ve never needed it.
I’m using 4 IP2M-841 cameras and facing the following issues:
- MJPEG Stream does not work
- RTSP works intermittently - sometimes, I click refresh 3-4 times for it to start working, otherwise, it says that camera is unavailable
- At the same time, movement controls, as well as snapshots are working!
- I’m unable to access the cameras when I’m outside of my home network. I know it is possible, as the native Amcrest app does it without any issues or port forwardings
- A minor issue: Under Device Handlers, I have two identical namespaces, both red… Can’t remove the second one - it says removed, but still appears
What channel # do you have the camVideoChannel parameter set to? Is the camera itself set to stream MJPEG video? The video streaming is handled through a ST API call, so I have no ability to diagnose what is going on beyond confirming your configuration is correct.
Again, this is controlled by ST, not my DTH. I do believe that there is some “throttling” in place so that the video streams are not abusive, so perhaps hitting the refresh 3-4 times in a row is an exercise in futility.
Good! I recommend that you do not update the camera firmware because you will lose that ability.
I am not sure how to respond to this other than to say “No, it doesn’t”.
You may feel like it is working this way but trust me, it is not. There is no way whatsoever that you are successfully accessing an IP camera outside of your LAN using a non-repeatable IP address. There is not a public-facing router or switch on the planet that would allow that.
You may be using their cloud service or some piece of code may have updated the router on your behalf during installation/configurstion, but I can assure you that you are not getting into your network view the Amcrest viewer without some additional “help” (whether that is a cloud portal, a VPN tunnel, DDNS configuration, etc.) into your LAN.
If you try to add a new camera in the IDE, does it only list 1 “Amcrest Camera”?
Is there a way we can disable the audio if its not wanted on a camera? Evertyime I click on my “thing” I have to click play, if I try to do PTZ, it goes black and I must hit play again. Doesn’t seem to be controlling anything though…
Glad I found this thread. Have the IP2M-841 latest firmware getting “Camera unavailable” message.
Sorry, I am not following you here… what are you clicking on? The video stream play button?
By the way, if you are streaming video and you click one of the PTZ functions, you are actually interrupting the video stream to send the PTZ command, so it is not surprising that you have to hit play again to resume the video streaming, if that is what you are referring to as the issue.
You are getting that error trying to play video? Does it work if you take a picture? Or try any of the PTZ functions?
Only RTSP works for me on the latest firmware. All other commands fail with an unauthorized error. For some reason, when sending a Basic Authentication header (hubAction local IP), the camera returns a Digest Unauthorized 401 error. It should definitely not be doing that. I’ve opened a ticket with Amcrest support.
Here’s someone else describing the firmware bug in more detail. https://github.com/tchellomello/python-amcrest/issues/70
Yes, this has been reported to me already and, from what I can tell, this is not a bug with the last firmware update, unfortunately. It appears that Amcrest made the decision to stop supporting basic authentication and require digest authentication from now on.
I have not had enough free time to really dig into this yet, but I will attempt to fix the issue.
Dang, PTZ was working so well before I upgraded the firmware! 
Thank you Belgarion, I echo the others appreciation that have also benefited from your efforts.
Yes, I’m getting this error to play video. When I click to take a picture, a ST logo appears and I get a push notification picture is d/l but no snapshot. None of my PTZ buttons works nor any other buttons. I tried both RTSP and MJEG to no avail. I can access my camera thru IE using IP address, user and password no problem.
Port 80, RTSP 554, Camera Channel 0, Video Channel 0, Chan Fix = On, and Cam Debug Mode = On
I think it is a bug but I’m still waiting for a response from Amcrest. According documentation, Basic Authentication is still supported. Also, their release notes for the last firmware has no remarks about removing Basic Authentication. On top of that http://USER:PASS@IP_ADDRESS/ still works fine.
Try changing Video Channel to 1.
I hope that you are right! 
Let us know what they say when they get back to you… thx!
Didn’t work. Camera has always showed as Active, still getting “Camera Unavailable” When I added the dth I didn’t have to go to MarketPlace to input my IP settings and password, it showed under “Things” right away
Your username and password, as defined in the Amcrest camera, must be entered in the configuration settings of the DTH or nothing will work.
I’m sorry I failed to mention that, I do have the account username and account password defined in the dth configuration. I don’t see any reference of this dth in Marketplace under Things like you show on your instructions Step 11, is that OK?
Yes, the write-up is rather old and ST moved things around. As long as you followed the instructions to enter my custom DTH directly into the IDE then your Amcrest camera should show up in your list of Devices in the IDE as “Amcrest Camera”.
If you are sure the username and password are entered correctly then turn on debug and capture the attempt to do a PTZ function and I will see if I can help.
I have this completely setup, and all of the functions work. The only thing is that I can’t see the camera’s live feed in the SmartThings app. Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Presets, and Screen Orientation all work. I am not at home, but I can see the camera moving when I monitor it on TeamViewer. Is this normal behavior? Will I be able to pull up the live feed only when I am on my home network?
If you defined the camera settings to use a local IP then yes, you can not see the video stream unless you VPN in to your network. The video stream is local to the hub.
This has been covered numerous times in this thread and there are ways to use a public IP, but I do not recommend those methods as they are much less secure.