One of my clients bought a Swann DVR8-2550 DVR & Camera package and needed me to set it up so that he could view it remotely. I was actually impressed with Swann’s offering…they have a great User Manual which is accessible from their website, a smartphone App and the DVR interface is very intuitive.
I went through all the typical steps..setting up Port Forwarding, Dynamic DNS, etc. We had no problem viewing the camera remotely through Internet Explorer but when we tried using the SwannView app on an Android smartphone (SwannView is also available for iPhone and they have other solutions for Windows Phone & Blackberry), we got the error “Invalid User”. The status messages upon attempting to connect made it apparent that the connection to the DVR was successful but there was some type of discrepancy with the username and password combo. But, we knew we had the correct username/password because we logged in perfectly in Internet Explorer…very weird. We performed troubleshooting steps of trying to connect with SwannView on a different Android phone, changing the password through the DVR interface, creating a new user account and none yielded favorable results. The Invalid User error persisted.
SwannView “Invalid User” Error
The next step, ofcourse, was to search around the internet for people with similar problems. I was able to find this Yahoo Answers post as well as an Amazon review and some other pages where people had the same exact issue so I knew I wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a solution to this problem anywhere online. I decided to bite the bullet and contact Swann Tech Support via online chat. They had heard of the problem before but didn’t have an easy answer. During talking with them, I figured out how to get past the Invalid User error in SwannView.
The support agent asked me if I modified the DVR user settings through the DVR or Internet Explorer. I was unaware that you could change the DVR settings remotely as this is not possible with most DVR’s but with this Swann DVR, you can and this is what pushed me in the right direction and led me to eventually find a solution to this dreadful problem! I immediately stopped talking with the support agent and went over to my Internet Explorer window to dig further. I found that by updating the Password through the Remote View window, I could now connect with SwannView perfectly..no more Invalid User error!
The Solution – How To Fix SwannView “Invalid User” Error
- Access your DVR remotely through Internet Explorer
- Once logged in, click the “Remote Setting” button at the top of the screen
- On the left tree view window, click “Device”. It will expand, then click “Mobile”
- Re-enter your password in the “Password” field and click Apply at the botton right of the screen
- That’s it! You will now be able to connect via SwannView with the username and password you set.
Swann DVR – SwannView Invalid User Error SOLUTION
Conclusion
As an Application Developer, my best guess is that there is a small bug in the Software that runs on the DVR. For some reason, it does not copy over that username/password correctly to the Mobile Settings database. Somehow the logic in the Remote View Plugin does store it correctly. It’s a frustrating problem and since there is no solution posted elsewhere, I wanted to take some time and post a quick article so that people with the same problem don’t pull their hair out. I’ve got to say…this Swann DVR is great for the price and it does what it says it will. It would be nice if Swann could push a DVR firmware upgrade to fix this issue but first they are going to have to realize that the problem IS on their side and not just idiot customers with typing errors.
Thank you for your post I can connect to camera but my config screen don’t have submenu “Mobile” in menu “Device” so I leave the password blank and then I can connect to camera.
I had this same problem- ends up there was also some type of glitch in the newer firmware, where it does not read the password appropriately. I went to the admin tab, hit default, and made it back where there is no password. Works flawless now.. Under user 1, I added a password, and same problem. There is some type of software problem with it reading the passwords.
Leaving the password blank works, OR using a password that is exactly six characters seems to work… frustrating bug, glad I found this site!
Thank you!!! A password with SIX CHARACTERS works!!!
Hey,
The 6 alphabet password worked like a charm – spent 2 hours trying to figure it until i landed here.
thanks a ton!
Thank you very much for taking the time to post the work-around you found. I was dealing with this very frustrating issue and this hack did the trick.
Thanks a million for posting this, got me up in running in two minutes flat!
Thanks a bunch for posting the reply. Worked just like you said!
Thanks Mark. It appears that the DVR and PC based access truncates the password to 6 characters unlike the Android and iPhone Apps that pass a longer password that then does not match the stored maximum password length of six characters!
Hi guys,
I have a Swann DvR which doesn’t have the mobile option in devices but in network I can set it up.
Everything is set on the router part as well, password is 6 chart.
Invalid User is what I get in swann view for android :( although the connection is successful.
Help please.
Alex, try clicking on one of the camera boxes in Swannview so you can select the source device, then expand the list under your dvr and click one of the cameras. I had to redo that for each camera to get them working after figuring out 6 character password etc.
I found that it works if the password is 6 NUMBERS, not letters.
TRUE SOLUTION FOUND!!
I finally got to the bottom of the ‘invalid user’ problem on Swanview for android.
On Netviewer (on your PC) you access your DVR to set a password. On mine it is under SYSTEM>USER (no ‘mobile’ option). I highlighted Admin user, and entered password and confirmed and applied. All good so far. You may or may not have noticed that the password is limited to six characters only. I didn’t pick up on this at first. The password can be whatever you want, letters &/or numbers – I tested both successfully.
Now to the problem on SwanView for android.
You get ‘invalid user’ which you first expect. So you click settings and edit your details for your DVR by adding the password field. You click ok and go back but it APPEARS nothing has changed with ‘invalid user’ message again. It actually HAS worked – but the clue is in the 4 consecutive ‘invalid user’ messages! One message is for each square. The squares hold the old information – the link to the camera you picked to show in that square, so each square needs to be refreshed – highlighted, press settings and select the camera number you want it to display, and it shows the image! Repeat for each square. DONE!
Great contribution no6,
The original solution I posted worked for me on the particular model of Swann DVR that I had. But, I think you found out why exactly it wasn’t working right away for some people. All the contributions that we’ve seen to this article have made it so that anyone with this problem should be able to solve it after viewing this page. Thanks so much for all of the contributions!! I wish Swann would acknowledge the small coding issue that has thrown time wasting problems for people with an otherwise great Security Camera system.
I have SwanView 3.2.4.
What worked for me was disabling the password, saving it as disabled, then deleting and reentering password and saving again. I had to do this for each account. I did it in either NetViewer or IE I don’t remember.
Yes sr.!!!! Type ur own password ONLY till sixth character.
BEAUTIFUL.!!! Thanks everyone.
thank you mate you have got it right it worked for me thanks i have spend days trying to fix this problem.
it only only works on admin 6 character password. nice
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