@firefox111 

Hey,

I guess you manage this router in standalone mode? Does ER605 obtain a public IP on WAN interface? If no, you need also port forwarding on the upstream device.
 

And do those 4 cameras have static IP addresses? If they are dynamic, the IP will change and port forwarding may not work. I suggest you set static IP.

When entering the external and internal port number, the internal port numbers should be different to avoid conflict. You should double-check your settings.

Hope it gives you some insights.

@Somnus 

The ER605 is the gateway to my cable modem.  It acquires dynamic IP from the cable internet provider.

The 4 cameras have static IP addresses and were working fine before I implemented this ER605 into my network.  Somehow the ER605 is not able to process port forwarding as it is needed in my network.  Here is a quick illustration of my network: Cable modem => ER605 => Wireless Router and a PC.  I have a port forwarding rule to forward HTTPS ports 6546 - 6451 to the wireless router.  Correspondingly, I have a port forwarding rule in the wireless router to forward each of those HTTPS ports to the individual devices' IP address. That worked before I replaced my previous firewall (a Linksys router/firewall) with the ER605. Now, any port forwarding (In-bound or Out-bound) has a hard time going in/out of the ER605.

Same port numbers always worked for me even in my hay days as a network admin with Cisco ASA's.

Using different port numbers is difficult to implement/manage on my mobile devices. When I'm home I have to set different port numbers on my mobile devices to satisfy the ER605 and when I'm out of my home network, I have to set them back to what it should be to reach my son's cameras?  That is ridiculous!  Maybe for the incoming port forwarding rules for the cameras in my home network.

---Update: Different port numbers did not work for my local cameras when accessed from the outside.  I had set Incoming WAN port as 6446 - 6451  and outgoing to the wireless router on ports 6546 - 6551 then my wireless router port forwarding from 6546 - 6551 forwarded to port HTTPS 443 to the individual cameras....nO go.

Something in the ER605 is going on which I COULDN'T DIAGNOSE BECAUSE THERE IS NO DETAILED LOG...... Do I need to connect a wire shark to the ER605 to diagnose?

Fae wrote

Dear @firefox111,

 

firefox111 wrote

Something in the ER605 is going on which I COULDN'T DIAGNOSE BECAUSE THERE IS NO DETAILED LOG...... Do I need to connect a wire shark to the ER605 to diagnose?

 

I'm afraid that we may need to use Wireshark to capture the packets for further analysis.

The ER605 in Standalone mode supports the Port Mirror feature, which can help to capture its WAN&LAN packets.

 

If you are willing to try further troubleshooting, I'd like to forward you to the TP-Link support team who may assist you effectively.

Please feel free to reply back for further assistance. Thank you!

@Fae 

Yes, I mirrored the WAN port and captured the traffic with Wire Shark on my Laptop. The capture was going while the port forwarded https traffic was trying to connect both incoming to my cameras and outgoing to my son's cameras.  We'll see.  I'll analyze the capture later after work.

Can my port forwarding issues be caused by MAC-IP bonding? When I configured the LAN side of the ER605, I did a reservation to my Wireless Router, and the "Export to IP MAC binding" had a checkmark as default. I think I reserved the wireless router with IP address with that ON. What does it do?

No, not the IP-MAC binding. Could it be one of the options in the Firewall=>Attack Defense?