Hikvison Permanent Region Code Hack

[bouncy]

Firefox and IE dont appear to work for some reason. chrome gives me the error "The type of upgrade file mismatches."

 

[bouncy]

yep firefox and ie blocked a pop up, but when allowed, they also said "The type of upgrade file mismatches."

 

[klasipca]

yep firefox and ie blocked a pop up, but when allowed, they also said "The type of upgrade file mismatches."

Then you don't have a hack working, that's the error I was getting before the hack.

 

[bouncy]

the hacks working fine. the mtd5 and mtd6 where altered as instructed, and the language on 5.2.0 and 5.2.3 reverted from chinese to english after the hack.

 

[klasipca]

Don't know then. I just hacked all my 6 cams with this and upgraded using the same 5.2.5 file from 5.2.0. Everything went smoothly.

In 2 cams I did not edit mtd5, both had all the same values FF and no 02 flags.

 

[vistamaniac]

So... do we actually have a region hack for the 5.2.5 firmware yet?

 

[Biggs]

Can you point me out on where to buy a Euro version of this camera? Thanks!

To me, Dahua has much friendlier resale model in the U.S. than Hikvision that does not really want their cameras resold in the U.S., only to installers.

I've talked to Hikvision about closing the doors to the hacks being done a year ago, but they didn't seem interested. One can get euro versions of the cameras in Chine and pay maybe $10-20 more than local China cameras, so yes, that may raise prices to some, but when you factor in paying someone to hack them for you, what's the real benefit to you when the hacker is charging more than the price difference on the cameras. So to me, either keep the value prop by making the hacks open, or shut the hacks down totally and force people pay $10-20 more for the euro version of the cameras. This limbo of hacking only benefits the people charging for the hacks. Does it benefit my daughter to kill this, yes, not having to deal with hacks and having a product that's supported by the manufacturer or dealer is a huge benefit for her and to her customers. When there's an issue with Dahua, she can engage the U.S. authorized distributor and Dahua to solve your problem. With Hikvision, it's terrible, Hikvision USA won't help even if she buys them from authorized distributors and distribution channels are not skilled like Dahua and are worthless. So the best customer experience is legit U.S. product with U.S. support, but if paying more for that is not important to you, there are choices as most of you know and not only do I share the region code hack, but I came up with instructions for a simple hack to make your Chinese camera English, albeit with day of week in Chinese. Who else has done that here? And I have a couple of people working on the 5.2.5 hack and make that open. What do I have to gain by doing that? Will Hikvision make it harder next time, sure, but they have been closing the door a little at a time since version 5.0. Look at it this way, the only person that published the region code hack about a year ago was CBX, what bits to change, not me, and it took Hikvision a year to figure out how to make this harder, but clearly not impossible. If CBX never published this a year ago, we would not be discussing this now.

 

[riri7707]

Hik doesn't want to distribute via official offices in EMEA the 2 series cams.
It was more a killer for their middle and high range products.
Too cheap and it request more local ressources, grown their stuff, support, sales people, etc.
Just to compare, here locally Hik team is only around 10 people, and Axis more than 30 people, only for one country....

So for moment , this is not a high priority for Hik as the market place them yet in a very good position and are eating competition places
They want more to go to middle and high end products who are very well placed on pricing face to competitors (for example Axis where they didn't make their annual objectives last year).
So for them no needs to go to small solutions (domestic products) and nvrs 4/8/16 channels in EMEA (much more interesting to push iVMS 5200 pro and enterprise solutions).

Talking with one friend who works at Hik Europe, they are aware of this grey market distribution, but they are not interested at all and don't want to make something too against. For them that's fine : more products sales in the world, more manufacturing activity, more noise/more talking/marketing somewhere and at end = positive as most of the Professional heared about Hik and goes to Hik for high range products series. So in general, for them, this is a postive thing.

So Chineese 2 series will continue to make noise, disturb some integrators, but will have a large life for long time through E-bay/Amazon/Ali, etc....
And of course a game field for us, the hobby nurbs who have time and challenging permanently how to solve this tricky issues with firmwares.
Very interesting as we learn each day more about...
Funny world....

 

[vasir]

My camera is a 5.2.8 flashed to 5.2.3. I bricked it using the hack listed here.
Anyways to makes the story short, I was able to bring back the device to boot so if anyone needs to know how let me know.
Actually think that guys here might be able to use this method to un brick their devices and find the right region hack without the rs232 path.

 

[bouncy]

did you only modify one location in each of the two files you generated, or did you modify more than one location?

 

[alastairstevenson]

Anyways to makes the story short, I was able to bring back the device to boot so if anyone needs to know how let me know.

Why not make it a bit longer and share what you did?
This is mainly a self-help community after all.

 

[vasir]

here my friend ... hope it helps!
http://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php?2680-un-brick-cameras-patched-via-camera-region-patch-in-this-forum-5-2-8-to-5-2-5&p=22553#post22553

 

[bubba123]

Nice job. Didn't think to leave tftpd open so you could continue accessing the recovery console.

 

[S474N]

vasir: I have also 5.2.8 on cam/package, but if I bricked it, I can still flash 5.2.5 Chinese from this forum via TFTP. You not?

 

[bouncy]

can anybody link me directly to either a 5.2.5 or 5.2.8 firmware that they have used successfully, as I keep getting the message "The type of upgrade file mismatches." when i try the file i was previously linked too.

I have carried the hack out, and confirmed it persisted after a 5.2.0 to 5.2.3 flash, so i cant only guess the file i have may not be for my DS-2CD3132-I.

Many thanks.

 

[S474N]

Here is 5.2.5 firmware:
http://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php?1784-Hikvision-2532F-IS-not-getting-any-audio-through&p=20608&viewfull=1#post20608

With this file and with FTFP I flashed my cam. It works perfectly, but in Chineese.

 

[bouncy]

Ah, im using the web page to flash, i dont suppose you can help me on how do you do this via ftdp?

 

[S474N]

No FTFP, no FTDP, but TFTP Search in this forum, it's simple.

 

[bouncy]

I think ive said this before, but do you know how many dead ends you reach on the forum due to people discussing or asking for a file, yet none being actually mentioned or linked too. Anyway did a bit of google searching and found http://www.hikvision.com/europe/download_more.asp?id=1336 for the auto-update tftp tool and instructions. Using the tool I found at that link, i successfully updated to 5.2.5. Very strange it wouldn't do it from the web console though. any ideas would be welcomed as i wouldnt want it causing issues going forwards.

 

[S474N]

Reason may be, that you have originaly Chineese cam with modified firmware.