Can't find the serial connection on this camera!!!

E

enricol

n3wb
Dec 16, 2019
18
7
Italy
I'm trying to reset the password of my HiLook camera. TFTP didn't work so I'm trying to connect to the serial interface and force the update from there.

The problem is I can't find the serial connection anywhere. I was expecting to find a four pin JST ZH header but there's none, except the ones that are already taken (which are not 4 pin anyways).

The only hint I found are those 4 pins, 1 of which is square (circled in the pictures). Do you think that's the one?
 

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enricol said:
The only hint I found are those 4 pins, 1 of which is square (circled in the pictures). Do you think that's the one?
Click to expand...
Very likely - it looks like the connector hasn't been part of the build.

Suggestion - you can check that it is the serial console connector without damaging the USB to TTL serial adaptor if you initially connect it up with RX and GND only, that way the TX won't get damaged if it's connected to an incorrect contact.

This should provide some help with how to connect up the adaptor (cameras and NVRs have the same pinouts) :

Hikvision NVR DS-7804N-E1/4P Bricked

Hello, i have NVR DS-7804N-E1/4P bricked when i flash wrong firmware DS-7604NI for it. So now it only boot to Logo then bip bip and auto restart. I tried flash TFTP very many time by set IP of my PC to 192.0.0.128 / subnet 255.255.255.0 and turn firewall is off. But no thing flashable although i...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
Did you notice the silkscreened "reset" on the board adjacent to the two solder contacts?

circled in orange

1727356293548.png
 
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SpacemanSpiff said:
Did you notice the silkscreened "reset" on the board adjacent to the two solder contacts?

circled in orange

View attachment 203755
Click to expand...
Of course I didn't! Thanks for pointing it out! I would never have spotted it.

Bad news is I'm now trying to short those 2 contacts but I can't get it to reset. I've tried to short them after powering the camera and while powering it on. The green led on the board goes out after about 20 secs of holding. Then it comes back on but the camera is still in active state and no reset has happened. Apparently I was mistaken. The green light on the board goes on and off every 1 minute or so and sometimes it looked like it went off when I shorted the contacts.

What am I doing wrong?
 
Last edited:
Sorry, should have declared this point in my previous post.
I hope you are aware of, and fully consider the risks that come with jumping seemingly random solder points on a circuit board

Back to the game of uncertainty. Trying to make an educated guess in which points to jump in the hopes you won't render the PCBoard/cam useless

So all 4 contacts are within the DPSW1 rectangle (dipswitch 1?).
Maybe the contacts are laid out across (left to right, top down) the DPSW1 area?
As opposed to stacked, as my orange circle depicted.

edit: formatting
 
SpacemanSpiff said:
Sorry, should have declared this point in my previous post.
I hope you are aware of, and fully consider the risks that come with jumping seemingly random solder points on a circuit board

Back to the game of uncertainty. Trying to make an educated guess in which points to jump in the hopes you won't render the PCBoard/cam useless

So all 4 contacts are within the DPSW1 rectangle (dipswitch 1?).
Maybe the contacts are laid out across (left to right, top down) the DPSW1 area?
As opposed to stacked, as my orange circle depicted.

edit: formatting
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm aware I'm way more likely to damage the camera than bring it back to life. I'm full savage mode now!

I've tried all 4 combinations and one of them actually looked promising (circled in the pic). When shorting those two solder points, the IR led would turn on (but I didn't hear the relay), the led on the board would go on and off a couple of times and that's it. But the camera still pops up in SADP as active and with the old (custom) ip address.

At this point I might try the original plan with serial, as @alastairstevenson suggested earlier.
 

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Did you try jumping two points, then applying power to the device... removing jumper after 20-30 seconds?

Or were you simply jumping points while already powered up?
 
Ok I've got news! As @alastairstevenson suggested, those are indeed the serial pins. I can connect to the serial console without any issue.

I tried to update the firmware and it did it correctly. But the camera still won't reset! It's still in active state and its web page asks for username and password. The ip is 10.101.199.118. It probably is the static ip that was assigned initially by the installer. I've attached the logs from the update, maybe you can spot something I didn't! I can only see network errors but that's because I've got it connected on a switch without the internet.

I'm losing hope. It really seems like this camera is unresettable!
 

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enricol said:
But the camera still won't reset! It's still in active state and its web page asks for username and password.
Click to expand...
That's disappointing!
The firmware update went OK but erasing the config partition wasn't part of the process.

A slight long shot suggestion :
Interrupt the bootloader and at the command prompt, use the command
help
which should list the available bootloader commands.
With luck there may be one that will erase the configuration partition, maybe 'erase' or 'erasecfg'.
Also use
printenv
just to list the environment variables.
 
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It worked!!!!!!!!! Thank you @alastairstevenson!

For reference I used these commands
erase cfg0
erase cfg1

If you just type erase, it will tell you what you can erase
HKVS # erase The 2nd param is invalid argument,only support: erase env/sysflg/sys0/sys1/app0/app1/cfg0/cfg1/log/all

Also many thanks to @SpacemanSpiff, the reset was the first obvious thing to try. If only it worked!

Thanks guys for coming along for the ride!
 
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Thanks for posting the failures AND successes of your attempts.

It will be great reference for future vistors with a similar problem on their hilook cams
 
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