well hell, your right, I didn't even think it was booting up because when it seems booted up the status light turns blue. For some reason it's working now, awesome! Thanks guys
Custom Firmware Downgrader 5.3.0 Chinese to 5.2.5 English
- Thread starter whoslooking
- Start date
whoslooking
IPCT Contributor
Another happy customer 
I wanted a standalone IP camera to remotely monitor the interior of a cabin during the off-season, and send motion alerts via email. After researching the various options, I bought a DS-2CD2532F-IS from a reseller on Amazon.ca, blissfully unaware of the potential problems that could result from firmware issues.
My first clue that something was up is that there was no English anywhere on the box or camera, and all of the hard copy documentation was in Chinese. The included mini-CD had some English documentation, though - a start-up guide, and a couple of different user guides (neither of which was the correct one for this camera).
This is my first IP camera, so after getting it up and running I went through all of the menus / sub-menus to get acquainted with the various items. I immediately noticed that although the camera was stickered as "v5.3.0_150327" (date 04/2015), the firmware actually shows as "V5.2.5 build 141201" in the configuration menu.
One of the first things I tried setting up was email alerts. I was unsuccessful at doing this, despite testing it with combinations of gmail & gmx sender accounts, various ports (25 / 465 / 587), SSL enabled / disabled, etc. No matter what I tried, the Test would return a "Testing failed" message. I couldn't get a successful test when attempting to get the Time synched to a server, either.
So I thought, okay, let's see if I can at least establish remote access using the camera's DDNS capability. I registered at www.hiddns.com, and configured the camera to use HiDDNS. But when I went back to the website and tried adding the camera, it returned "The device does not exist", which suggests the camera failed to establish a presence on the website. I later found some documentation suggesting that the camera should ask to be rebooted after you enable DDNS & save the domain info, but it didn't do that. I rebooted it, but was still unable to get DDNS to work with HiDDNS despite many attempts.
My Asus router has built-in functionality for No-IP, so I established a trial account there, set up the router, and was successfully able to access the camera remotely. A small but important victory...
I therefore have nearly complete functionality, including the ability to access the camera remotely, and review the microSD card using Playback. But I really want to have email alert functionality, so I thought I should update the firmware. Fortunately, I discovered this thread before embarking on that adventure - thanks to all who have contributed here!
So to make a long story short, I'm currently trying to decide whether to keep the camera, or return it and look for a North America version from an authorized reseller. With the exception of the email alerts, I'm very happy with everything else about the camera. I'm leaning towards returning it, but before doing so I wanted to check whether anybody here has had similar issues with email alerts and HiDDNS (which I assume is related to flaws in the after-market firmware, and/or regional issues), and been able to resolve them without hacking the camera - something I'd prefer to avoid doing because of the time it could take (my technical capabilities are fairly modest).
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
My first clue that something was up is that there was no English anywhere on the box or camera, and all of the hard copy documentation was in Chinese. The included mini-CD had some English documentation, though - a start-up guide, and a couple of different user guides (neither of which was the correct one for this camera).
This is my first IP camera, so after getting it up and running I went through all of the menus / sub-menus to get acquainted with the various items. I immediately noticed that although the camera was stickered as "v5.3.0_150327" (date 04/2015), the firmware actually shows as "V5.2.5 build 141201" in the configuration menu.
One of the first things I tried setting up was email alerts. I was unsuccessful at doing this, despite testing it with combinations of gmail & gmx sender accounts, various ports (25 / 465 / 587), SSL enabled / disabled, etc. No matter what I tried, the Test would return a "Testing failed" message. I couldn't get a successful test when attempting to get the Time synched to a server, either.
So I thought, okay, let's see if I can at least establish remote access using the camera's DDNS capability. I registered at www.hiddns.com, and configured the camera to use HiDDNS. But when I went back to the website and tried adding the camera, it returned "The device does not exist", which suggests the camera failed to establish a presence on the website. I later found some documentation suggesting that the camera should ask to be rebooted after you enable DDNS & save the domain info, but it didn't do that. I rebooted it, but was still unable to get DDNS to work with HiDDNS despite many attempts.
My Asus router has built-in functionality for No-IP, so I established a trial account there, set up the router, and was successfully able to access the camera remotely. A small but important victory...
I therefore have nearly complete functionality, including the ability to access the camera remotely, and review the microSD card using Playback. But I really want to have email alert functionality, so I thought I should update the firmware. Fortunately, I discovered this thread before embarking on that adventure - thanks to all who have contributed here!
So to make a long story short, I'm currently trying to decide whether to keep the camera, or return it and look for a North America version from an authorized reseller. With the exception of the email alerts, I'm very happy with everything else about the camera. I'm leaning towards returning it, but before doing so I wanted to check whether anybody here has had similar issues with email alerts and HiDDNS (which I assume is related to flaws in the after-market firmware, and/or regional issues), and been able to resolve them without hacking the camera - something I'd prefer to avoid doing because of the time it could take (my technical capabilities are fairly modest).
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Last edited by a moderator:
whoslooking
IPCT Contributor
The hik-online setup is a bit funny, as both parts need to be done at the same time for it to work.
There as some good guide on how to setup email, again they have to be 100% of it won't work at all.
There as some good guide on how to setup email, again they have to be 100% of it won't work at all.
Has anyone tried this on v5.3.3? I got a DS-2CD2042WD-I camera with v5.3.3 from factory (chinese version) and have the white flashing issues. One person in that thread said that v5.3.1 doesn't have issues but I don't want to brick my camera. I just want to downgrade to something that works.
whoslooking
IPCT Contributor
Hik's are hard to brick, not yet had one die that I could not recover
Just download the FW that's originally on the camera before you start, backup your settings too.
The let us know how you get on.
Just download the FW that's originally on the camera before you start, backup your settings too.
The let us know how you get on.
Thanks, I'm going to download the v5.3.3 and then try to downgrade to v5.3.1. If I get the FW from the overseas Hikvision site, will my camera turn back to Chinese then? I'm assuming they hacked the camera to English when I bought it.
whoslooking
IPCT Contributor
I would have thought so, contact your supplier and ask for the firmware, once you get the firmware please post it in the forum
I hope they can provide it to me. I didn't know that the 2042's were going to have so many problems when I got them. (white flashes, doesn't work with 7104 nvr from hikvision).
nejakejnick
Getting the hang of it
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2015
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I have a problem with event playback, it seems that iVMS Client thinks that the camera does not support it - please see http://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php/5241-iVMS-4200-Client-(v2-3-1-3)-won-t-playback-motion-detection-events?p=45702&viewfull=1#post45702
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
My work just bought 10 of these cameras and they came with Chinese 5.3 on them. I followed the instructions but the tftp server keeps saying "resend required" and I'm not able to flash the firmware.
Camera is plugged into a POE injector then into a 5 port mini switch. Win 7 laptop is plugged into the mini switch.
I even tried plugging directly into the laptop. Same deal.
I also tried renaming the digicap.dav to digcap.dav. When I do that the tftp server sits at the "initialized" promot. I've tried this on 4 of the 10 cameras. Same result.
Anyone have any ideas on this?
Camera is plugged into a POE injector then into a 5 port mini switch. Win 7 laptop is plugged into the mini switch.
I even tried plugging directly into the laptop. Same deal.
I also tried renaming the digicap.dav to digcap.dav. When I do that the tftp server sits at the "initialized" promot. I've tried this on 4 of the 10 cameras. Same result.
Anyone have any ideas on this?
Attachments
Power Adaptor?
Cameras didn't come with one. I'll look around the house to see if I can find something that works.
After reading and working on this for about 8 hours I'm beginning to wonder what's the point? If I can get the cam on DHCP, google translate does a good enough job to help me set the settings after that. The cameras seem to work in milestone once the initial settings are done.
Does anyone have any thoughts to why I should keep pursuing changing the firmware or getting it to run in english? Maybe something I'm overlooking?
Does anyone have any thoughts to why I should keep pursuing changing the firmware or getting it to run in english? Maybe something I'm overlooking?
whoslooking
IPCT Contributor
alastairstevenson
Staff member
@jamiejunk
On the face of it - your file was transmitted OK but was not applied to the camera - I'd speculate that it was not the right version for this new model.
Can you confirm where you got the firmware, and what models it was specified for?
A few resends when transmitting digicap.dav, though not ideal, is no big deal, and does not mean the file did not transmit, it means a few of the hundreds of blocks transmitted failed the CRC check and were re-transmitted.
On the face of it - your file was transmitted OK but was not applied to the camera - I'd speculate that it was not the right version for this new model.
Can you confirm where you got the firmware, and what models it was specified for?
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The cameras are DS-2CD2135F-IS. The firmware I was trying to upload is the firmware that came with the download on the first posting in this thread.