DH_NVR5XXX-4KS2_MultiLang_V4.001.0000003.1.R.200813

Thanks redfive. I installed IE11 and have the playback speed buttons, which is great, but the mystery of it all just gets worse for me. I had to install a plugin for IE11. I thought the v4 NVR firmware got rid of plugins. Firefox doesn't need a plugin, but then again doesn't have all the capabilities. I wish this stuff would just work without all the hassles!
 
Anyone on the email issue I posted about? I’m really wondering if Gmail made some changes but I doubt it because it’s working on a backup server I run. I think the firmware may be broke. I tried to different NVR’s with same result.
 
I think I have my issues sorted out. I had to go back in through the AI section of the NVR and edit the IVS rule and under more re-check the "email" box, which had gone unchecked. In a few cases I recreated my IVS tripwire rules. I tried downgrading the cams and the NVR to prior versions with no change in behavior, so just look for some wonky setting changes. Might be worth resetting to factory defaults if you can't find it. I don't use Gmail, but I would suspect it is a TLS version mismatch with what Gmail is wanting to see. Did you try the 1R version? I could downgrade to that, but not down to 3.xxx
 
Substantially edited 7/7/20 to incorporate new info and learnings.

I'm posting my experience updating a V1 5216-4ks2 to this 200519 firmware version to provide info to anybody else who is trying to make the decision, and to document some of the bugs. One question I ask myself is if I'm better off than I was with the V3 UI firmware. To be honest, I'm not sure.

The good news:
Using config tool to install this V4 firmware over V3 firmware in the V1 5216-4ks2, it went fast and easy. I didn't do any resets and almost all of the configuration settings were carried over correctly. There were a few that weren't, so it's still necessary to comb through them after the firmware load. My chinese market 4431 family cameras using the firmware from the Dahua Firmware Mod Kit + Modded Dahua Firmware thread are recognized by the NVR and work just the same as the international market cameras. (Caution: This comment applies only to this specific camera family and firmware).

Browser support:
I was able to try IE11, Firefox, and Edge. Of these, only IE11 with plugin provides the full functionality. With the other browsers, what works and doesn't work varies with the browser, version, and OS platform. As a general statement, a crippled subset of live viewing, playback, and settings is available. Overall, it runs fairly well on IE11.

Issues on both live viewing and playback using web UI on IE11:

  • IVS rules not shown. (Update - Can be enabled on the "Display" page.)
  • Correct aspect ratio not maintained and changes when browser window is resized (update - aspect ratio can be locked, but must be done individually for every display window).
  • Plugin required with IE, not required or offered with Firefox or Edge. As mentioned earlier, operation with these browsers is highly crippled.
  • For reasons I don't understand, I have to run IE11 as Administrator, or it has crippled operation, too.

Issues on playback using web UI:

  • No playback speed adjustment unless using IE with plugin.
  • Slow response when starting playback.
  • On event timeline, blue color for IVS events is so close to the green "general" color that's it's almost impossible to see (why not orange like in smartPss?).
  • Short event lines are not displayed when timeline spans 24 hours (This was fixed on smartPss a while back).
  • Sometimes when playback hits an event it loops, replaying the event until eternity. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't know what makes the difference.
  • Window doesn't scale correctly to different display resolutions. When using a 768 vertical resolution, the calendar on the right side of the screen isn't scaled down in pixel count, making the camera list under it useless. With 1080 vertical resolution, the camera list is usable.

Overall comment about playback: Runs smoothly with IE11, but the UI has lots of room for improvement. Playback with smartPss is more intuitive for me, and takes a lot less mouse clicks to comb through the event triggers.

Integration issues with smartPss:

I wasn't expecting this one. It looks like you have to match your smartPss version with the NVR firmware version. While still using the V3 NVR firmware I "upgraded" to 64-bit smartPss (on a PC). It was horrible, full of bugs and crashing often. I went back to my older 32-bit smartPss. When I upgraded to the V4 NVR firmware, my 32-bit smartPss started being a piece of junk, with a lot of things all of a sudden not working. I was on the edge of going back the V3 firmware at this point (I do not know if that's possible or not). On a random hunch, I loaded 64-bit smartPss version 2.003.0000001.0.R.200413 and it works a whole lot better that it did with the V3 NVR firmware and doesn't crash frequently like it did with the V3 NVR firmware. Don't get me wrong, it's still full of bugs and I'm not turning cartwheels, but it's at least minimally usable. Here are the major problems I'm having with this new combination:

  • Fast playback doesn't work. It says it's playing fast, but it isn't.
  • Backward playback unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
  • Every IVS event causes a snapshot to be saved, eventually filling the disc. The only way I found to turn it off is to delete the users/public/smartPss/IVSPIC/@1 directory. Trouble is, every time smartPss is restarted, it recreates this directory. (smartPss also did this with the V3 NVR firmware).

Factory reset:
There is so much experience on the forum about doing a factory reset in conjunction with firmware updates that I don't mean to disagree with it or make a contradictory recommendation. I'm just reporting my one-time experience. As noted earlier, I made the firmware update without any reset before or after, and didn't see any problems related to this. Since I was reporting bugs and problems I later made multiple factory resets to see if anything would improve. Bearing in mind that I'm not doing anything close to exhaustive testing, nothing improved and 2 things got worse:
1. Before the reset, IE11 ran the UI ok in User mode, it now needs to be run in Administrator mode.
2. I lost the last-ditch 888888 permanent local login account, making me a bit fearful of the possibility of losing all access to the NVR in some unforeseen situation.
So in my case, I wish I could "un"factory reset the NVR. Again, meant as info, not a recommendation.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Chocman and toolazyforalogin
tigerwillow1 said:
I'm posting my experience updating a V1 5216-4ks2 to this firmware version to provide info to anybody else who is trying to make the decision, and to document some of the bugs. One question I ask myself is if I'm better off than I was with the V3 UI firmware. To be honest, I'm not sure.

The good news:
Using config tool to install this V4 firmware over V3 firmware in the V1 5216-4ks2, it went fast and easy. I didn't do any resets and almost all of the configuration settings were carried over correctly. There were a few that weren't, so it's still necessary to comb through them after the firmware load. My chinese market 4431 family cameras using the firmware from the Dahua Firmware Mod Kit + Modded Dahua Firmware thread are recognized by the NVR and work just the same as the international market cameras. (Caution: This comment applies only to this specific camera family and firmware).

Some other good news is that the web UI works without plugins, kinda-sorta, sometimes. I'm really confused about this. The info below is mainly a list of gripes and bugs. Some might be traceable to user error on my part that others can help with.

Issues on both live viewing and playback using web UI:
  • IVS rules not shown.
  • Correct aspect ratio not maintained and changes when browser window is resized.
  • Plugin required with IE, not required or offered with Firefox.

Issues on playback using web UI:
  • No playback speed adjustment unless using IE with plugin.
  • Slow response when starting playback.
  • On event timeline, blue color for IVS events is so close to the green "general" color that's it's almost impossible to see (why not orange like in smartPss?).
  • Short event lines are not displayed when timeline spans 24 hours (This was fixed on smartPss a while back).
  • Sometimes when playback hits an event it loops, replaying the event until eternity. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't know what makes the difference.
  • Window doesn't scale correctly to different display resolutions. When using a 768 vertical resolution, the calendar on the right side of the screen isn't scaled down in pixel count, making the camera list under it useless. With 1080 vertical resolution, the camera list is usable.

Integration issues with smartPss. I wasn't expecting this one. It looks like you have to match your smartPss version with the NVR firmware version. While still using the V3 NVR firmware I "upgraded" to 64-bit smartPss (on a PC). It was horrible, full of bugs and crashing often. I went back to my older 32-bit smartPss. When I upgraded to the V4 NVR firmware, my 32-bit smartPss started being a piece of junk, with a lot of things all of a sudden not working. I was on the edge of going back the V3 firmware at this point (I do not know if that's possible or not). On a random hunch, I loaded 64-bit smartPss version 2.003.0000001.0.R.200413 and it works a whole lot better that it did with the V3 NVR firmware and doesn't crash frequently like it did with the V3 NVR firmware. Don't get me wrong, it's still full of bugs and I'm not turning cartwheels, but it's at least minimally usable. Here are the major problems I'm having with this new combination:
  • Fast playback doesn't work. It says it's playing fast, but it isn't.
  • Backward playback unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
  • Every IVS event causes a snapshot to be saved, eventually filling the disc. The only way I found to turn it off is to delete the users/public/smartPss/IVSPIC/@1 directory. Trouble is, every time smartPss is restarted, it recreates this directory. (smartPss also did this with the V3 NVR firmware).

If any of the BI users have read this far, I can feel you snickering at us NVR users :).
Click to expand...

Thank you for your detailed responses. I haven’t upgraded firmware from v3 and was contemplating it but this reminds me to leave well enough alone. The only issue I have with v3 is Gmail TLS won’t send an email so I use a different email address instead for all IVS alerts. I’ll take this versus possibly dealing with the headache.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chocman
tigerwillow1 said:
I'm posting my experience updating a V1 5216-4ks2 to this firmware version to provide info to anybody else who is trying to make the decision, and to document some of the bugs. One question I ask myself is if I'm better off than I was with the V3 UI firmware. To be honest, I'm not sure.

The good news:
Using config tool to install this V4 firmware over V3 firmware in the V1 5216-4ks2, it went fast and easy. I didn't do any resets and almost all of the configuration settings were carried over correctly. There were a few that weren't, so it's still necessary to comb through them after the firmware load. My chinese market 4431 family cameras using the firmware from the Dahua Firmware Mod Kit + Modded Dahua Firmware thread are recognized by the NVR and work just the same as the international market cameras. (Caution: This comment applies only to this specific camera family and firmware).

Some other good news is that the web UI works without plugins, kinda-sorta, sometimes. I'm really confused about this. The info below is mainly a list of gripes and bugs. Some might be traceable to user error on my part that others can help with.

Issues on both live viewing and playback using web UI:

  • IVS rules not shown.
  • Correct aspect ratio not maintained and changes when browser window is resized.
  • Plugin required with IE, not required or offered with Firefox.

Issues on playback using web UI:

  • No playback speed adjustment unless using IE with plugin.
  • Slow response when starting playback.
  • On event timeline, blue color for IVS events is so close to the green "general" color that's it's almost impossible to see (why not orange like in smartPss?).
  • Short event lines are not displayed when timeline spans 24 hours (This was fixed on smartPss a while back).
  • Sometimes when playback hits an event it loops, replaying the event until eternity. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't know what makes the difference.
  • Window doesn't scale correctly to different display resolutions. When using a 768 vertical resolution, the calendar on the right side of the screen isn't scaled down in pixel count, making the camera list under it useless. With 1080 vertical resolution, the camera list is usable.

Integration issues with smartPss. I wasn't expecting this one. It looks like you have to match your smartPss version with the NVR firmware version. While still using the V3 NVR firmware I "upgraded" to 64-bit smartPss (on a PC). It was horrible, full of bugs and crashing often. I went back to my older 32-bit smartPss. When I upgraded to the V4 NVR firmware, my 32-bit smartPss started being a piece of junk, with a lot of things all of a sudden not working. I was on the edge of going back the V3 firmware at this point (I do not know if that's possible or not). On a random hunch, I loaded 64-bit smartPss version 2.003.0000001.0.R.200413 and it works a whole lot better that it did with the V3 NVR firmware and doesn't crash frequently like it did with the V3 NVR firmware. Don't get me wrong, it's still full of bugs and I'm not turning cartwheels, but it's at least minimally usable. Here are the major problems I'm having with this new combination:

  • Fast playback doesn't work. It says it's playing fast, but it isn't.
  • Backward playback unreliable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
  • Every IVS event causes a snapshot to be saved, eventually filling the disc. The only way I found to turn it off is to delete the users/public/smartPss/IVSPIC/@1 directory. Trouble is, every time smartPss is restarted, it recreates this directory. (smartPss also did this with the V3 NVR firmware).

If any of the BI users have read this far, I can feel you snickering at us NVR users :).
Click to expand...
Always do a factory default reset after firmware upgrades. Me, I like to do one prior to updating, then another after the update.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chocman
Thanks also to @tigerwillow1 for such a detailed post. I was also contemplating updating, but like @looney2ns mentioned, it just seems too risky right now, so I'm going to leave it for now and stick with V3 as at least it works and I'm using V3.216.0000004.0 Build Date: 2018-12-29
 
looney2ns said:
Always do a factory default reset after firmware upgrades.
Click to expand...
I did the reset to cover all the bases, since I was reporting things that didn't work right. Now after losing about 4 more hours of my life to this, I'm in need of help.

Since doing the factory reset, the NVR web interface does not work correctly with IE11. The most obvious symptom is that it will not display video. Some of the settings functions work. It does display video with Firefox, and with IE if I run it in an administrator account. This problem did not exist until I did a factory reset of the NVR. Can anybody help me to get it working again?

Things I have tried to no avail:
  • Looked for an NVR setting that could help (didn't find any).
  • Uninstall and reinstall IE11.
  • Remove and resinstall browser plugin multiple times from user and administrator accounts..
  • Reboot NVR.
  • Try IE 8.
  • Run IE 11 "as administrator" from user account (IE 11 starts but doesn't display anything at all).
  • Change multiple Security and Privacy settings on IE 11.
  • Lots of win 7 reboots after changing settings.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chocman
Did you try a factory reset, then, upgrade again, with the same version, factory reset, re-configure ?
 
redfive said:
Did you try a factory reset, then, upgrade again, with the same version, factory reset, re-configure ?
Click to expand...
I just did that whole dance, exactly, and nothing changed.
 
I updated post #27 with what I've learned since first posting it. A few of the things that I thought were feature losses were indeed user error. Settings got moved to different places, and I have not yet found user documentation that matches this version of the firmware.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chocman
There was mention earlier of a newer version under test - perhaps you can try to get hold of this and see if it fixed your issue?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk
 
This really does need sorting out and quickly. I don't think it's asking much that so-called 'updated' firmware works as it should rather than creating more issues than it resolves - minor bugs are to be expected but judging from the helpful feedback from @tigerwillow1 and others, the bugs aren't minor. Rant over.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom