Firmware Upgrade—Best Practices.

M

MacFun

Getting the hang of it
Aug 1, 2017
383
71
Houston, TX
For Mac-users, what’s the proven workflows/tools for firmware upgrade or downgrade?

Should there not be a certain public web page with the Dahua firmware available for download, complete with a list of changes in each version? Might you have such a url? The wiki does not provide this data.

Reset: I know some cams make it very easy to upgrade, downgrade or factory reset a camera without touching the camera physically.

Have you ever f’d up something so bad that you had to take down a mounted camera to do a reset...?

Thanks,

Robert
 
https://www.dahuasecurity.com/

There you can find the firmware versions and changes of your camera. On the top right, just do a search on the model number of your camera, and you get to the product page with datasheets and firmware etc.

But these are official dahua firmwares, so if you have a "hacked" chinese camera, you will probably brick the camera when trying to upgrade with a official firmware. Best practice if you have a "hacked" firmware / modified chinese camera, is to contact the seller, and ask them if it is ok to use original firmware versions on you specific model.

Best practice to upgrade is, factory reset after a upgrade and re-apply settings to the camera. Either with a config backup, or doing all settings over by hand. In most cases putting back the backed up config file, will not go well. So it is a 50/50 thing :D
 
Hi @SkyLake, thanks for your input. I'm assuming that the cameras purchased from @EMPIRETECANDY are NOT Chinese hacked--they are legitimate international versions not local to the Chinese market--yes?

So, are you saying:
0) backup cam settings
1) Upgrade firmware
2) Factory Reset
3) Upgrade firmware again
4) Import settings from backup

Is that what you are suggesting? Can all of this be done without physically touching mounted cameras?

Thanks,

Robert
 
The camera's from @EMPIRETECANDY are upgradable English / INternational ones as far as i know. But he could tell you best. Maybe he chimes in, or you could send him a message :D

When i do a upgrade, my steps are:
0) Backup settings
1) Upgrade firmware
2) Factory reset
3) Import settings, either via the backup / or without the backup, with fresh new settings (if i want to try something new)

Yes, this can all be done without physically touching the camera, thru software like 1. "Dahua config tool" or 2. "ONVIF Device Manager". Both can be downloaded for free, but i don't have the links to them by hand now.
 
Best practice is leave well enough alone and don't do it unless you know the new firmware will address an issue you need to fix or install a new feature you need.
 
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I normally reset to default rather than factory default to avoid losing my network settings. I decided to follow the steps above and now I have issues since it reset to 192.168.1.1 subnet but the switchport is configured for something entirely different.

Unless your cameras are on this subnet, I wouldn't reset to factory defaults. I suspect I now have to connect the camera to an untagged vlan port, statically set my computer to an address in this subnet, find the camera, change the Gateway back to the right gateway, and then connect it back where it was so it can get the proper DHCP lease ... lesson learned.
 
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