Hikvision Camera stops responding and needs to be rebooted!

[inetsas]

I am new to the forum even though I have followed for some time. I have installed about 800 Hikvision cameras over the past year and am needing some assistance from the forum members. Since the beginning we have always had some issue with the 2cd6332 and 2cd4332 cameras losing connection with the NVR on port 8000. I have worked with the R&D team directly and the number of occurrences has reduced greatly. When this occurs the only recourse is to reboot the camera from the switch.

I have asked Hikvision to include a watchdog feature in their cameras that would reboot the camera if it failed to communicate with the NVR or user supplied IP address. They are reluctant, for whatever reason, so I am asking for everyone else to help put pressure on Hikvision

 

[alastairstevenson]

Maybe draw their attention to the facility already on their 2-Series cameras ...

# cd /usr/sbin
# cat guard.sh
#!/bin/sh
#brief: check the davinci process exist or not.
#return: 1:davinci quit 0:davinci exist
is_davinci_quit()
{
DAVINCI_ST=`ps | awk '$NF ~ /.*davinci$/ {print $1}'`
if [ "${DAVINCI_ST}" = "" ]; then
return 1;
else
return 0;
fi
}
sleep 300
loop=0
check_times=3
app_not_found=0
# loop test 15 seconds
while [ $((loop++)) -lt $check_times ]
do
sleep 3
is_davinci_quit;
if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
app_not_found=$((app_not_found + 1))
fi
done
if [ $app_not_found -eq $check_times ]; then
set_sysflag -w
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "davinci not found and watchdog not initialized! auto reboot system!"
echo "begin to set enter minisys flag~~"
set_sysflag -m 1
reboot
fi
fi
#

 

[inetsas]

Mike Hendrix has always said he thought there was a watchdog function included in the cameras. My experience has been with Hikvision 21X2, 4332 and the 6332. I have never had a 21X2 camera fail but have had issues with the others needing to be rebooted. I thank you for your post and I will use your suggestion.

 

[alastairstevenson]

It's the principle not the specific content that's probably the thing to tackle them about.
There are many aspects of normal operation that could be tested for - and of course some remnant of functionality is still needed to spot an anomaly and take some action.
And the NVRs (or at least on the newer firmware) check connectivity with NAs storage once per second with a ping.

 

[inetsas]

All of my cameras are recorded by the 9664St NVRs. So I have approached the subject from that direction. I have asked that they have the camera listen for the NVRs connection to the camera and if it fails to communicate, then reboot the camera. We will have 30 cameras installed at a site and only one or two will give me problems but it still makes us look bad when I have to ask the customer to reboot the switch port.

 

[denis.gz]

More than two years and still same issues... I've got DS-2CD2542FWD-IS model and it stops responding both on ports 443 and 8000 every day, but port 80 works okay. This leaves a chance to develop some script to reboot by timer, but this bug makes Hikvision cameras hardly usable. Too much effort to make them work. Not working SMB shares, not working SSL certs, hangs in mobile app... These cameras are just crap.

 

[alastairstevenson]

but this bug makes Hikvision cameras hardly usable. Too much effort to make them work. Not working SMB shares, not working SSL certs, hangs in mobile app... These cameras are just crap.

With respect, with several years of using 6 or 7 R0 series cameras, my experience is the opposite, the cameras, and the NVRs, have been almost 100% stable. And I believe that's the experience of most users.
And that's with them doing motion detection, line crossing and intrusion detection, being connected to 2 NVRs and a NAS box.
What firmware are you running on the cameras? It's fair to say that for overall video quality, especially low-light, the R6 series are not one of Hikvision's best products.

 

[denis.gz]

What firmware are you running on the cameras? It's fair to say that for overall video quality, especially low-light, the R6 series are not one of Hikvision's best products.

I agree the video is good enough. But what benefit is of good video, if one cannot watch it?

 

[fenderman]

I agree the video is good enough. But what benefit is of good video, if one cannot watch it?

did you just blindly fail to read the first part of his response? The cameras are super stable...perhaps its the user...

 

[denis.gz]

did you just blindly fail to read the first part of his response? The cameras are super stable...perhaps its the user...

I'm not arguing YOUR cameras are super-stable. I don't know what are "R0 series" cameras (are they IP-based, in first place?). I'm just saying I am disappointed with the quality of HikVision products. I myself is from software industry, and I know that delivering product of such quality is unacceptable for a company which states their values are "Dedication to clients’ success, value oriented, integrity and down-to-earth, pursuit of excellence". This piece of hardware is really far from excellence.

P.S. You asked about firmware, it's of latest version from the hikvision.com site (5.5.0 IIRC, can't check now as camera has stopped responding...). The serial number doesn't look like it's Chinese market product, Web admin UI is in English.

 

[fenderman]

I'm not arguing YOUR cameras are super-stable. I don't know what are "R0 series" cameras (are they IP-based, in first place?). I'm just saying I am disappointed with the quality of HikVision products. I myself is from software industry, and I know that delivering product of such quality is unacceptable for a company which states their values are "Dedication to clients’ success, value oriented, integrity and down-to-earth, pursuit of excellence". This piece of hardware is really far from excellence.

P.S. You asked about firmware, it's of latest version from the hikvision.com site (5.5.0 IIRC, can't check now as camera has stopped responding...). The serial number doesn't look like it's Chinese market product, Web admin UI is in English.

You are confused... there are several people in this thread

 

[alastairstevenson]

I don't know what are "R0 series" cameras (are they IP-based, in first place?)

R0 are are DS-2CD2x32 models - the series that precedes R6 - DS-2CD2x42

The serial number doesn't look like it's Chinese market product

That might be significant if these are China region cameras running 'hacked to English' firmware. We know that some of the 'language fixes' have been less than perfect.

With such poor and unusual reliability I'd also wonder if there was an environmental cause behind it.
It may be worth some empirical changes which with such frequent problems might point to cause and effect.
The first thing I'd ask is how are they powered?
The next would be how good is the ethernet connection, for example could it be subject to any EMI or RFI effects?
Is there a chance to set a camera up in a different environment, maybe on the bench, and assess how it performs?

 

[denis.gz]

With such poor and unusual reliability I'd also wonder if there was an environmental cause behind it.
It may be worth some empirical changes which with such frequent problems might point to cause and effect.

It appears the connectivity issue is mostly caused by my router, since the camera is always accessible from inside LAN (at least Web UI), but after some time it stops accepting DNAT-ed connections from WAN (mobile 3G network). The strange thing however, which makes the root cause no so obvious, is that the Camera starts working (becomes accessible again from mobile 3G network) after restarting Camera, not the Router. I do not even power it off - just rebooting from Web UI.

The router I'm using is Mikrotik model 951G-2HnD, I've had a hard time setting it up, and even harder time experimenting with DNAT rules when Camera stopped responding, but only rebooting the Camera helped to fix it. I myself is not a noob in networks, and have some knowledge in protocols and everything, but this case really puzzles me. Probably I need to setup some packet sniffer to discover what's going on...

 

[alastairstevenson]

after some time it stops accepting DNAT-ed connections from WAN (mobile 3G network).

Does the camera participate in an automated router configuration (UPnP and NAT translation) or have you set the router up purely manually?

The router I'm using is Mikrotik model 951G-2HnD

I'm sorry but I don't understand.
That's not a product I'm familiar with - but it looks to me from the product description like an AP as opposed to a WAN router.

 

[denis.gz]

Does the camera participate in an automated router configuration (UPnP and NAT translation) or have you set the router up purely manually?

Yes, I did it manually. I do not want to open port 80, port 554 is needed for RTP which won't work through NAT anyway (and Camera does not allocate UDP ports through UPnP - another bug), and the main reason is that in order for NAT loopback to work, rules should be created with different filter criteria. I've read tons of forums and wikis on how to set up DNAT/SNAT in Mikrotik, so I believe I did everything correctly (I hope so).

I'm sorry but I don't understand.
That's not a product I'm familiar with - but it looks to me from the product description like an AP as opposed to a WAN router.

No, it's a general purpose router, on a quite capable hardware, with very stable WiFi. I have separate power supply for it, with battery backup (MeanWell DRC-60A, if you are interested), which feeds 4 devices for my home (Router, Camera, Door intercom and IPTV set-top box). This router is somewhat difficult to setup, since it's rather professional hardware (internet providers level), but its performance is outstanding. There are even courses on how to deal with it