New RCA HSDB2A 3MP Doorbell IP Camera

[alexdelprete]

"You are the one attacking me privately now. "


I am attacking you in that msg? wow, never mind. I will never msg you telling you to have a nice day again. sorry that came off as an attack.

Can I propose a nice beer to both of you so we can reset and start from scratch?

You guys, like many people in this thread, can give an amazing contribution, let's not waste our time fighting. There's a clear misunderstanding due to a communication problem. I'm sure that if we did the same discussion LIVE there would not be any misunderstanding.

I hope you both agree so we can close this issue. Thanks.

 

[David L]

TLDR: Unbricking via TTL Serial was successful!

Not to worry, a little heat shrink to keep those wires separated.

I connected ground, TX and RX from the USB TTL adapter to the leads coming from the board.
JST Pin 1 (my black wire) -> TTL Ground (black)
JST Pin 2 (my red wire) -> TTL RX (white)
JST Pin 3 (my orange wire) -> TTL TX (green)
JST Pin 4 -> NO CONNECTION (do not connect the TTL red wire to JST pin 4. The TTL adapter outputs 5V and the camera runs at 3.3V.)

There is bound to be a connector that will work on the DB instead of soldering. I am sure you tried a PC fan connector.

 

[David L]

TLDR: Unbricking via TTL Serial was successful!

I powered it up, and my Putty window sprang to life with output from the camera. After pressing CTRL+U at the prompt to interrupt the bootloader, I found there is an update command which tries to read digicap.dav from the sdcard. I ran this, and it completed successfully and rebooted. BUT - the camera was still stuck in a boot loop, so I examined closer and found two errors:

[09 22:34:30][CONFIG][ERROR]config_file_to_json error
[09 22:34:30][CONFIG][ERROR]recover_config_file

I looked at the available commands (typing ? or help lists them) and found format - format flash except bootloader area. Sounded promising, so I executed format, followed by another update command to load the firmware from digicap.dav on the sdcard. Success! The doorbell booted to a blue ring and voice prompt.

I am going to further configure it on the RCA firmware I just loaded, flash it over to EzViz firmware, remove the EzViz logo from the video output (via Batch Config), then flash over to my final intended LaView firmware. That will get it to the same state as my other two RCA units. Once everything's done, I'll desolder my wires from the TTL header and close it up.

So we had a time earlier this year where several new RCA DB owners were bricking there DBs when they applied Nelly's firmware. We never did find out why. I think you just did...It is possible you have one of those bricked RCA's that someone sold you...

Again GREAT JOB!!! Thank You...

 

[David L]

Amazing work. Unfortunately not everybody has the skills/tools to do what you did. But you can put up an unbrick service online.

True, maybe a connector could be found to be able to connect to the DB and connect to the USB connector James found. I think soldering scares most of us. He has everything else lined out. Putty is easy to use.

2020 is the year of the Unbricked!!!

 

[Kennsys]

There is bound to be a connector that will work on the DB instead of soldering. I am sure you tried a PC fan connector.

great, might it be possible to enable ONVIF by this method?

 

[David L]

great, might it be possible to enable ONVIF by this method?

We have not got that far, it would require changing the firmware.

 

[KC8DKT]

We have not got that far, it would require changing the firmware.

Do we know if the VDB has a CRC for the firmware that would stop us from uploading a modified file?
Anyone know if the code is just disabled (set to 0 in the firmware) or if the code for missing options was left out?

 

[David L]

TLDR: Unbricking via TTL Serial was successful!

I've attached the full text output from my Putty session to this post as a PDF file. For science!

So this is interesting from your Putty Log File, wonder what is in the ezviz.dav file it is trying to find?:



Is this the config file you were referring to?

 

[David L]

TLDR: Unbricking via TTL Serial was successful!

I put a link to your post in our 101 (WARNINGS: Section). If you find anything new to add, please edit your original post #5834

Thank You from all of us!!!

 

[David L]

Do we know if the VDB has a CRC for the firmware that would stop us from uploading a modified file?
Anyone know if the code is just disabled (set to 0 in the firmware) or if the code for missing options was left out?

Good questions...

I am still looking at the Putty Log file from James to see if I notice anything about the boot sequence.

 

[alexdelprete]

2020 is the year of the Unbricked!!!

First I'll buy and install the new doorbell system (Dahua), then I can play with the Unbricked DB1 stuff, just for fun.

 

[alexdelprete]

great, might it be possible to enable ONVIF by this method?

That is just a method to unbrick the VDB. ONVIF is a software thing. It's contained in the firmware. You can already have ONVIF functionality, switching to another vendor's firmware, check my signature for the procedure.

 

[alexdelprete]

So this is interesting from your Putty Log File, wonder what is in the ezviz.dav file it is trying to find?:

The bootloader is looking for the firmware file in the root of the sdcard, if present, it starts the flashing process.

 

[David L]

The bootloader is looking for the firmware file in the root of the sdcard, if present, it starts the flashing process.

Just curious what ezviz.dav is since we know digicap.dav is the upgrade/update.

 

[TechBill]

Look like the last IPhone app update broke the the motion notification. It is no longer triggering for me.

** sigh **

 

[TechBill]

Look like the last IPhone app update broke the the motion notification. It is no longer triggering for me.

** sigh **

It still record and log the motion detect in the app itself but it doesn't display banner notification on top of the iPhone anymore after the app update.

The notification setting is set at "allow" .

 

[David L]

It still record and log the motion detect in the app itself but it doesn't display banner notification on top of the iPhone anymore after the app update.

The notification setting is set at "allow" .

Reboot your phone, or maybe turn off/disallow then reboot, then turn on/allow.

 

[alexdelprete]

Just curious what ezviz.dav is since we know digicap.dav is the upgrade/update.

It must be the equivalent for EZVIZ firmware/bootloader. Are we sure that digicap.dav works also on EZVIZ DB1? Probably ezviz engineers renamed it to ezviz.dav. Just guessing though...

 

[alexdelprete]

Reboot your phone, or maybe turn off/disallow then reboot, then turn on/allow.

Exactly, this happens also on Android sometimes. I disable, reboot, enable. Usually it fixes it.

 

[David L]

It must be the equivalent for EZVIZ firmware/bootloader. Are we sure that digicap.dav works also on EZVIZ DB1? Probably ezviz engineers renamed it to ezviz.dav. Just guessing though...

True, what also is interesting is James has a RCA DB and it is looking for ezviz.dav file.

So looking back on all the firmware's, Nelly's seem to be the only one who has their firmware upgrade/update as digicap.dav in their file. I would assume renaming a firmware to digicap.dav should work, but it is only an assumption.
Also I just noticed Nelly's latest firmware has a March 12, 2020 build date (Under Downloads). Also what is strange is the filename is digicap (2).dav and has a Nov. 10, 2020 date like they just threw in a change (No Chime???) just guessing...
Does anyone know of the latest build number for Nelly's?

3MP Wi-Fi Video Doorbell ONVIF Compliant IP Camera with 2 Way Audio, PIR Motion Sensor, Night Vision, 16GB SD Card Pre-Installed, and 3 Face Plates (NSC-DB2)

Video Doorbell Camera delivering 3MP of crisp clear video Dual Band Wifi (2.4Ghz / 5GHz) to reach all types of routers and wireless access points PIR Motion Detection to detect true human movement. Much less false motion events than standard pixel based motion. Clear Night Vision up to 16' -...

www.nellyssecurity.com

The Putty Log File James provided is pretty kewl.