Reset Admin Password on HikVision NVR Model : KEPLER-7604/4P

The AACH indicates that it's a Chinese camera.
Is that camera different from the others?
What do the other 2 show?
Camera 1 : DS-2CD2345-I20170320AAWR730894444
Camera 2 : DS-2CD2345-120170320AACH730894594 (not working - this is the camera that I attempted multiple firmware changes to)
Camera 3 : DS-2CD2345-I20170320AAWR730894445
Camera 4 : DS-2CD2345-I20170320AAWR730894595

The camera (2) looks identical to the other 3 camera's.
 
On the face of it - cameras 1,3,4 are OK, not Chinese.

It's quite curious that camera 2 is Chinese and the others are not.
And presumably not a coincidence that it's the one you tried to update.

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that all the cameras are actually Chinese market cameras that are running a version of hacked firmware to make them appear to be EN that masquerades the Region code as well as the Language. That's easy enough to do, I've done that myself.

What's the status of camera 2 - have you dismounted it?
Do you feel sufficiently curious to want to explore it further?
Or do you just want to maybe replace it with a similar model and treat your CCTV installation as complete and working?
 
What's the status of camera 2 - have you dismounted it?
Do you feel sufficiently curious to want to explore it further?
Or do you just want to maybe replace it with a similar model and treat your CCTV installation as complete and working?

I love a challenge, so I'm up for tampering with it. The way I figure, its not working now so it can only get better from here! The CCTV is working on the other 3 for now, so no issue there.
The camera is plugged in, but easy enough to pull out and apart again. I was thinking of trying another firmware upgrade. What ideas do you have?
 
What ideas do you have?
Hooking up to the serial console to confirm the model series and much other info.

I was thinking of trying another firmware upgrade.
As it's a Chinese camera under the covers, it will need some tweaked firmware to masquerade as an EN camera.
The stock firmware won't change the language from Chinese.

Worth trying though before doing anything, is to see if the camera can be accepted as an ONVIF device.
It's not likely, as Hikvision incorporated language checks in their ONVIF dialogues quite a while back in the NVR firmware.
To test this, you'd need to access the NVR web GUI, select the row for the camera under System | Camera Management and click the 'Modify' button.
Take a note of the settings for future reference.
Change the mode to manual from Plug and Play.
Change the port to 80 from 8000
Change the protocol to ONVIF from Hikvision
Set the camera password to what you know it is.
Click OK.
Wait 10 secs or so, check Live View to see if it has connected.
Go back to Camera Management to check the status, which will probably be 'Language mismatch'.
If so - put the settings back as they were.
 
The camera is plugged in, but easy enough to pull out and apart again. I was thinking of trying another firmware upgrade. What ideas do you have?
It occurs to me that you might be happy enough for this camera to be used for continuous recording, but without the facility to have motion markers on the playback timeline.
You could maybe experiment with configuring it in the NVR as an RTSP source and see how it works for you.

In the NVR web GUI, under Systems | Camera Management click the Custom Protocol button at the top.
Give the choice a name.
Use a single forward slash for the stream path - /
Click OK.
Select the row corresponding to the camera, select Modify.
For the protocol drop the list down to find the one you named and select it.
Set the password as it is known.
Click OK.

After 10 seconds or so go to Live View and see if it has connected.
Check and set as needed the record schedule for the corresponding channel under Storage | Schedule settings.
After a while - check the Playback and see how it looks.
 
After 10 seconds or so go to Live View and see if it has connected.
Check and set as needed the record schedule for the corresponding channel under Storage | Schedule settings.
After a while - check the Playback and see how it looks.

No dice - it states "Offline (Network Abnormal)" under the Status field in the Camera settings, and no live feed.
 
No dice - it states "Offline (Network Abnormal)" under the Status field in the Camera settings, and no live feed.
That should work OK.
Did you match the camera IP address to that specified in the NVR web GUI Camera Management page?
The camera IP address can be changed with SADP.
 
Yep - Camera IP matches in SADP and in the NVR GUI Camera Management page. "Network Abnormal"
OK, let's see what we can figure out.
The RTSP connection should work OK, if the camera is working OK, albeit with Chinese menus.

Suggestion to try:
With the suspect camera connected to the NVR PoE port, and the PC also connected to an NVR PoE port (presumably you need to temporarily unplug another camera) confirm the camera IP address with SADP.
Advise the IP address, the default gateway, and the HTTP port showing in SADP.
It will presumably be something like 192.168.254.x 192.168.1.1 80
Change the PC IP address to be in the same range, such as 192.168.254.100
Refresh SADP and double-click on the IP address for the camera.
The browser should launch.

Do you get a logon dialogue?
Can you log on as admin with the known password?
Do the menus come up OK, in Chinese?
If so - the camera is OK and the NVR settings for it need to be verified.
 
Do you get a logon dialogue?
Can you log on as admin with the known password?
Do the menus come up OK, in Chinese?
If so - the camera is OK and the NVR settings for it need to be verified.

Ok - so I can do this and get onto the Camera login (in chinese as predicted). The IP address matches on the NVR GUI.
But - what about the "Management Port"? It is coming up as 0 in the NVR GUI now. And the strange thing is that I can't seem to change it through the Modify section on the Camera - it is hardcoded as 0. All the other cameras are Port 8000. Could this be the problem?
 
And the strange thing is that I can't seem to change it through the Modify section on the Camera - it is hardcoded as 0. All the other cameras are Port 8000. Could this be the problem?
Certainly it shouldn't be 0
Port 8000 is used when the protocol is Hikvision.
Is the camera channel still in Manual mode in the NVR web GUI?
If in Plug&Play mode - values are greyed out, not able to be changed.
 
Is the camera channel still in Manual mode in the NVR web GUI?
Yes it is still in Manual mode, not Plug N PLay. But the Management Port, Channel No., and Transfer Protocol fields are all Greyed out. I managed to get the Management Port set to 8000 by changing the Protocol field to HikVision, then all the fields become changeable - then change the Management Port to 8000, then switch the Protocol field back to my Custom 1 selection. The field greys out, but remains as 8000.
I'm assuming that the greying out of the field means that the contents of the field don't matter for that setting - because in the Custom Protocol creation screen, when I set up the custom protocol to RTSP, it has a Port field of 554. So I'm assuming that field value is hardcoded to the Custom Protocol 1.

Just to check something with you. In the Custom Protocol setup screen, I should set the "Stream Path" to "/" right? For both the Main Stream and the Sub Streams? That is what I have at the moment. The setting are as follows for Custom Protocol 1, for both the Main Stream and the Sub-stream:
Enable Stream - TICKED
Protocol - RTSP
Port - 554
Stream Path - /

On the Configuration -> Camera Management screen, the settings for the faulty camera are :
Channel No. - 1
Management Port - 8000
Security - Strong
Status - Offline (Network Abnormal)
Protocol - Custom 1 (I've renamed it to something else)
Connect -
I thought the Connect IP address could be wrong - but all of the 4 channels are 192.168.0.160:6500X (where X is 1-4 for each camera respectively), even though the IP address of the cameras are all 192.168.254.Y (where Y is a different number for each camera). The faulty camera's IP (192.168.254.FAULTY) is the same in this screen and on the NVR through SADP.
 
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I thought the Connect IP address could be wrong - but all of the 4 channels are 192.168.0.160:6500X (where X is 1-4 for each camera respectively),
That's not the actual camera IP address - it's a 'NAT address' provided by the NVR as the 'Virtual Host' facility.

The faulty camera's IP (192.168.254.FAULTY) is the same in this screen and on the NVR through SADP.
That is correct, it's how it should be.

OK, so the setup as I've suggested trying does seem OK.
Normally, that would work OK for an RTSP connection, but it seems like something in the camera is being objected to when it's addressed as an RTSP source.

If you still want to explore the camera, with the possibility of being able to revive it, this is most probably best done off-line without having to mess with the NVR.
Did you buy a PoE injector, or do you have a 12v DC power supply that could be used on the camera?
And do you have a spare ethernet cable that could be connected to an unused port on your router or LAN switch?
 
If you still want to explore the camera, with the possibility of being able to revive it, this is most probably best done off-line without having to mess with the NVR.
Did you buy a PoE injector, or do you have a 12v DC power supply that could be used on the camera?
And do you have a spare ethernet cable that could be connected to an unused port on your router or LAN switch?
Yes to all of these. I have all these bits and pieces.
 
Yes to all of these. I have all these bits and pieces.
OK, so you could hook the camera up and give it an IP address on the LAN.
And access it's web GUI directly from the laptop, using IE11.
And the serial console, if you want to go that far.

Will you be buying a camera to fill the vacant slot in the NVR?