UART connection to recover Hik cameras

Are you using wireless on the camera for TFTP?

You should use wired. When the camera is first powered it should be pingable on 192.0.0.64 for a few seconds. Ignore what IP gets allocated once the camera has booted that's not important for TFTP.

Then camera should try to talk to 192.0.0.128 and obviously you can go from there.
 
A skim through that 2432 console log didn't throw up anything that looks fatal. No boot loop.
Was it wired or wireless when you started it up?
This suggests wired as DHCP appears to be working
eth0: ip = 192.168.128.42, subnet = 255.255.255.0, router = 192.168.128.1, dns = 192.168.128.229 8.8.4.4 8.8.8.8
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You haven't mentioned SADP in your posts at all. Even a 'bricked' camera usually shows in SADP.
The last line in the log suggests the camera needs activating.
If you don't already have it installed, download SADP V3.x from here : http://overseas.hikvision.com/en/Tools_82.html
Have the camera and the PC both wired to your LAN as normal, and see if SADP can find the camera.
If it can - it may show as 'inactive' in which case you should be able to activate with a strong password.
And check that the IP address shown in SADP is in the same range as is in use by your PC, and try browser access (IE11, not Edge) to the camera IP address.

It's pretty normal on cameras to see lots of errors that look bad but aren't. Often it's just timing between threads which sorts itself out, often just informational.
 
I'm using wired. I did as you suggested and I could not ping 192.0.0.64. I have a server and the camera going to a switch and I set the server to 192.0.0.128. I ping 192.0.0.64 -t and restarted the camera. No responses
 
Yes, I'm doing everything over wired. I have SADP up and running and it does shows up. The problem is that I get a "language mismatch" when I try to configure it. Also, it doesn't show up in the iVMS-4200 Client. I have reset it several times to try to get it to talk to the tftp server so I haven't bother to activate it. I am trying to downgrade the software version to regain control. The other cameras are at 5.2.

The exact error I get is:

[h=2]Access Error: 404 -- Not Found[/h][FONT=&quot]firmware language mismatch: /home/webLib[/FONT]
 
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I have reset it several times to try to get it to talk to the tftp server so I haven't bother to activate it.
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During the bootloader tftp updater process it will only talk to the Hikvision-specific tftp server - the one included inside the '5.3.0 to 5.2.5 downgrader' download on this forum.
A standard tftp server is needed for any command-driven transfers.

[FONT=&amp]firmware language mismatch: /home/webLib[/FONT]
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This is why there is no web GUI - the camera region does not match that of the firmware that's been loaded.
Where did you download the firmware from?
 
I consider myself a technical guy who has been in the IP networking business for 15+ years. I'm comfortable with networking protocols and using wireshark. When I reboot the camera, I'm capturing packets using the mac address but I don't see any UDP packet with port 69. The last instance, I CTRL-u and tried using the "update" command but I don't see anything on the wire. I think I need to set the eth IP address first.

In summary, what commands do you suggest i used to do a command driven transfer
 
Okay, I think I did something good and bad. I ran a chkip command it set the IP to 192.0.0.64. I was then able to ping it from the server. I started the tftp server and then I exec the update from the console. It downloaded the digicap file. I rebooted and then it started to download the firmware again. I unplugged the camera and turned off the tftp server. I then turned on the camera but now it looks like it booted into operating system. Yikes.
 

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Good news. So I was able to downgrade to 5.2.5. I went back into u-boot and I ran the command update once again. It downloaded it and wrote to flash. This time. I turned off the tftp server and then rebooted. Voila! It started up. SADP sees it and I can now land at web configuration page. I have the Chinese text so I need to do the mod to get it to be English version.
 
Hey, well done for getting there!
Now you are going to do the 'MTD hack ...' - it should be fine, lots of people have done it successfully.

For info, on the Hikvision-specific tftp server - the startup tftp updater handshake isn't on port 69 - it's a UDP packet to port 9978 holding the (old) Hikvision magic number HKWS in the payload with a response on 9979 with the magic number again.
Only when that sees success does the port 69 tftp dialogue commence.
 
Okay, I got the 2432 fixed with the mtd hack but I'm having problems with the 2032 camera. I had to disassemble it in order to use the console port. I downgraded it but now I can't log in. It rejects my password. I tried to reset it using the password reset tool from this site. The prompt says password recovery but the console logs shows an error with das server. Is there a way to reset the password via the console?
 

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but the console logs shows an error with das server.
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In the default configuration the camera has cloud services enabled, it's just trying to reach them. You can disable all these unwanted things, such as UPnP, when you regain access.

You haven't said what password(s) you have tried.
The tftp updater when completed will clear the device configuration back to defaults, where the initial password for 'admin' in the 5.2.5 firmware is '12345'
Later firmware uses 123456789abc and still later requires activation.
 
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The interesting thing about the 2032 is that I did not get the activate message like the 2432. Also, SADP is showing 192.0.0.64 for the camera; DHCP was turned off and I might have one point changed it to 192.0.0.64 before the downgrade. Anyways, an interesting thing happened. As I mentioned, I could not enable DHCP so after reading your messaging, I decided to try the admin password again. This time I just entered the default password and it accepted. Hmm, so I tried enabling DHCP and it rejected again. So I ended up adding the IP address and gateway manually and it worked. I'll post what happens once I implement the MTD hack. Thanks!
 
All done. I appreciate the patience and the support. One question I have is that the 2432 audio is going off. I checked the pfr and it is not enabled so I'm wondering how to turn it off.
 
I have seen the plugs are different sizes.
Then for each device the availability of RX TX GND is different?
 
Then for each device the availability of RX TX GND is different?
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Not in my experience - for Hikvision NVRs and cameras they have all been the same, if that's what you mean.
But I can't vouch for the wiring colours from different sources of the USB to TTL serial convertor.
Hopefully the product description covers that, though.
 
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