Upgrading beyond 3.4.0 on a Chinese (lang 2) HV NVR

S

scn101

Getting the hang of it
Feb 25, 2015
193
55
Dallas, TX
I want to share my observation in case it helps anyone.

Chinese NVR, DS-7816N-E1 (ostensibly the same hardware as the 76xxNI-Ex but made for China only). Unit came with 3.0.10 in English from AliExpress. Using the web GUI I successfully upgraded to 3.3.2, 3.3.4, and finally 3.4.0 (all digicap.dav files had Lang=2, Lang 1 is rejected by the NVR) all the while maintaining the English interface. I wanted to try 3.4.2 and loaded it via the web GUI. This caused the NVR to revert to Chinese. The unit would not accept a FW downgrade, either by GUI or the HV tftp. Lovely. Took the NVR apart, attached a TTL UART and was able to stop u-boot <ctrl-u>. U-boot was from 2010 and it would only allow for a FW upgrade, I couldn't see how to get to the normal u-boot commands. I used a lightweight tftp server to send a backup of my original 3.0.10 I created using hiktools and my original mtdblocks but u-boot reported something like FW not in cramfs format. I successfully loaded 3.4.0 but the NVR remained in Chinese. Next I tried a 3.0.10 from HV Europe, EN only, and that worked. English interface back. Starting with 3.3.2 via the web GUI, then 3.3.4, I ended up back at 3.4.0 in English.

I tried to load my saved config file via the web GUI but it had produced an error so I had to reconfigure the NVR. In fact, saving a config file and reloading it never seems to work via the web GUI. I might try it from the NVR's GUI.

Oh, and now for my (even more) idiotic endeavour, read only if you want to laugh (or cry, like I did):

All 11 of my 2xx2 IPCs are on my LAN and I left them connected figuring that they won't be in tftp mode as they are fully booted. However, to reboot the NVR I turned off the UPS taking all of the IPCs down (I should have used the NVR's power switch). When power was restored the IPCs saw the HV tftp server I left running on my PC and loaded the NVR's FW. 5 out of 11 IPCs went min system, the other 6 luckily didn't take the "new" FW. I recovered all of them but of course I had to reconfigure all of their settings. What a pain. In total, all of the above took over 9 hours to resolve but I'm back online.

Feel free to comment!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I just tried to backup the NVR config to a USB stick via the NVR GUI. The file was written (~4MB) but when I try to import it via the NVR GUI I get the error, "language mismatch." So I can't save the config which is a real bummer. I wanted to try 3.4.1 to fix the email issues but if it reverts to Chinese I don't feel like configuring the whole thing again. Any ideas?
 
Well done for getting through all that hassle. Been there, done that, whilst getting that nervous feeling in the stomach as the firmware is written and the reboot starts.
 
Good afternoon. I have a NVR DS7804N-E1 / 4P ordered from AliExpress. I updated the firmware v3.4.6 build160405 and he was Chinese. Which firmware has been I do not know . Tried to change the language through hiktools, it does not work. If someone has earlier firmware with English please share .
 
doing these updates doesn't change the region for the NVR, right?
Click to expand...
No, the region code for the NVR is held in a block in the flash memory in mtdblock0, in a similar way to the cameras.
Hikvision have protected that block from easy modification (not just region, but number of channels, for example), first with a checksum, then by making it read-only, then by hiding part of it, then by switching to the NVR model code to determine the characteristics etc etc.
So the firmware updates don't touch it, but they do change how it's interpreted and used.
 
  • Like
Reactions: whoslooking
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom