WDR Broke (kind of?)

[anethema]

2-3 days ago the WDR setting on my Hikvision DS-2DF8236I-AEL seems to have broken. It massively darkened the image.

Before the break, it used to really be cranked, looking like this:

Then after, it got much darker while having the sky still kind of blown out. Like this:

WDR off gives me something a little more usable like so:

But if I turn on backlight compensation and adjust brightness I can get something decent:

I know there is crap on the lens, the thing is just up a 60' tower and i haven't felt like climbing to wipe it. Because it is just BLC the sky is blown out along with some highlights, but better than what it was.

Anyways, with WDR, the level of WDR setting does nothing, like doesn't change the picture at all. Right now the image looks like this at 2% or 9% WDR. It is a true WDR camera too not electronic.

Anyone ever seen anything like this? Possible fixes? I've tried the obvious rebooting etc.

 

[bp2008]

Hasn't happened to me. I'd try a factory reset, and if that doesn't work, then a firmware upgrade. If this is a china region cam, be aware that a firmware upgrade will brick it, but there are steps you can take to fix that.

 

[anethema]

I was actually just going to post that I felt dumb. I'd of course tried a factory reset and the firmware was latest. But I said fuck it just now and did a firmware upgrade to the same version and it fixed the problem. Not sure what the deal is. Thanks though.

 

[bp2008]

Computers corrupt themselves sometimes, and IP cams are no exception

 

[anethema]

Ya I thought it was busted because it was a camera that someone hit with a man-lift on an O&G site, broke it off its pole mount, and ripped the cat5 cable off the board. I had to do some board level repair to fix traces etc. I wouldn't have been able to afford this beast otherwise. I've never seen IR like this on any camera in my life haha. With the spotlight on you can see like 400 yards clear as daylight in pitch black.

So anyways, I thought maybe that I'd been unable to fix something. I already have a power delivery issue where I can't set the IR lights above 20% or the camera reboots, so I prob need to ditch POE (I do have an axis 60W POE injector) and find a big enough 24VAC power supply and power it externally.

Glad to see it was just scrambled.

Thanks again