WDR settings not applied during scheduled Day/Night switch

[venturis]

I've found a nasty little bug in the 5.4.4. release of the firmware related to the Scheduled Day/Night switch.

On 5.3.8 I had my 2CD2342 set up so that during the day WDR was ON and Noise Reduction OFF and then at night WDR was OFF and Noise Reduction was ON.

This worked well as the WDR is not helpful in dark scenes as it just introduces noise and washes out the image.

Since updating to 5.4.4 the camera will no longer switch back into the Day settings, in particular switching back ON the WDR. Now when the camera transitions from Night to Day the WDR settings do not take effect leaving the captured image dark and with any shadows completely lacking in any detail whatsoever.

I should add that all other settings seems to transition correctly. I've narrowed it down to the WDR setting that seems to get stuck in night mode.

I've tried a number of different things but nothing has resolved the problem so far. Even moving the WDR level slider in the camera settings won't switch on the WDR when it gets stuck in the night mode setting.

Simply rebooting the camera correctly sets up the WDR settings daytime as configured.

This is a real problem as I have a lot of areas in shadow during the day with a lot of corresponding bright sunny areas. Without the WDR to assist in daytime it's useless.

If anyone can suggest a solution to the problem would be appreciated.

 

[alastairstevenson]

If your camera was purchased through an 'Authorised channel' you could ask Hikvision Tech Support the question.
It would be interesting to hear if they are aware of this and are planning a fix.

 

[venturis]

Actually, the camera in question is the only non-chinese Hikvision I've purchased and the only one with which I've had problems. Its a world region camera purchase through aliexpress but the vendor claims to be an authorized distirbution channel.

What's the best contact for Hikvision support? I only ever seem to be able to find email addresses for sales contacts.

 

[Hotelone]

I've had this problem with my 2342 and both of my 2042's since day one and have never found a solution. They are all "rest of world" cams and I have to turn off, then back on, the WDR every morning. A 4MP issue? They are connected to my NVR which complicates diagnosing what's going on. I'd also appreciate any ideas.

 

[nayr]

Ive seen this problem on Dahua cameras and it was resolved by resetting the camera to defaults; think something in config file was invalid or conflicting.

worth a shot, Ive also seen cameras act like this after a firmware update and a config reset also fixed that.. sometimes its like the settings are not actually being saved to config just updated the running settings.. mebe permissions get messed up during the update.

 

[Hotelone]

I did try that with my 2042's but no help. It's weird that the new 2342 does it out of the box. It makes me think that the NVR is somehow involved but I don't know how that could be.

 

[venturis]

I've tried @nayr's suggestion to default the camera. I'm sure I did this after the firmware update from 5.3.8 but it doesn't hurt to try again.

I'm positive the scheduled switch was working correctly on 5.3.8. I'm using PCNVR4200 as my NVR.

If this does not work I will try to contact Hikvision support if I can find their contact details.

 

[venturis]

Unfortunately, factory resetting the camera and reloading the parameters didn't work in this case. It must be a bug with the firmware.

Rather than try dealing with Hikvision for a solution in the short term I'd rather try to roll back the firmware to 5.3.8 because it was definitely working then.

Anyone know if I can roll back to an earlier firmware? I don't know if the 5.3.0 downgrader is what I need to make this happen in particular as this is a genuine world region camera.

 

[Carcus]

I have been advised by a Hikvision OEM provider that Auto WDR will be implemented in the next baseline firmware for R6 models.

Not sure how true that is but we shall see.

The Chinese 4mp turrets seem to have better wdr imo.

 

[venturis]

That would be an interesting development however, it seems in the mean time nothing I've tried has been able to resolve the problem of the WDR not being enabled during the day.

Incidentally, has anyone ever managed to get Hikvision tech support to respond to a query?

I emailed the tech support and immediately got back a proforma email asking for model and serial numbers as well as contact information and supplier company name etc. Filled out all the requested info but never heard back from them again. Its been two weeks now. So much for buying a genuine retail camera from an authorized reseller.

I actually tried switching the WDR on/of using the Curl methods described in another post. Strangely though, whilst I can turn the WDR off using the Curl method, I can't seem to switch it back ON. Even after sending the "daytime" settings with the WDR enabled and verifying that the settings have been applied to the camera, the WDR refuses to switch on. The settings show WDR ON and level set at 75% but its pretty clear from the image that its not working.

Moving the WDR level slider by even 1% immediately switches the WDR ON. Its clearly a bug but I'm surprised that the curl method won't even work.

I've re-flashed th camera twice and defaulted all the settings to see if it resolves itself but no joy.

 

[Carcus]

It is Chinese new year so maybe they will be back to you when they return.

 

[venturis]

It is Chinese new year so maybe they will be back to you when they return.

Yes. Good point. I hope you're right.

 

[mcx]

I don't know if this helps but after you have sent the daytime settings to the camera you could try to change only the WDR level.

curl -T c:\wdr_level.xml http://user:psw@IP/ISAPI/Image/channels/1/WDR

wdr_level.xml should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<WDR version="2.0" xmlns="http://www.isapi.org/ver20/XMLSchema">
<mode>open</mode>
<WDRLevel>75</WDRLevel>
</WDR>

Replace that 75 with some other value.

 

[venturis]

I don't know if this helps but after you have sent the daytime settings to the camera you could try to change only the WDR level.

curl -T c:\wdr_level.xml http://user:psw@IP/ISAPI/Image/channels/1/WDR

wdr_level.xml should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<WDR version="2.0" xmlns="http://www.isapi.org/ver20/XMLSchema">
<mode>open</mode>
<WDRLevel>75</WDRLevel>
</WDR>

Replace that 75 with some other value.

Thanks for the suggestion. That's exactly what I was thinking I was going to need. Luckily I already have a Windows based file server running 24/7 which now doubles as server for the curl scripts. Works well enough as a short term fix but hopefully it gets sorted out in the next firmware release.

Might be a silly question but does sending camera setting via Curl write the value to non-volatile storage or simply to RAM?

Reason I ask is that I was concerned that writing to the camera flash memory twice a day could wear out the flash pretty quickly if that was the case.

 

[mcx]

Thanks for the suggestion. That's exactly what I was thinking I was going to need. Luckily I already have a Windows based file server running 24/7 which now doubles as server for the curl scripts. Works well enough as a short term fix but hopefully it gets sorted out in the next firmware release.

Might be a silly question but does sending camera setting via Curl write the value to non-volatile storage or simply to RAM?

Reason I ask is that I was concerned that writing to the camera flash memory twice a day could wear out the flash pretty quickly if that was the case.

I'm not sure but I think it has no bad effect. Maybe someone else who has better understanding can answer @alastairstevenson , @nayr , @montecrypto ?

All I can say is that I have used curl method to switch day / night every day for over 16 months without problems.

 

[alastairstevenson]

Might be a silly question but does sending camera setting via Curl write the value to non-volatile storage or simply to RAM?

Reason I ask is that I was concerned that writing to the camera flash memory twice a day could wear out the flash pretty quickly if that was the case.

It's actually a good question.
And the answer will depend on whether that change will generate an implicit 'Save configuration' action, which would write to the flash. If it doesn't, it's only going to affect RAM, where the code executes.
To determine that would require a poke around the firmware to check out the command flow.

But on the more general topic of flash wear - Hikvision cameras generally ( I don't know about all the models as I haven't explored all the series) use UBI with a UBIFS files system on top of the mtdblock device, so there is a built-in wear-levelling capability via the erasecount, assuming the specific kernel has that feature enabled. So any re-writes should get spread around.
And even if not, the wear-out rating is probably a minimum of 100k cycles, which is big enough not to be a concern.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I had a supplemental thought on the question about wearing out the flash.
Where a Hikvision camera is 'managed' by a Hikvision NVR, there is a similar situation where those camera parameters that are stored in the NVR are periodically refreshed to the camera, as can be seen in the camera log.
And quite frequently, as can be seen in the sample below.
So - if Hikvision's system design has taken this activity into account, it's not a risk to the device longevity.

15:00:00    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
37    2017-02-06 14:59:59    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
38    2017-02-06 14:59:59    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.254.1
39    2017-02-06 14:59:58    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.254.1
40    2017-02-06 14:56:57    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
41    2017-02-06 14:56:57    Operation    Remote: Configure Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
42    2017-02-06 14:55:50    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
43    2017-02-06 14:55:50    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.254.1
44    2017-02-06 14:55:38    Alarm    Line Crossing Detection Stopped    1        local
45    2017-02-06 14:55:35    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
46    2017-02-06 14:55:35    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.254.1
47    2017-02-06 14:55:33    Alarm    Line Crossing Detection Started    1        local
48    2017-02-06 14:55:31    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.1.211
49    2017-02-06 14:55:31    Operation    Remote: Get Parameters        admin    192.168.254.1
50    2017-02-06 14:55:18    Alarm    Stop Motion Detection    1        local
51    2017-02-06 14:55:09    Alarm    Start Motion Detection    1        local

 

[lrichard]

Thanks for the suggestion. That's exactly what I was thinking I was going to need. Luckily I already have a Windows based file server running 24/7 which now doubles as server for the curl scripts. Works well enough as a short term fix but hopefully it gets sorted out in the next firmware release.

Might be a silly question but does sending camera setting via Curl write the value to non-volatile storage or simply to RAM?

Reason I ask is that I was concerned that writing to the camera flash memory twice a day could wear out the flash pretty quickly if that was the case.

Hello,
Did you find a solution because I am having the same problem with DS-2CD2145FWD-I ?
In night mode cannot activate WDR with CURL
Thanks

Firmware : V5.6.6 build 210625