Is HikVision UK Portal now dead/obsolete?

[codlord]

For the last week or so when I go to the UK portal I either get an error page with some HikVision email links or a portal site with seemingly no Firmware. And it can change minute to minute for some reason.

Does anyone know if the UK portal being retired? Links are:

https://www.hikvisioneurope.com/uk/portal/

https://www.hikvisioneurope.com/portal

I know a lot of firmware is now available via the website now (which is a step in the right direction from the frankly god-awful portal) e.g. this for UK:

https://www.hikvision.com/uk/support/download/firmware/

BUT for example for one of my NVR's (DS-7616NI-K2 / 16P) the version on the UK portal was at one time V4.72.107 but on the UK website it's now only V4.31.511
And on the Global English website it's: V4.74.205

Why is HikVision still so terrible at providing or listing firmware updates!?

 

[JB1970]

The .txt file on the UK homepage has been saying to use the main website for firmware for many months now. There seems to be no pattern as to whether the portal directories get updated or not - many are out of date including the one for the M series NVR.

I actually liked the portal and just bookmarked the directories for the models I used regularly. I think the portal will need to remain as when we come across a camera, NVR, DVR that hasn't been kept up to date; those older firmware versions are needed for 'step through' upgrades. Additionally it's a bit of a minefield otherwise where there are multiple hardware revisions of the same model. I saved all the files for previous updates just in case...

Why is HikVision still so terrible at providing or listing firmware updates!?

That's the million dollar question. I think they have just too great a product range to keep everything up to date and bug free. Every NVR I install seems to have a slightly different interface. I hate the "Easy", "Expert" menus they've added - totally stupid and unintuitive. When "Easy" is displayed you're in the Expert menu and vice versa (there's a symbol instead of 'Switch To'). There's no need for two menus - you always need both of them.

 

[Dan]

The last update we had from Hikvision was that, as @JB1970 says, the Hikvision website product pages will have the latest firmware for each product and only old firmware will be found at the portal.

It is strange that you say the download portal is not working because it still works fine for us from this link - HIKVISION UK PORTAL - which looks to be exactly the same (only difference seems to be that your link is a secure HTTPS URL and the one we have is just an old HTTP URL).

We hope that Hikvision is not planning to retire the portal entirely because it is always useful to have access to old firmware versions, we'll check with Hikvision support and see if they can explain the plan for the portal.

 

[JB1970]

It is strange that you say the download portal is not working because it still works fine for us from this link - HIKVISION UK PORTAL - which looks to be exactly the same (only difference seems to be that your link is a secure HTTPS URL and the one we have is just an old HTTP URL).

One thing I noticed the other day is that if you try to access the UK, US or Global site while using a VPN, the page won't load. I haven't tried this with the portal.

 

[codlord]

@Dan and @JB1970 thanks for the info. Right now if I click on your link above (HIKVISION UK PORTAL) it redirects me to https://www.hikvisioneurope.com/uk/portal/ and it shows a portal but with only Home -> portal -> Software -> Software Tools with a few tools, no other directories or anything like firmware available.

Not using a VPN, tried disabling adblockers etc and no difference. Also tried on both Firefox and Chrome.

On Chrome it does NOT redirect to https but I still only see the Software Tools as above.

Weird... Let me go try another PC...

 

[codlord]

Tried 2 more PC's in the office with weird results:

Alternate Windows PC - Edge: Portal only shows Software Tools.
Alternate Windows PC - Firefox: Portal works as expected.

Alternate Linux PC - Firefox: Portal works as expected.

So the portal is still there and does still work but only for certain PC's/browsers with no known pattern/reason yet. But at least I know the portal is still there and can access it so thanks!

 

[JB1970]

@codlord I'm seeing the same with that link (empty other than software > tools) but when I use my bookmark it loads fine. This is with Safari on my Mac.

The only difference is my bookmark is www.hikvisioneurope.com/uk/portal/ (without the http://)

It shouldn't make a difference but try that way as clicking my link in this message works whereas http:// results in the empty directories. Weird...

 

[codlord]

@JB1970 thanks, I think it's a DNS or Browser redirection issue. Basically if I can get to the http site it works but some PC's/browsers seemingly always redirect to the https:// site regardless of if I specify http:// or just start with www.

Probably a browser or DNS caching issue.

In this day and age who uses http:// sites any more anyway!? Let alone a large multinational company hosting firmware for security products!