Problem adding cameras to I-series with firmware 4.21.xx

[fullboogie]

Since installing my system in February, I've run firmware version 4.1.64. During that time I added four 2355's and one 2385. All five connected within 60 seconds when added to a POE port.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my NVR firmware to 4.21.005. Shortly thereafter I attempted to add a sixth camera, a 2455 cube camera. Per this thread, the NVR would not recognize the camera when connecting to the POE port. Details in this thread:

NVR will not recognize 2CD2455FWD-IW cube camera

Today I added two more cams, 2355's. I ran into the same problem in that the NVR would not recognize the cameras no matter what. Since they are turret cams and not a cube like the 2455 (with a separate power cord), I was kind of stuck. With no businesses open due to a national holiday for me to buy a switch with a power injector, I decided to roll back the NVR firmware to 4.1.64. Both cams were immediately recognized just like before.

With time on my hands, I decided to experiment. I factory reset the two new cams and upgraded the NVR firmware to 4.21.005. Then I tried adding the two new cams to the POE ports and again, the NVR would not recognize the cams. I then upgraded to 4.21.008 and had the same problem. When I rolled back to 4.1.64 the cams were again immediately recognized. Resets were done on the two cams in between each phase of this experiment. This issue was repeatable every time I tried it.

This tells me there is a problem with the NVR firmware above 4.1.64. Has anyone else had problems adding cams to POE ports with firmware above 4.1.64?

 

[StewartM]

No problems my side adding cameras with v4.21 at present. However, when I upgraded from an earlier firmware to v4.21.005 I had to re-enable the PoE Channels for some reason.

 

[fullboogie]

Thanks Stew - checked that at the time and they were/are all enabled. Three cams with the same problem is awfully strange. I've had some odd quirks since upgrading from 4.1.64, so I'm sticking with it until I see a good reason to change. Just too many issues.

 

[fullboogie]

Bumping for input from Dan/Phil please.

 

[Dan]

We haven't seen this issue ourselves, we have a 7716 NVR running the latest firmware (v4.21.008) and we have directly connected multiple G1 cameras (2455, 2385G1, etc...) without any problems.

Reading your previous email you seemed to fix the problem with the 2455 by activating it on a switch and then updated the firmware to the latest, reset it, and then it did connect via the PoE ports on the NVR. All the cameras we have tried have been either on the latest firmware (v5.6.0) or a very recent one, have you tried this process with the other cameras you have?

 

[fullboogie]

Yes, all cameras were on their production firmware, an older version.

 

[Dan]

So they are on the latest version (v5.6.0) or they are on an older firmware?

I want to clarify because I think the firmware must be the issue, the latest I-series firmware (v4.21.xxx) must have introduced a rule to stop users adding G1 cameras that are on firmware of a certain age.

I will try regressing the firmware on one of our cameras to test this theory, can you update your cameras to v5.6.0 and see if that fixes the issue, we will then pass this on to Hikvision support because this is a feature/bug that is going to have to be changed because almost all of Hikvision's UK stock still arrives in the UK on an older firmware. If every customer has to update their cameras on a remote PoE switch before connecting them to an NVR that is going to cause problems.

Can you update the cameras and test as I state above and feedback to us if that works or not.

 

[fullboogie]

Dan,

Adding a little more detail/history in case this helps:

My 2455 was shipped with firmware version 5.5.82 build 181211. The two 2355's were shipped with 5.4.5 build 170124, so much older than the 2455 (in fact, they had May of 2017 build dates).

To hopefully answer your question, all three cams exhibited the same problem on NVR firmware 4.21.005 on their original firmware. When hooked to the POE port the NVR indicated "detecting camera" endlessly.

I was able to get the 2455 running eventually (on 4.21.005) by powering it up with the included power adapter, finding the IP address on SADP, and upgrading the firmware to 5.6.0. Then when plugged back into the POE port the NVR recognized it immediately.

On the 2355's out of the box, I had the same problem with 4.21.005. No camera recognition. I upgraded the NVR firmware to 4.21.008 and the same problem. At the time, I did not have the ability to power them up independently and upgrade their firmware to 5.6.0 . I had no power injector and all the stores were closed. When I downgraded the NVR to 4.1.64, the 2355's hooked up immediately. At that point I did NOT upgrade the 2355's to 5.6.0.

My next step was to reset the 2455 (on 5.6.0) and the 2355's (on 5.4.5), upgrade the NVR again to 4.21.005, and try to connect all three. The 2455 connected fine. The 2355's would not connect as per before. I then upgraded the NVR to 4.21.008 and the 2355's would still not connect. I then downgraded the NVR back to 4.1.64, and the 2355's (still on 5.4.5) connected immediately.

So it seems that with the 2455 upgraded to 5.6.0, it was able to connect with all three NVR firmware versions. I have not tried this with the 2355's, which are now on 5.6.0, but I will attempt to do so when I have time as this seems to be the last experiment we can do.

It seems that on NVR firmware above 4.1.64 there are issues connecting cams with firmware below 5.6.0. I hope this makes sense.

 

[fullboogie]

Mission accomplished. I was able to pull a 2355 camera down and do a factory reset while it was on 5.6.0. When I plugged it into the NVR it was recognized in about 60 seconds and assigned to that POE port with no problems.

So at least on my system, NVR firmware versions 4.21.005 and 4.21.008 need to have camera firmware 5.6.0 in order to connect.

Your concerns were the exact reason I posted this thread. It's going to be a mess if users are forced to find a way to upgrade cams to 5.6.0 before the NVR will recognize those cams.