I have the same NVR and the same issue - no "red ticks" on playback search either. I gave up, hoping that that fabled Christmas Angel, "New Firmware" might someday solve it. Until then just coal in our stockings...
I can see the red tick on playback but when you run the report always returns zero for some reason.
So it has captured some smart events but something is missing in the report.
I've never used this so thought I'd take a look.
On the VGA/HDMI interface a 7816N-E2 with 3.4.90 firmware, the 'VCA Search' top-level menu item seems to need an IPC source with either 'Behaviour Search' 'Face Search' 'Plate Search' 'People Counting' or 'Heat Map' as VCA sources.
As I don't have any such capable cameras, no search results.
Is it the 'VCA Search' top-level menu item you are asking about?
In the Playback top-level menu item, using Event, then Major Type=VCA then Minor Type=All I can get plenty of resuits.
And selecting Minor Type= something supported by the cameras, such as Line Crossing Detection or PIR Detection also works OK.
But picking an event type that's not supported by my cameras such as People Counting yields zero.
Is it the Playback VCA search you are referring to?