Language Mismatch Problem

[Arry]

Hi

Hope someone can help as this is driving me nuts.

I am in Australia and ordered my HIKvision NVR and cameras from China.

Everything has been good for a few months. I then wrote to HIKVision to ask which firmware update to use.

The NVR I have is the DS-7608N-E2 / 8P

The firmware they told me to apply was from the overseas site and was Baseline Firmware_NVR (76/77/86NI-E)_En_V3.3.1_build150422(new)

This seemed to be in English. When I updated it all was fine and it worked for a week until I rebooted it.

Now the web page is in Chinese however the IVMSsoftware is in English.

When I try and use the IVMS it says language mismatch.

I have found a tool on these forums called HIKtools05R1.exe and tried that however the language was already set to 1.

If I try the firmware from the webconsole it now says Failure to obtain the upgrade progress.

Is anyone able to help?

Thanks

Aron

 

[alastairstevenson]

It sounds like the language may have been 'tweaked' to English by the seller in the installed firmware, on an NVR that natively is Chinese. What are the 4 consecutive letters in the middle of the serial number?
Upgrading the firmware has made it revert to it's native region as the hacked firmware has been replaced.
Some people on this forum have had success asking the seller to supply them a copy of the firmware that was originally installed when it was delivered. That's certainly worth a try.
The Hiktools tool can be used to manipulate the firmware files, for example changing the language in the header of a file so a camera or NVR does not reject the firmware with a language mismatch. But by itself it does not change the region of the camera or NVR.

 

[Arry]

Thanks Alastair for the quick response. The serial number is DS-7608N-E2/[FONT=arial, sans-serif]8P0820141215AARR494378258WCVU is this what you are after? I have asked the seller about firmware but they wanted to know what the was :-( so will have a difficult time with that I think. I used the HIKtools and I changed it to language 2 and it let me do that. I tried IVMS and still says Language mismatch. I then tried langauage 1 however it no longer lets me apply the firmware. What can I do now? Is it recoverable? Such an odd problem [/FONT]

 

[alastairstevenson]

I have a couple of 7816N-E2 NVRs with the same 'AARR' in the serial number, manufactured for the Australian market, complete with Australian mains lead. Both have the 'language flag=2' ie Chinese in the device flash, both are working in English though for different reasons which I won't bore you with here.
I've experimented with 76xx firmware on my 7816N and it has been fine, suggesting the hardware internally is the same. Though I do believe the flash layout on some 76xx NVRs can be different from what I see on the 7816.
I'm not sure though if 7816 firmware would work on a 7608, though it seems reasonable if it is indeed the same hardware. The upgrade process does do some hardware version checking before allowing the update.
What I'm thinking - if you feel like taking a bit of a risk, but maybe fixing the problem - I could make you a copy of the 3.0.8 firmware that came with my first 7816N-E2/8P to try to downgrade your 7608.
This would likely have to be done via the TFTP updater, as the 3.3.x release notes say it's no longer possible to downgrade to earlier versions.
Let me know if you want to do that and I'll drop the file off somewhere.

 

[Arry]

Hi Alastair, yes definitely mate, thanks heaps for your assistance so far. What is the TFTP updater?

 

[alastairstevenson]

The TFTP updater tool, and the instructions to use it, are here:
http://www.hikvision.com/europe/download_more.asp?id=1336

 

[proxybox]

Arry, were you able to fix your problem? I have the same exact NVR as you with the AARR in the serial number. Thanks.

Can you or Alastair share the file?

 

[alastairstevenson]

What have you done to your NVR?
Where did you start from - firmware version?
And where have you ended up - firmware version?
And what problems are you seeing now?
All these questions ...

 

[Del Boy]

What have you done to your NVR?
Where did you start from - firmware version?
And where have you ended up - firmware version?
And what problems are you seeing now?
All these questions ...

+1. It's hard to diagnose and help without the proper information

 

[proxybox]

My bad. I just saw the responses and realized that you guys were referring to me. I have the same AARR (serial number) DS-7608NI-E2/8P v3.0.8 NVR bought over at Ali. I haven't upgraded the firmware yet so no issues at this point. I wanted to upgrade it but from what I read the newer stuff isn't recommended. What is the best firmware to move to at this point? Also how do I backup the current firmware so I don't run into the same issues that Arry ran into.

I wish there was a comprehensive guide/sticky that consolidated all the info for NVR and cameras. I'll work on one as I work through this journey

 

[Del Boy]

My bad. I just saw the responses and realized that you guys were referring to me. I have the same AARR (serial number) DS-7608NI-E2/8P v3.0.8 NVR bought over at Ali. I haven't upgraded the firmware yet so no issues at this point. I wanted to upgrade it but from what I read the newer stuff isn't recommended. What is the best firmware to move to at this point? Also how do I backup the current firmware so I don't run into the same issues that Arry ran into.

I wish there was a comprehensive guide/sticky that consolidated all the info for NVR and cameras. I'll work on one as I work through this journey

The best version of firmware is the one that works. As you have no issues then stick to the one you currently have.

 

[alastairstevenson]

I wanted to upgrade it but from what I read the newer stuff isn't recommended.

For the most part, from those several contributors who have advised to leave as-is, it's good advice, given how Hikvision have on the one hand put loads of firmware out there for their customers to use, and on the other quite deliberately seeded it with traps and pitfalls and less than rigorous update checks.

But despite that - it's good to have the as-is state backed up as a safety net.
Assuming your NVR internals are organised as I think they will be, here is a summary of a method:

What I strongly suggest if you think about upgrading is to back up your existing firmware so you have a way back should you wish.
All you need is a copy of mtdblock2 in the as-delivered state. But copy mtdblock0 and 1 also.
The easiest way is if you can add a NAS destination via the GUI. It does not need to be formatted.
Something like this for an NFS mount.
Use 'mount' to find the mount point, then something like:
cd /mnt/tnfs01
umount /dev/mtdblock2
cat /dev/mtdblock2 > mtdblock2_orig
mount /dev/mtdblock2 /home/hik

You could also use TFTP, something like
TFTP -p -l mtdblock2_orig <IP address of TFTP server>

And the same for mtdblock0 & 1, though these don't need unmounted.
Then you can either at a later date 'cat' the mtdblock2_orig' back where it came from, or you can create new firmware using @wzhick really useful tool Hiktools to get a digicap.dav that the web GUI and TFTP recovery is happy with.
Also - make a backup copy of the NVR configuration, and the camera settings, via the maintenance menu, with the filename including the associated firmware version. You can't restore configurations across firmware versions.
That way - you can put the whole thing back exactly how it was before the firmware update if you ever need to do so.

 

[whoslooking]

The above is the best advice you can receive, when upgrading your NVR it almost a life saver, and will save you a lot of stress that is for sure.

 

[Del Boy]

The above is the best advice you can receive, when upgrading your NVR it almost a life saver, and will save you a lot of stress that is for sure.

If you've done that and you still want to upgrade then I'm happy to try to help you step by step.

 

[proxybox]

I enjoy a challenge and this process helps me learn linux at the same time. I appreciate all the helpful nuggets. I was able to backup the mtdblocks to an NVR via telnet and tftp. Now I feel safe experimenting with v 3.1.0.

 

[DemonicHawk]

I'm not too familiar with this, but isn't mtdblock2 just the bootloader? How can you re-create the .dav just from that?

 

[alastairstevenson]

For the 78xx and 76xx NVRs, mtdblock2 holds the cramfs image of the whole firmware, minus the firmware header.
There are a couple of ways to apply this back to the NVR:
If the NVR still has the full telnet access to an ash shell, not the psh 'restrict shell' then 'cat mtdblock2_saved > /dev/mtdblock2' works OK.
Or you can use the very useful Hiktools 'create' option to combine the file with the header from a similar revision full firmware file to create a normal digicap.dav that can be used via the web GUI or the tftp updater.

mtdblock0 holds the bootloader, and also the 'hardware descriptor block' that customises the environment for the firmware, things such as serial number, MAC address, number of channels, region, and other options. The running Linux has this hard-coded as read-only.
mtdblock1 from what I recall is the device configuration.

 

[Oleglevsha]

Your data is outdated, relevant to older firmware versions below 3.3.1 Europe or 3.1.0 USA.

 

[alastairstevenson]

Agreed.

If the NVR still has the full telnet access to an ash shell, not the psh 'restrict shell' then 'cat mtdblock2_saved > /dev/mtdblock2' works OK.

This indirectly implies that.

 

[DemonicHawk]

For the 78xx and 76xx NVRs, mtdblock2 holds the cramfs image of the whole firmware, minus the firmware header.
There are a couple of ways to apply this back to the NVR:
If the NVR still has the full telnet access to an ash shell, not the psh 'restrict shell' then 'cat mtdblock2_saved > /dev/mtdblock2' works OK.
Or you can use the very useful Hiktools 'create' option to combine the file with the header from a similar revision full firmware file to create a normal digicap.dav that can be used via the web GUI or the tftp updater.

mtdblock0 holds the bootloader, and also the 'hardware descriptor block' that customises the environment for the firmware, things such as serial number, MAC address, number of channels, region, and other options. The running Linux has this hard-coded as read-only.
mtdblock1 from what I recall is the device configuration.

Ah, thanks for this, it seems I've got my cameras and NVRs all mixed up.