TFTP won't talk to some Hikvision cameras

Mikey Wetzel · 2016-07-19T12:47:47+00:00

Hi, I bought multiple Hikvision DS-2CD2x32 cameras (about a year plus ago) on Amazon from a seller called Hikvision. My cameras do not have "CH" in their serial numbers. (However, as far as I know, they still could be Chinese/gray-market. Amazon seems legit to me, but I'm hardly an expert on the supply chain of security cameras.) One camera went bad recently. While debugging, I thought, "Hey, its been a while, so why not upgrade the firmware?" Now I have multiple bricked cameras. (BTW, please don't attack me for this. I'm quite technically literate and I would expect that upgrading old firmware/software is generally a good thing. I'm learning that security cameras are the exception....but alas, learning too late. Hence this post.) The cameras have stickers that say the firmware should be v5.2.8 build 141231. I updated to something newer (from Hikvision's website), and now the cameras show up in the SADP tool as type "DS-2CD-Min-System" and firmware "v4.0.8 build 140610". In other words, they are "bricked" as has happened to many other folks. BTW, none of the cameras have reset buttons. Not external, and not internal, and I've checked very thoroughly. The oft-repeated solution is to use TFTP to repalce the firmware. I have the TFTP tool and followed the instructions to the letter: set a laptop to 192.0.0.128, turned off firewall, ran tool first and re-powered cameras second, etc.. However, only one of the cameras was found by the tool. For the rest, TFTP never gets past the first line (TFTP server [192.0.0.128] initialized) in the window. This is my problem and I'm hoping someone has advice. (Otherwise, I have some nice cameras for sale if someone else is convinced they can fix them.) I've scoured the internet and various security cam forums. Seems like everyone claims that, ultimately, the TFTP tool works for them. Does anyone know of a next course of action for when it does not? BTW, a little more information, in case it helps: (1) The cameras went back to their default password (admin/12345) (2) On all the bricked cameras, the IP address and gateway are stuck (at my old settings of 192.168.2.XXX and 192.168.2.2).SADP lets me change them, but they go right back to 192.168.2.XXX after a power cycle (3) When running TFTP from a 192.0.0.128 PC, and I reboot a camera, I do a ping on 192.0.0.64 and it *briefly* responds to the pings. My guess is that the camera boots to 192.0.0.64 briefly before changing to something else, and the TFTP tool is trying to hook to it while its still at 192.0.0.64. However, it doesn't stay there consistently. Thanks in advance.