How To Upgrade Hikvision Camera Firmware

[Adam Makin]

Hikvisionregularly updates the firmware in our products to resolve potential issues and keep your system running smoothly. Below, you can find guidance on how to update your system accordingly.

Updating Hikvision IP Camera Firmware

To upgrade the firmware of a Hikvision IP camera, please follow the steps below:

IMPORTANT! This model requires non-standard firmware. Do Not Install standard firmware (e.g. v.4.1.xx) on this model. Doing so will permanently damage your system. You must use custom firmware v.4.1.25 from the iDS-9632NXI-I8/16S product page.

The I-series NVR (such as the DS-7716NI-I4) is one of Hikvision's most popular and feature-rich recorders. As such, many firmware revisions have been introduced over the years to continually ensure the product is compatible with the newest technology available. Due to the many revisions, we recommend that the user closely follows the instructions below in order to reduce the amount of time spent as well as the chance of failure.

As more affordable IP cameras are introduced over time with greater video resolution and data sizes, more efficient database management also becomes necessary. The introduction of firmware v4.0 brought about a new database architecture in order to be futureproof.

After upgrading to v4.X, the recorder database will need to be converted and optimized. If you are experiencing issues where playback is expected but not found, make sure "Database Repair" is performed as indicated in the procedures and scenarios below.

View the most updated version of this document here:

K-Series DVR upgrade instruction

The Turbo 4 Hybrid DVR K series has multiple models and across different platform and chipset. It also has similar firmware development of other recording product line; DVR K series has also introduced the GUI4.0 to ensure the series to be compatible to the newest technology available. The new database architecture is also brought into the DVR firmware v4.0 to be future proof and for better recording search experience.

As more affordable cameras introduced over time with greater video resolution and data sizes, more efficient database management also becomes necessary. The introduction of firmware v4.0 brought about a new database architecture in order to be futureproof.

After upgrading to v4.X, the recorder database will need to be converted and optimize. If you are experiencing issues, where playback is expected but not found, please make sure to perform "Database Rebuild" as indicated in the procedures and scenarios below.

If the data has not been recorded or has been overwritten, Database rebuild process is not able retrieve those lost data. Have the system upgraded to the latest available firmware version above to prevent any future data lost is strongly recommended for all application.

I have searched the internet and, all of the instructions that I have found all tell me to log on to my camera via my browser. After numerous attempts I find that I cannot do this for whatever reason. If I type in the IP address of the camera it doesn't get me anywhere. However, if I type in the IP address of the NVR, it takes me to the Hikvision site where I type in 'admin' along with my password and I'm in ok. At the top of the page I have 'Live View' 'Playback' and 'Configuration'

are your cameras and NVRon the same ip addressing scheme. We usualy setup the cameras on their own subnet and have the nvr on the common one. For instance cameras are 10.0.0.55-75 nvr is 192.168.1.67. anywy check that as you may have to have the addressses match up to access the camera directly.

What is concerning me now is, I can get at the digicap.dav file when I click on 'Browse' but I am worried that it is actually going to update the camera firmware and not going to incorrectly try to update the NVR firmware instead.

you would have to change the IP on either the camera or your pc to match for instance camera is 192.168.254.2 to view directly without going to the NVR you would have to change to and unused address with 192.168.254.66 for example I am guessing the 255.255.255.0 is the same for both. I also think you may have to have the camera and pc on the same switch as the nvr may block direct access to the individual cameras.

My "BEST GUESS" is that the way the new "no default firmware are coded is for the first logon to the NVR is the default password and its immediately removed for use after you login to it for the first time (like a Samsung camera).

Had this exact same issue today. Hikvision said that the firmware I used was a baseline firmware and not for North American NVR's. They recommended that I follow there firmware flush procedure and downgrade the firmware. It blows my mind that this could happen. They need to work on the firmware upgrade process to prevent issues like this from happening as it causes a huge waste of time on the integrators end and hikvisions tech support end. Most other products would never let you upload an incorrect firmware to a product.

I've had the same issue and it bricked the device, TFTP upload of firmware wouldnt work because is asked for the wrong file (some Avigilon camera driver rather than the .dav file) - at least half my attempts at upgrading Hikvision firmware end up in disaster, their whole firmware process needs an overhaul, so many versions, you have to do them sequentially and you still dont know if its going to actually work.. Issues like you had are common but should not be like that. I avoid updating Hikvision firmware at all costs, but then new cameras wont work unless you do and its a security/performance issue if you do not. Its horrible

NOTICE: This comment has been moved to its own discussion: I Avoid Updating Hikvision Firmware At All Costs, But Then New Cameras Wont Work Unless You Do And Its A Security/Performance Issue If You Do Not

I've seen this issue at least a dozen times over the past few years. It's one of the only firmware issues that may brick your NVR/DVR. Everything else has a firmware check that tells you if the file mismatches/upgrade failed.

I've heard HIK say that cameras with non-North America firmware will behave poorly because that's there mechanism to stop illicit vendors from selling imports. Now giving you a gibberish user list doesn't sound reasonable, and by the way that awful importing vendor they referenced was Amazon.

Hikvision is a huge manufacturer. They make cameras under a lot of brand names. You may be buying Hikvision, and not even know it. Sadly, a lot of other IP cameras have inferior build quality, but better software.

That said, Hikvision is taking the tiger by the tail, a bit. If you prefer a little less international intrigue and/or having the Rawling Virus in-a-jar on your network, I might recommend Reolink or Ubiquiti in a pinch.

Hikvision (Pronounced High-Kay-Vision. Yes, really) is short for Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co, LTD. partially state-owned Chinese manufacturer and supplier of video surveillance equipment for civilian and military purposes, headquartered in Hangzhou, China.

The vision for robust camera equipment, and the implementation, is massively impressive. The hardware truly is incredible as it is able to, in real time, do face detection, people counting, detect and flag unattended baggage or packages, identify animals and much more.

The software, on the other hand, is not to idealistic American standards. It is apparent the software was not built with hardening or security in mind. The main problem is that the software is a bit opaque and the known security issues in the past have been jaw-droppingly bad.

In an ideal world there would be open firmware for these cameras, ideally from some third party. Some noted security researchers have really put a lot of work into trying to tear these down, and some have lamented that the boot sequence on these cameras seems incredibly obfuscated and needlessly complex. Why go to all the trouble given the past security weaknesses?

The guide is a genuinely helpful guide for securing and configuring your Hikvision gear; they do want you to have secure gear to the extent that the criminals-du-jour are not exploiting the camera hardware to mine cryptocurrency or participate in DDoS attacks.

Almost all of these cameras feature an on-board microSD slot. If you intend to use local storage with the cameras, I highly recommend getting extremely high endurance microSD cards, designed for surveillance apps, which are only just starting to become marketed as such in the west.

If you are not familiar with what TFTP is, it is a trivial file transfer protocol. It is not built for speed, or redundancy, or reliability. Neither is the Hikvision update process. TFTP, and these IP addresses, are the cornerstone of being able to recover these cameras quickly and properly. You will waste a lot of time if you do not perform the firmware recoveries/updates from a hard-wired computer with a manually configured IP address.

Be aware that different regions (US, UK, Netherlands, EU, China/Asia Pacific) all have slightly different firmwares AND slightly different camera builds. It can be super annoying finding the right camera, and the right region, to download the correct version of the firmware.

No matter what camera you have (except the 7+ year old ones) the firmware filename will be digicap.dav but the contents are highly specific to both the camera model and global region where it was sold (in some, but not all, cases).

The second option is to attach a cable to the serial console. As these cameras run Linux under the hood, they do output to a built-in serial console. This may involve soldering or building a special console cable with a header such as:

I have flashed some Xiaomi cameras replacing the bootloader on the chip (involved a bit of soldering work), but they come nowhere near the image and build quality of the units displayed on your video.

I apologise in advance if this is a dumb question but here goes. I have been looking back through the synology video that goes with the hikvision cameras here and was wondering if I had a nas with 1 eth port could I add one with the USB and still keep them segmented off of my main network?

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