Camera hangs, stops responding on ONVIF and RTSP streams but android app works

[batty]

Hey,

how does it work via android app when everything else doesn't - the app must use some other protocol ...



it's very strange, but my camera hangs every now and then and needs to be rebooted. I didn't buy the camera here nor do I use HikVision NVR but google did bring me here as it most populated forum for HikVision ...

anyway. I am looking for self hosted NVR, i tried Shinobi, Frigate, iSpy and some others ...They all connect via RTSP feed and use ONVIF.

works ok i suppose, for a while at least. then at some point, camera stops streaming RTSP feed and you cannot probe it via ONVIF either, just doesn't find it... after reboot everything is back to normal but just for a little while.

Naturally i would upgrade firmware first, but android application doesn't find any updates ... network issue try again later, every time.... can't ping home i suppose, china too far.


I tried searching for firmware here https://www.hikvision.com/en/support/download/firmware/ but i don't know which one i have ... any ideas how to check?

some information i was able to retrieve with ONVIF Device manager

Name: NVT
Location: country/china
Manufacturer: H264 - how is this manufactur? this is codec and even this wrong output stream is in h265 ... i know because Frigate won't play it in firefox.
Model: IPC_NT98566_N8_-WQ_S38
Hardware: 00001
Firmare: V5.00.R02.000639IO.10010.140217..ONVIF 16.12

I don't know which one of these tell me anything, but FW v 5.00 is quite old i think .. i've seen 5.5 floating around but again, how to find the correct one??

AND can i even upgrade manually? via SD card, or how do you even do this?

many thanks guys

edit: it's this 8MP camera, but it doesn't say anything of value there: 33.74￡ 22% OFF|5mp Outdoor Ptz Wifi Ip Camera Icsee 3mp Hd Cctv Security Camera H.265 Ai Auto Tracking Wireless Surveillance Camera Support P2p - Ip Camera - AliExpress
i don't even know if it's 8, 5 or 3 MP LOL - it says all of those in the title.

 

[batty]

also how do i block chinese backdoor? if app can connect to camera outside my LAN, then so can china ... which port would you block for that?

 

[Dan]

Hi @batty

Looking at the model number that you found with the ONVIF tool it looks like this camera is an OEM/rebadged Hikvision camera which means the core hardware/software is a Hikvison product but it is likely using a custom firmware developed for the OEM brand that has rebadged the camera.

Is there any logo/brand name on the camera?
Can you see the IP address of the camera in the ONVIF tool and do you have access to Internet Explorer? If you do, can you try entering the camera's IP address into IE and try logging into the camera via a browser? (The browser access may give you more clues about the model and brand)

 

[batty]

Hey Dan, thanks for answer ... I suspect it is HikVision clone as well due to this on aliexpress product page: "Supported NVR Brands: HIKVISION and Dahua"

there is nothing on the outside of camera, maybe if i opened it, but i didnt ...

i did try logging into camera's web server but it doesn't work. it says i have too new browser

Your browser is too new,Some features will not work properly.Please download 51.0 or earlier.

for firefox. there is a download button and it downloads a file called NewActive.exe but i'm not installing that ... even if it is a legit browser it's still years old and probably has many many security holes because this is why we have updates.

the UI client seems written in javascript, there's a bunch of code in page source but i couldn't see anything that would give away a model or brand.

I tried hacking my user agent to get pass that restriction regarding version but it doesn't work .. i mean it gets through but there are other errors. apparently it uses ocx which is activeX library from microsoft which means it will only work in some ancient internet explorer

anyways, after a few days of playing a bit, it's not bad camera. i managed to setup Shinobi and Frigate and they both work pretty stable now. maybe it will be good, we'll see