MacOS Using an M1 Mac to update older Hikvision camera firmware - Any tips?

[DigicapDave]

I use an M1 mac daily and today I came across an issue where I couldn't update the camera firmware via the web interface. The firmware was from 2017 and the 'browse' button on the firmware upload page refused to work.

Normally I would use ietab but the most recent version brings me the message 'network abnormal' when I login (after allowing local in ietab)

safari now only emulates the edge browser, which is just chrome in an offensive stained jumpsuit.

UTM was working for me with windows 7 but once the hikvision plugin starts video preview it becomes too painful to use - mouse goes wrong & resources top out (even giving half the processor and ram to the emulator) - this also results in a poor quality upload of firmware or tftping the unit back to life after a bad upload.

I have a very old ultra lightweight windows xp toshiba laptop - I guess I should have this available, unless anyone else has any thoughts on this annoying issue.

 

[JB1970]

I had a similar issue to you yesterday with an old camera firmware where normally I would've used Safari to update as the video wasn't needed. However the firmware browse, filename window and update button elements were all missing from the page.

I'm using M1 Mac but use Parallels with Windows 11 ARM (I only use Windows for iVMS-4200 and a few bits of alarm software I can't do without). I was using the Windows Insider Preview version of Win 11 in a Parallels VM and couldn't get video to display whether in Safari or in any Windows based browser regardless of plug in, Local Service Components, Web Components which has been a complete pain (the Mac version of iVMS is badly out of date and is missing various things). I deleted the Windows Insider version last week and reinstalled Windows 11 via Parallels and now I can manage fine just using Edge and reloading the page in IE mode at the login page. Strangely I managed to activate the new copy of Windows 11 with an 11 year old Win 7 Pro product key I had written down

Alternatively could you not just use iVMS for the firmware updates? You can still update firmware to cameras connected to an NVR (though there's no way of seeing the current version so you're a little blind.

 

[DigicapDave]

That's a good idea to use iVMS - Will remember that for next time. These issues will disappear over time but every now and then they do appear. Had an unbranded camera that the user wanted to add to their system as a temporary measure but the internal firmware would just quit once the .ocx installed. Only needed to change the IP settings, but thankfully ONVIF device manager could do that for me.

I don't think anything annoys me as much as the IE6 security settings!

On a seperate note, I just activated W11 with a key off the bottom of an old laptop - Thanks for that tip as well