HIK Vision DS-2CD2xx2 bricked after firmware 5.2.3 update

First, I am new more lurker than poster. I owe many here thanks (including Bullwinkle) for their posts.

I loaded F/W 5.2.3 (from 5.2.0) on my HIK Vision DS-2CD2732F-I dome (US/English camera version, stock firmware). The 5.2.3 firmware was an unmodified/US version downloaded from my camera sellers website and appeared to be sanctioned. My first upgrade went well so I proceeded with the other cameras (yes, I should know better) and ended up bricking two cameras. The camera became inaccessible via HTTP. I rebooted cameras, no improvement. I reset to factory defaults, no improvement.

To recover the camera I used the instruction posted on the HIK Vision European website: http://www.hikvision.com/europe/support_more.asp?id=269

Within the instruction is a link to download the TFPT server from HIK Visions website: ftp://hikvisioneurope.com/portal/Technical Materials/Special Tools/. This FTP server would not work for me.

During the camera boot-up process both of my the HIK Vision DS-2xx2 cameras (bullet and dome) looked for a TFPT server from which they can download updated firmware (even when bricked). The cameras made a request to the TFTP server on UDP port 9978 and expected a response on UDP port 9979 (observed via WireShark). Normally I thought TFTP ran on UDP port 69 and so I am not familiar with this 9978/9979 chat. It appears to me that without this response the camera would not load the firmware. The European HIK TFTP server provided in the instruction nor my Synology would respond to the camera on port 9979 so the camera would not download the firmware. I ended up finding the HIK Vision TFTP server that looked exactly like the version described in the instructions and it responded correctly on port 9978 and the firmware loaded.

When the firmware loaded it did so within 3 seconds of booting the camera and the HIK Vision TFTP server responded within seconds. The whole upgrade took 2 minutes. I say this because I wasted a lot of time thinking I needed to be more patient.

I ended up using a switch (rather than a crossover network cable) to connect the camera to the computer. When the direct connection cable was used it appeared the port on my computer goes to sleep and is too slow waking up to answer the TFTP request. Using a switch kept the computer network connection from “sleeping” and allowed the camera to find the TFTP server on boot-up. Maybe this is unique to my computer/setup.

I had success when I named and placed the firmware in the folder exactly as shown in the instructions. The pictures in the instruction and the text of the instruction have contradictions; I placed the firmware in the folder with the exe file. The IP address assigned to the TFTP server needs to be 192.0.0.128 as stated in the instructions.

Thanks again to those who have helped by posting on this forum and other.