Firmware for B400/D400/B500/D500/B800/D800 Seems Broken

john

I have 4 B800 cameras as well as 4 D800 cameras and the latest firmware (found here) seems to soft brick the devices. I upgraded through the NVR and they all showed as successfully being upgraded, but never showed back up. The cameras seem to boot loop every 30 seconds or so. I have had to go to the cameras and press and hold the reset button on them and then they come back. I've only done 5 so far as the other 3 are fairly hard to get to and I just haven't had time. I unchecked the box during the upgrade to update the config file, as I wanted to keep my settings. Of course, hitting the reset button took care of that.

Just a heads up for others. My NVR is the RLN16-410 (H3MB18), running the latest firmware.

And by the way, if there was ever a way to add the camera firmware update functionality to the NVR client, that would be a HUGE plus. Such a pain to hook a monitor up to the NVR as it's in a rack.

Cynthia

Sorry for the inconvenience caused to you. I will forward your suggestion to the R&D department and they'll see whether we receive similar feedback and put it into the schedule.

john

Well I woke up this morning and those same 8 cameras were disconnected again. Only thing I could do was to press the reset button until they reset.

The only thing that I can think of is that I have the NVR set to reboot at 2AM on Sundays. I have since turned the auto reboot off.

The only thing I changed from the last time I reset them was to change the recording bitrates to their max, change the location of the time to the bottom left, set them to record sound, and renamed the channels. Not sure what happened..

Cynthia

If the problem still exists, please contact our support team at support@reolink.com to troubleshoot, they will try their best to help you.

john

Again it happened this morning at 2AM!!! Grrrr!!!! Guess I'll get in touch with support. It had no issues until the latest firmware posted for these models. I tried to "upgrade" again with the same firmware thinking that might change something but it won't allow it as it is the same version number.

john

Is there a way to force a downgrade, and if so, is the firmware available somewhere? For the B800 and the D800.

Steve H.

@John: I think I'm encountering the same problem as you. I recently bought a system with the RLN8-410 NVR (N2MB02) and six B800 cameras. It's taken a while to run the wiring, and I just got my third camera connected when I noticed the firmware update. I downloaded and sent it out to the three cameras, and then like yours they wouldn't reconnect. Talk about discouragement!! I also discovered that a camera would reconnect if I took it down and reset it. But that only lasted until the next boot cycle when it would again go missing.

This evening, I first tried reinstalling the new firmware on one of the cameras. The NVR wouldn't let me reinstall the same version. So, next I tried and was able to downgrade the firmware to the 04/22/2020 version available on the Reolink website. Since then, after 4-5 reboots, it has automatically reconnected each time just like it did prior to me messing with the firmware. I'm encouraged that this may fix my other two dead cameras, but they're hard to get to so it may take me a week to find the time. Hopefully Reolink can fix their latest firmware release so we can take advantages of the latest improvements.

john

I will try this tonight, thank you!!

Steve H.

I agree with John that the 12/09/2020 firmware for B800 cameras is broken. Please notify R&D, and let us know when we can expect a repaired version.

Cynthia

Ok, we will notify our R&D team for further check. You can also send an email to support@reolink.com for further troubleshooting.

mcasey6747

Thank you gents. I was having the same issue. Wasn't sure if it was the NVR or the cameras as I did all of the firmware at the same time.

john

I've updated the cameras to the latest version and everything seems to be just fine, thank you!

Steve H.

@john: Please clarify - you were able to get the most recent firmware to work without disconnecting? If so, how? Or, did you downgrade to the previous version?

john

First I upgraded the nvr as my model had a new update.

I upgraded the firmware from here.

On the cameras, I had them all downgraded to the 04/22/2020 firmware you mentioned and from that upgraded to the new firmware from here.

I've gone through a few reboots with no issues. I had a feeling right away things were good as they came back up after the firmware update, whereas before they did not.

John

Steve H.

Ah, thanks for the reply. I'd missed that there were new firmware releases in the last couple of weeks.