Hikvision DS-7608NI-M2/8P – Recording Failure Following Extended Power Outage

[Brian hansford]

Dear Hikvision Support,

I am experiencing a recording fault with my Hikvision DS-7608NI-M2/8P NVR following an extended power outage of approximately 8 hours.

Fault Description

Prior to the power outage, the NVR was operating normally and recording both cameras using event recording.

After power was restored, the NVR restarted normally. Live View remained fully functional, with both cameras displaying correctly, but the NVR stopped recording completely. No new recordings are available in Playback.

The two connected cameras are: both IP Poe cameras

Both cameras remain online and continue to display live video without interruption.

Troubleshooting Completed

1. Rebooted the NVR several times.
2. Confirmed both cameras remained online and accessible.
3. Confirmed Live View was operating normally.
4. Checked the hard drive status:
   • Status: Normal
   • Property: Read/Write
   • SMART Status: Passed
   • No HDD faults reported.
5. Confirmed HDD overwrite was enabled.
6. Checked the original event recording configuration.
7. Changed both cameras from Event Recording to Continuous Recording as a test.
8. Saved the configuration and rebooted the NVR.
9. Confirmed the NVR still failed to record despite continuous recording being enabled.
10. Checked Playback repeatedly and confirmed no new recordings were present.
11. Reviewed the system logs.
12. Ran the Rebuild Video procedure and allowed it to complete successfully.
13. Recording still did not resume.
14. Confirmed there was no footage on the HDD that needed to be retained.
15. Formatted the HDD through the NVR.
16. The format completed successfully.
17. After formatting, the HDD continued to report:

Status: Normal
Property: Read/Write
Approximately 3.68 TB free space.

1. Discovered the system date and time had reset to approximately 1970-01-03 following the power outage.
2. Corrected the date, time and time zone.
3. Confirmed both cameras remained online and available after correcting the clock.
4. Checked that the NVR firmware is already running the latest available version.
5. Tested the system again with continuous recording enabled.
6. The fault remains unchanged.

Current Condition

At present:

• Live View operates normally.
• Both cameras remain online.
• The recording schedule is configured for Continuous Recording.
• The HDD is recognised as Normal and Read/Write.
• The HDD has been rebuilt and formatted successfully.
• The HDD has approximately 3.68 TB of available space.
• The system date and time are correct.
• The firmware is up to date.
• Playback contains no new recordings.
• The NVR does not record any video

Could you please advise:

1. Why the NVR is not recording despite the cameras being online, the recording schedule being set to continuous recording, and the HDD reporting as healthy.
2. Whether the extended power outage and the system clock resetting to 1970 could have corrupted the recording service or recording database.
3. Whether there are any diagnostic procedures, service resets or database repair functions that should be performed before considering a factory reset.
4. Whether this is a known issue affecting the DS-7608NI-M2/8P.
5. Whether a factory reset is now recommended and, if so, whether the current configuration should first be exported.
6. If a factory reset is not recommended, what further diagnostic steps you would advise.

I am currently accessing the NVR remotely, so I would prefer to avoid a factory reset unless it is considered the appropriate next step.

Thank you for your assistance.

 

[sportster]

From my "poor" vantage point & your diagnosis thus far, it seems to me:

• your M Series NVR is probably recording ok, but the date/time is screwed up between your NVR & cameras vs. real world time.
• thus you can't find any recordings on playback.

To verify, you might be able to scroll back thru the playback calendar to 1970 and see if any video is available.

In any event, I'd suggest:

• verify that NTP is set up correctly on your NVR
• verify the cameras have the correct date/time AND are getting there time sync'd from the NVR or other valid NTP source.

If you make changes to NTP, be sure to re-boot afterwards.

Attached is a pic from my DS-7616-M2 showing my NVR time sync'd to a "local" time server on my network. You might post a similar screenshot from your NVR & cameras, if you've struggling on how to set up NTP.

FWIW, HIK’s clocks are notorious for drifting a lot, so don’t expect them to keep accurate time without configuring NTP.

And if your clocks check out 100% on both your NVR & cameras, you got something else going on I'm not familiar with. Sorry.

BTW, good write up on what you’ve checked and attempted.

 

[Brian hansford]

Dear Sportster,

Your name should really be SportSTAR. I can’t thank you enough.

After reading your reply, it reinforced what I’d already been thinking, that it was likely a time issue. This morning, after reading your post and seeing that the system had been recording continuously on both channels since yesterday, I noticed the free space on the HDD had reduced by 103 GB. That confirmed something was definitely being recorded, which then made me wonder whether the problem was actually with playback.

That brought me back to your suggestion about the time settings. I matched the NTP settings to yours, and then… BANG… it hit me. I noticed I had the wrong calendar month selected, completely forgetting we were still in month 7.

The frustrating part is that I must have looked at that date 20 or 30 times yesterday during the 4–5 hours I spent trying to get the system recording again. It’s a perfect example of confirmation bias, I became so convinced the fault had to be something technical that I completely overlooked the obvious.

Thanks to your advice, I stopped digging deeper and found the real problem. Without your reply, I’d probably have spent several more hours today chasing faults that simply weren’t there.

Thanks again, I really appreciate you taking the time to help.

 

[johnfitzy]

your M Series NVR is probably recording ok, but the date/time is screwed up between your NVR & cameras vs. real world time.

Your name should really be SportSTAR.

Nice call SportSTAR!