Password reset when installer not known?

[cymruchris]

I'm currently trying to help someone gain access back to their NVR - the original 94 year old owner passed away, and the 75 year old niece that's taken over the property doesn't know who originally installed it. It's pretty low down model in the Hikvision range - but she'd still like to get it up and running. It appears the original installer didn't set up a 'pattern' or a working 'reserve email', so I can't see an easy way around getting it reset from my end. I can see the unit in my SADP (I now have the unit at home with me) - and can get the relevant .xml file - it's a DS-7604NI-K1/4P(B). From my understanding, if this xml file is sent to Hikvision, am I right in saying they can send back a file to unlock and reset the unit? Would anyone know how this could be done when the original installer isn't known? (The same question might apply to an installer that's gone out of business I guess?)

 

[Phil]

We have a half-baked plan to take on cases like this:
We thought we would make a charge to make non-customers of use-IP Ltd 'Premium Members' of this forum, and thereby deem them "customers".
We have great sympathy with these end-users / stranded-system owners.
There are lots of reasons why this can happen to people.
There are quite a lot of people that end-up in this scenario.
Believe me, we receive several password resets every night, by email, from all over the world!
It's a fairly straight forward process for us to help them sort this out, but, at the moment we draw the line at not doing password resets for non-customers.
It is our understanding however, that very often they contact Hikvision Tech Support and get a cold shoulder

We were thinking of offering Premium Membership to the forum at £36 per annum (equivalent to £3 per month).
Premium members would get priority here.
We would help purely on a best endeavours basis.
Office hours; 9-5; Monday to Friday.

We provide loads of help & support Free of Charge anyway.
The small fee just legitimises us extending this extra degree of support (e.g. password resets) to those that need that help.

@Kyle configured the forum to accept the payment / have Premium Members about 2 years ago!

The team here discussed it again very recently (2nd August - see attached).

We just have not yet 'pulled the trigger' for fear of any pushback / upset.
The team responded to the below with a number of concerns.
Mainly worried that people might expect too much and be disappointed i.e. for such a small fee we are NOT going to gear-up for out-of-hours responses!
And, despite masses of experience, we might not be able to fix every problem

Another thing that we discussed, was to provide our fairly thorough system design responses to Premium Members only e.g. those where @Dan for example provides paragraphs of experience & advice on which model camera to fit where, and why. They take a fair amount of time, and we seldom benefit from an order for our effort ...

That's it.
That's revealed what we have considered / done so far.

Any thoughts / feedback appreciated

 

[cymruchris]

I like the proposal, and would suit someone that regularly installs systems, but likely it wouldn’t suit everyone. Although I’ve got the knowledge - I’m not a pro installer - I’ve fitted some systems to foodbanks on a voluntary basis, an owl community project, and this lady who happened to be a close friend of my departed dad, but that’s as far as I’ll go. Having a fee of that level on an annual basis couldn’t be justified to me - as I don’t ‘make money’ from anything I do cctv wise. (I’m probably the exception to the rule in that respect) However you could possibly look at charging a nominal fee to complete a password reset as a potential alternative? Would that be feasible?

 

[JB1970]

@cymruchris If you were to contact any Hikvision installer local to you they would be able to carry out the reset for a charge, regardless of who installed the system originally, using their supplier to get the reset xml.

For that matter, if you're regularly installing systems, your own suppliers tech support (assuming they're an authorised dealer) would provide you with the reset xml. At least that's been my experience.