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Q-See DVRs and Password Recovery

Dr. KlahnPrincipal Software Engineer
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With his trusty 026 keypunch and ASR33 TTY, Dr. Klahn is building a PC of extraordinary magnitude!
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Edited by: Rob Jurd
The related questions "How do I recover the passwords for my Q-See DVR" and "How can I reset my Q-See DVR to eliminate a password" are seen several times a week.  Here we discuss the grim reality of the situation.

Several times a month we see questions along these lines:


"I've forgotten the password for my Q-See DVR.  How can I reset / recover it?"

 "I've purchased / found / been given a Q-See DVR and it has a password.  How can I clear it?"


When this question arises, it's too late for us to point out that all important passwords should be written down on paper and kept in at least one safe place.  Passwords are easy to forget, and easy to lose when a single keystroke on a PC or a bad block on a disk can destroy the file containing all your passwords for everything.


Q-See as a company believes in strong security.  This is one of the valuable features you pay extra for when you buy Q-See as opposed to a generic DVR.  They deliberately, by design, make it extremely difficult to get into a Q-See DVR without the password.  That DVR and its contents are then completely useless to anyone who steals it or finds it in a second-hand store.  This is as it should be with a device intended for security purposes.


All information available -- and this question has been asked for many years -- indicates that there is no customer "back door" into Q-See DVRs.  There's no back door even for us technomages with access to hardware troubleshooting tools.  There's no JTAG header boot-time magic, no universal override password, no chip swap, no firmware reload to clear passwords, no jumper on the main board that can be shorted to clear everything.


The only way to unlock a Q-See DVR is with the assistance of Q-See Customer Service.  The DVR must be registered on the Q-See site first, then they will assist if they are satisfied that you are the owner.  Expect a charge for this service; it falls outside of normal customer service operations.


Q-See Customer Support can be contacted via the web page below.  Note:  This is a moving target and changes from time to time.  If you find the link is dead, let me know so I can update it.


http://www.q-see.com/Home/Index/contact_us.html


 

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Dr. KlahnPrincipal Software Engineer
CERTIFIED EXPERT
With his trusty 026 keypunch and ASR33 TTY, Dr. Klahn is building a PC of extraordinary magnitude!

Comments (3)

Kyle SantosQuality Assurance
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Commented:
I don't have an explanation for the increased traffic to this question, but I've told them about your article each time.  These two pieces of content are also the top 2 results in Google.  That's awesome.  =)
I cant log in my Q see
User name admin
Password 123456
Wrong n i know i did not change it n know i cant log in
The admin pw: admin or 123456 doesn't work for the laptop program, I tried to uninstall the software off the laptop and reload it but it still doesn't work.


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