5.5.0 - September 13, 2021

Ssayer

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@samplenhold Figuring it's been out through a few revisions now,I just put 5.5.0.12 in. Aside from a few clicks in the Edit Layout area, it was pretty painless to set up my normal 20 cameras to look like it's always been. Heck, once I did that, if I didn't know, I wouldn't notice any difference.

I still need to adjust some of the other groups, but I really don't foresee any difficulties.
 

Ssayer

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I see my first post was 9 minutes ago. In that time frame, I did my 6 other groups to look like they've always looked. Like I said, pretty painless...
 

sebastiantombs

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How's it look in UI3 though?

@samplenhold Your guess is as good as anybody else. The layout changed as soon as went to 5.5.0.7 or whatever the first one was.

A light bulb just went off for me. Maybe when hidden or disabled cameras are enabled they are only visible in the group on the current screen rather than globally. I'll have to check that out.
 

bp2008

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So a question: I wait for a stable version. Once the next stable version is a 5.5.x.x will I be forced to rework the layout? Or will my now current layout be used by that 5.5.x.x version?
If you just use a basic default layout with no cameras larger than others, then very little will change, and you can adjust things using the layout editor in BI.
 

Ssayer

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I didn't have to do anything in UI3. Four different tablets each have a different group of cams. They just picked right up where they left of at 5.4.9.18
 

sebastiantombs

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@bp2008 That's why I'm not real happy with this whole thing. I have four cameras I consider to be "primary" and have them at double size on the console. They are double size in UI3 when compared to the rest except for the fact that the display only uses about 2/3 of the available screen. Result is that everything is actually smaller in UI3.

The light bulb moment was correct. Hidden/disabled cameras only appear in the group they are enabled for. Enabling them is no longer a global setting. It does save toggling them on and off so I'm happy it works that way.
 

sebastiantombs

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Unfortunately my love affair with 5.5.0.x is over unless and until there's a stable version of it. I was on 5.5.0.13 and everything seemed fine. Today I swapped out a 3241T-ZAS with a 5442T-ZE. That required deleting the 3241, actually three cameras with the original and two special purpose clones, and re-creating the same scenario for the 5442. That's when it all went sideways in a big way.

Re-creating the base camera went fine and the main screen remained the way I wanted it. Then the problem of groups came along. In my ancient brain the camera is where the group gets set or created, but not so with 5.5.x. The group assignments now happen in the console configuration. WTF? OK, got it set and working fine.

Next up was the first clone and that's when it went sideways. Got the camera created, set detection and yada yada. Then set the groups. Everything seemed fine until I went to the ""hidden" group since that clone is a hidden camera. It wasn't displaying even though that group was set to display hidden cameras. Went back to the main screen looking for it there. Nope, not there either. Back to the hidden group and the screen didn't change. About 20 seconds later BI crashed.

OK, rebooted and tried it again. Einstein was right. Reverted back to the latest stable version and everything works fine. I emailed support about it, complete with a debug file from Visual Studio. Got an almost immediate reply asking for a copy of the registry when that happens. I am not installing 5.5.x again just to do that. I've wasted enough time and eaten enough Gaviscon with 5.5 already.
 
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JDWX

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Sad when most people just don't have the time to master this stuff. I have a business and a ton of obligations to run and am here late on a Saturday trying to get the cam system to work in a way I can use it haha. When it worked awesome previously.

Not a power user. I don't use groups and only have 12 cams. They were perfectly set up in the GUI, but they are all now open in random desktop frames, two are grouped together and i can't figure out why. They aren't in a group together.

Totally wonky. lol Trying to get it as I have no idea when I won't be able to swap back to a thole stable version.
 

Tazz 316

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I went back to the old UI. I liked the one main window on the left side and being able to drag smaller windows from the right side to the main viewing window. It was fast and simple.
 

sebastiantombs

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While it's an interesting concept, screen driven configuration, it does seem far too complex to be worth the effort. The end result is "normal" settings are buried in the screen configuration which makes the learning curve far too steep. I'm not one to spend hours watching YouTube videos, or video on the PC to begin with and Zoom is totally a no-no to me. The Help file is not very helpful with this new improvement(?) from what I can see.
 

looney2ns

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Sad when most people just don't have the time to master this stuff. I have a business and a ton of obligations to run and am here late on a Saturday trying to get the cam system to work in a way I can use it haha. When it worked awesome previously.

Not a power user. I don't use groups and only have 12 cams. They were perfectly set up in the GUI, but they are all now open in random desktop frames, two are grouped together and i can't figure out why. They aren't in a group together.

Totally wonky. lol Trying to get it as I have no idea when I won't be able to swap back to a thole stable version.
Takes less than a minute to roll back to the last stable version.
Turn off automatic updates, and don't update "just because" unless you are willing to put up with possible bugs.
 

JDWX

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Takes less than a minute to roll back to the last stable version.
Turn off automatic updates, and don't update "just because" unless you are willing to put up with possible bugs.

Certainly agreed. I always wait on updates to see if folks are saying anything. He's certainly made it easy enough to try an update, and go back if there's issues.

So, I update, try to iron it out this situation with what I suppose is my less than adequate understanding of the finer points of this software. And when I get tired I revert back up to the old release. I'm trying. I don't think this is a bug really, it's just above my understanding of the software at the time. But, I guess my point is it shouldn't be this much of a thing. Not sure most users are even at my level, which is minimal haha. And I've been a with this VMS for a long time. I'm just not a power user like many here. I rarely say much, but I'm here listening and trying to learn :) You are definitely one of the folks I pay attention to btw.
 

TheWaterbug

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Both of these are about camera settings on the 'General' tab:
View attachment 101621

#1. The 'Groups' control on the 'General' tab is no longer editable (it should probably be grayed out, but not disabled in order to scroll/view long entries).
Group membership (camera add/remove) is now managed via the Edit layout mode right-click context menu 'Select cameras...'
Sorry if this is staring me in the face, and I'm just not seeing it, but how/where does one now create a new Group? I can edit membership of an existing group, but how do I create a new one?
1632525814015.png
Thanks!
 

jaydeel

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Maybe try this…
  1. Open an existing group in the layout editor, right-click in the green area, select ‘Copy to new group’.
  2. Open the new group in the layout editor, right-click in the green area, select ‘Select cameras’.
 

bp2008

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The only way I could find to create a group was to copy an existing one (you can copy "All cameras" if you have no others). This is done by clicking the "Edit layout" button 1632544475790.png and then right-clicking in the video area, and near the bottom of the context menu will be "Copy to new group".

5.5.x is definitely a little buggy still. I've had numerous issues in the console with even the most basic layouts, such as cameras being in the wrong position, clicking on a camera causing a different one to be selected, and newly added cameras not appearing right away. I am also not happy that you can't edit group membership from within camera properties anymore.
 

TheWaterbug

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Maybe try this…
  1. Open an existing group in the layout editor, right-click in the green area, select ‘Copy to new group’.
  2. Open the new group in the layout editor, right-click in the green area, select ‘Select cameras’.
The only way I could find to create a group was to copy an existing one (you can copy "All cameras" if you have no others). This is done by clicking the "Edit layout" button View attachment 102743 and then right-clicking in the video area, and near the bottom of the context menu will be "Copy to new group".

5.5.x is definitely a little buggy still. I've had numerous issues in the console with even the most basic layouts, such as cameras being in the wrong position, clicking on a camera causing a different one to be selected, and newly added cameras not appearing right away. I am also not happy that you can't edit group membership from within camera properties anymore.
Thank you, gentlemen. That's a strange workaround, but it does work! I have my new group now.
 

ARAMP1

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Okay, I see how to create a new group by using the above method. But, how does one add a new camera to an existing group? I think the workaround now is to just create a new group and add all the cameras to it, old ones and the new.
 

wittaj

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Does anyone know how I can change UI3 back to a grid of cameras side by side rather than stacked vertically? I assume it has to do with the latest update.
So I just updated to the most recent version and when I went to UI3, I had it showing as two vertical columns instead of the previous layout of them all bunched together in a grid format.

At first I didn't like it, but now I do, but when I went back in to UI3, it reverted back to the old grid format. Like within 10 minutes difference between logging in and out.

It appears in the new version in BI we cannot go to webcasting a specify a frame size like we used to ( UI3 Help)

So do we have control over the layout in UI3?
 
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