Blue Iris 5 stopped recording for unknown reason

[Sybertiger]

Damn...I'm glad it's Friday...I think I'll start happy hour early...LOL!

Okay, okay...lemme make a drink and I'll come back and see if I can muck it up more or less or something...ANYTHING....

 

[smiticans]

You can use my settings as a template. Please note that drive "D" is a 4TB drive and the size is limited accordingly.

My "stored" folder is not used

You need to disable compact/repair. When BI is performing this task, all recording is paused. You can do this manually every few months.

 

[Sybertiger]

Hey thanks!...I appreciate that. Now that I've made a drink(s), I've decided to go take a refresher course on clips and storage by reading the manual...if all else fails, right? The last time I looked at it was when I purchased/installed BI4 a year ago and set things up correctly, or I thought...LOL. Over the last year I didn't spend enough time getting acquainted with BI4 then when BI5 came out I waited for it to stabilize then upgraded last month followed by a couple of new cams. I'm trying to get up to speed with BI5 which I never did with BI4, however, I had things set up the past year working according to plan until it broke or I broke it...LOL.

Anyhow, looking over the BI5 manual it looks like my original config with the db and New folders was on target. I pasted some excerpts below. That last excerpt shows I violated the rule about allocating every last byte...oops! Okay, I'm gonna go muck it more and see what happens...will report later. Thanks again!

 

[smiticans]

I also read that file earlier. It's recommended to place the "New" folder on the C drive if you're transferring recorded storage to a NAS drive or an external USB drive. Since you are not doing either one of those you're wasting system resources by having it transfer files between drives for no reason. Plus that setup is more complicated which increases the chances of something going wrong or breaking. The help file states its acceptable to have the "New" folder on your 2nd internal HDD.

 

[Sybertiger]

I also read that file earlier. It's recommended to place the "New" folder on the C drive if you're transferring recorded storage to a NAS drive or an external USB drive. Since you are not doing either one of those you're wasting system resources by having it transfer files between drives for no reason. Plus that setup is more complicated which increases the chances of something going wrong or breaking. The help file states its acceptable to have the "New" folder on your 2nd internal HDD.

Yes, I saw the comments about optional New folder. I was just going by the book at the time (as that was the default setting) and my comments were just meant to quash what some folks may have referred to as simply wrong...inefficient, yes. I have a NAS but for now that another project/story.

 

[smiticans]

A lot of the default settings in BI need to be changed in order for it to function efficiently. Your storage configuration was referred to as wrong because it is due to your specific configuration. Just because it's wrong doesn't mean it won't work.

Let us know how it goes after you change those settings.

Also note- the "stored" folder on your E drive is probably filled with footage which is going to be a problem. The footage will have to be moved to the "New" folder on you E drive or you need to delete the footage. If you don't BI won't be able to allocate to the "new" folder properly because the E drive will already be full.

 

[Sybertiger]

As I recall, the original-original setup was to utilize the SSD as a temp storage for one day's worth of clips. The video clips pop up a little faster when retrieved from the SSD. I might change it so all recordings go directly to the 6TB drive but I might look into using my NAS too as supplement space...don't know yet.

THE GOOD NEWS...I finally found that tree that was sitting in the forest. It was kind of screened out. See below...

 

[Sybertiger]

The shield was RED. But, I couldn't see it as it was partially obstructed by the RDP window thingy (whatever it's called). Slide it to the right and low and behold the shield was RED. Apparently it go click to stop all recordings accidently....LOL!

Click that lil' badboy and it turns GREENS and all the recordings start....OMG!

 

[Sybertiger]

Anyhow, getting back to my original problem in the OP only time will tell if the recording problems for those two cams was fixed. I suspect it was because my space allocations got screwed up when the latest cams were added. I don't think it was because I only has 20GB allocated for the New folder. Soon as it filled up it should have moved it to the Stored folder then continued on it's merry way. I highly suspect the problem could be I didn't have enough "headroom" to hold one hour's worth of recordings for all six cams per the BI5 manual warning.

 

[fenderman]

The shield was RED. But, I couldn't see it as it was partially obstructed by the RDP window thingy (whatever it's called). Slide it to the right and low and behold the shield was RED. Apparently it go click to stop all recordings accidently....LOL!

Click that lil' badboy and it turns GREENS and all the recordings start....OMG!

A good way to avoid this is uncheck disable recording in blue iris options>other

 

[fenderman]

Note though that this would not explain why this was happening to only two cameras and at a particular time.

 

[smiticans]

As I recall, the original-original setup was to utilize the SSD as a temp storage for one day's worth of clips. The video clips pop up a little faster when retrieved from the SSD. I might change it so all recordings go directly to the 6TB drive but I might look into using my NAS too as supplement space...don't know yet.

THE GOOD NEWS...I finally found that tree that was sitting in the forest. It was kind of screened out. See below...

View attachment 54510

I've been using BI since 2015 and I don't recall it ever being recommended to store footage on the primary SSD drive and then have it transferred to your storage drives.

I would go though all of your camera settings and make sure they're set to record continuous for each of your profiles.

 

[Sybertiger]

I've been using BI since 2015 and I don't recall it ever being recommended to store footage on the primary SSD drive and then have it transferred to your storage drives.

I would go though all of your camera settings and make sure they're set to record continuous for each of your profiles.

I'm sure the following is what I was going off of at the time and with the SSD it seemed to make sense. Clips pop up a bit faster which is nice and it's setup to only hold the clips for the current day which are most likely the one's I'd take a looksie at on any given day.

 

[Sybertiger]

This should be more than enough headroom to handle one hour's worth of 6 cams. I hope that (not enough headroom) was the issue and it resolves the original weirdness I experienced. I should know by daybreak tomorrow.

 

[smiticans]

Yeah, what that means is don't put the database/New folder on an external drive. I'm not too sure about modern SSD's, but constantly writing data to older SSD's shortened their lifespan. Consumer SSD's are not designed to be in a surveillance environment where they are constantly written to. Look up the make/model of your SSD and see what it's rated for.

I don't notice any slowdowns while reviewing footage that's stored on my WD Purple drives. How are you watching the clips?

 

[fenderman]

Yeah, what that means is don't put the database/New folder on an external drive. I'm not too sure about modern SSD's, but constantly writing data to older SSD's shortened their lifespan. Consumer SSD's are not designed to be in a surveillance environment where they are constantly written to. Look up the make/model of your SSD and see what it's rated for.

Note, the database is repetitively small and should always be on the ssd.

 

[Sybertiger]

Yeah, what that means is don't put the database/New folder on an external drive. I'm not too sure about modern SSD's, but constantly writing data to older SSD's shortened their lifespan. Consumer SSD's are not designed to be in a surveillance environment where they are constantly written to. Look up the make/model of your SSD and see what it's rated for.

I don't notice any slowdowns while reviewing footage that's stored on my WD Purple drives. How are you watching the clips?

I agree with that and it's a concern. SSD's have a fixed life for sure.

 

[Sybertiger]

I don't notice any slowdowns while reviewing footage that's stored on my WD Purple drives. How are you watching the clips?

Not slow...just a little bit snappier. I use RDP or TeamViewer from a laptop into the BI server........UI3 or BI app on Android devices.

 

[Sybertiger]

Well, tentatively I'm going to say the problem has been solved. No weirdness with the two cams that started this thread. Everything recording as it should. My only guess is that the added cams threw a wrench into the system because I possibly didn't have enough headroom working space (the green space) per the BI5 manual. From what I can tell my original 20GB New folder was less than ideal but should work fine in that BI5 would have simply moved the New folder to Stored if/when if filled up prior to my 1 hours cut/clip. It's probably best to make the New folder large enough to handle the all the cams (similar to the headroom calculation) or as other have pointed out just record to disc straight into the Stored folder so you don't have to think about it or worry about it if you expand your camera count. Thanks to everyone for your help, opinions, suggestions, etc.

 

[Mikk36]

You're still saving new recorded items onto the SSD.
Stop thinking about the "Stored" folder at all, you don't need it, because you're not moving files off-server (over network to somewhere else) or onto an external drive.
Only use the "New" folder and that's it (set the option to "Delete").

This is how You keep the DB on the SSD (C: ) and video files on your spinning drive (D: in my case, E: for You).
Local/fast storage means stands for local with high enough throughput (write speed). USB 2.0 external drives do not have enough bandwidth for that, for example. 100 Mbps network can also be an issue, if sending multiple streams over it.