Blue Iris suddenly 100% CPU constantly

[xiaotuzi]

Hi,

For a while - around 8-9 months I have had Blue Iris running in a VM with Win 2012 server, and monitoring 3 cameras. I has been working fine all the time with CPU around 30% , but suddenly yesterday CPU went up to 100% and stays there all the time. Due to this high cpu% I'm barely able to open BI and change settings, if I try to change them the program crashes.

What could be wrong ? I just downloaded latest update to 4.3.9.0 but that doesn't seem to help, so now I'm lost..

 

[deathcomp]

Did you perhaps change the "video file format and compression" in the record section of the cameras from direct-to-disc to one of the re-encode settings? I had 100% cpu usage from BI until I changed my cameras from using a re-encode option to all use direct-to-disc encoding.

If you haven't changed any of those settings, I don't know why it would just start taking more cpu though.

 

[UKYooper]

Hi,

For a while - around 8-9 months I have had Blue Iris running in a VM with Win 2012 server, and monitoring 3 cameras. I has been working fine all the time with CPU around 30% , but suddenly yesterday CPU went up to 100% and stays there all the time. Due to this high cpu% I'm barely able to open BI and change settings, if I try to change them the program crashes.

What could be wrong ? I just downloaded latest update to 4.3.9.0 but that doesn't seem to help, so now I'm lost..

If you managed to resolve your issue, could you update how please?

My install's been running fine for a year or so and after updating today I seem to have the same problem. I have Blue Iris 4 on a VM running Windows 10 Pro; the Blue Iris process was consuming 30%-60% CPU, it now maxes it out).

If I get to the bottom of it I'll post an update.

 

[xiaotuzi]

A few days later everything went back to normal, so I don't really know what did the trick. At that time I tried to change a few things without immidiate effect.
So far the issue hasn't occured again.

 

[UKYooper]

A few days later everything went back to normal, so I don't really know what did the trick. At that time I tried to change a few things without immidiate effect.
So far the issue hasn't occured again.

Thanks for letting me know, much appreciated. If I figure anything specific out about my setup I'll update the thread.

 

[UKYooper]

An interim update:

I've managed to make the computer usable by locating the Blue Iris process in Task Manager and restricting it to use only one of the 2 available CPUs (by right-clicking the busy process in the Task Manager's "Details" tab and selecting "Set affinity"). This frees up CPU resource so at least Windows functions properly (come on Microsoft, how can you let one process use all the CPU resource to the extent one can't use the Windows 10 "Pro" OS anymore?!).

Unfortunately this "affinity" restriction doesn't persist, so if the the Blue Iris process restarts it will revert to consuming all the available CPU resources again.

 

[UKYooper]

I've worked around the issue for the time being by moving the VM from the iSCSI LUN it has inhabited happily for the past year or so onto a local SSD (the CPU was also assigned a couple more cores, which in hindsight was probably unnecessary).

Before doing this I updated VMWare ESXi from V6.0 to V6.5, upgraded the VM to the latest virtual hardware version and even tried a host with a different CPU architecture; this did not help.

Curiously, even when Blue Iris was not running and disk I/O was minimal, the Windows' Activity Monitor regularly showed 100% "Active time" for the disk (which looked to be due to Windows system processes). Perhaps this was just enough overhead to cause Blue Iris' disk activity to choke and then max out the CPUs. I don't know. All very odd.

EDIT: And the CPU is still being hammered; just not maxed out

 

[Rodrigo Coelho]

I'm with the same problem here. Was running fine until a couple of months ago. Since then, I'm trying everything to solve. It starts ok, using only 30%, but suddenly, 100%.

I've worked around the issue for the time being by moving the VM from the iSCSI LUN it has inhabited happily for the past year or so onto a local SSD (the CPU was also assigned a couple more cores, which in hindsight was probably unnecessary).

Before doing this I updated VMWare ESXi from V6.0 to V6.5, upgraded the VM to the latest virtual hardware version and even tried a host with a different CPU architecture; this did not help.

Curiously, even when Blue Iris was not running and disk I/O was minimal, the Windows' Activity Monitor regularly showed 100% "Active time" for the disk (which looked to be due to Windows system processes). Perhaps this was just enough overhead to cause Blue Iris' disk activity to choke and then max out the CPUs. I don't know. All very odd.

EDIT: And the CPU is still being hammered; just not maxed out

 

[simpleone71]

Anyone figure this one out? I'm experiencing the same thing. It's ran fine for years at around 30% CPU and now sits at around 80%-85%. Will be glad to provide complete hardware setup if anyone thinks it would be helpful so we can all compare.

 

[fenderman]

Anyone figure this one out? I'm experiencing the same thing. It's ran fine for years at around 30% CPU and now sits at around 80%-85%. Will be glad to provide complete hardware setup if anyone thinks it would be helpful so we can all compare.

what exact version are you running?

 

[simpleone71]

4.5.0.2 x64 I'm running it on a Server 2008R2 virtual machine (ESXi 6.5 ).

 

[fenderman]

4.5.0.2 x64 I'm running it on a Server 2008R2 virtual machine (ESXi 6.5 ).

probably something to do with your vm like op..

 

[simpleone71]

I'm going to be looking heavily at the VM this weekend. One thing I've noticed is in task manager, the Memory (Private working set) starts normal, but then climbs to around 5,196,744K and CPU is at 83%. I'm going to research that, but it seems crazy high. The next highest memory-private working set is 180,208K.
I have my VM setup with 4 cpus, 240 GB disk, 16GB ram. The CPU is E5-2650 v2 @ 2.60GHz. The underlying ESXi storage is Raid-10 (12 - 1.2TB SAS 10K disks). The CPU usage routinely gets so high that my ESXi server starts generating alerts about high cpu usage on that machine.

I'll report back if I get it resolved and what I find. Everyone feel free to report what you've tried or suggestions.

 

[UKYooper]

No luck improving my setup I'm afraid, it just seems more resource hungry now. I've not had the inclination to try moving the VM from SSD back to SAN storage.

Do please let us know if you find a solution though!

I spent a lot of time re-reading the help (the only suggestion I got from Blue-Iris support) and fiddling with settings but have not managed to made any further improvement.

I must admit I like the look of the Ubiquiti camera setup, the downside is I think it's restricted to using their cameras, but they manage movement detection, meaning their recording software doesn't need much processing power and just provides a centralised point of management (unfortunately not much good for those of us who've already invested in cameras and setting them up, or have reason to use specific camera models). I recently switched to Ubiquiti's WiFi access points which have so far been fantastic; to Ubiquiti's credit, they seem to be capable of making easy to use, functionally capable and good looking management software (and hardware). With the benefit of hindsight, if I was starting from scratch, I would be seriously considering going down the Ubiquiti route.

 

[fenderman]

No luck improving my setup I'm afraid, it just seems more resource hungry now. I've not had the inclination to try moving the VM from SSD back to SAN storage.

Do please let us know if you find a solution though!

I spent a lot of time re-reading the help (the only suggestion I got from Blue-Iris support) and fiddling with settings but have not managed to made any further improvement.

I must admit I like the look of the Ubiquiti camera setup, the downside is I think it's restricted to using their cameras, but they manage movement detection, meaning their recording software doesn't need much processing power and just provides a centralised point of management (unfortunately not much good for those of us who've already invested in cameras and setting them up, or have reason to use specific camera models). I recently switched to Ubiquiti's WiFi access points which have so far been fantastic; to Ubiquiti's credit, they seem to be capable of making easy to use, functionally capable and good looking management software (and hardware). With the benefit of hindsight, if I was starting from scratch, I would be seriously considering going down the Ubiquiti route.

Or you can run blue iris on a modern blue iris pc instead of a vm...then you can use quality cameras instead of resorting to limited options of ubiquiti...using a vm nice in theory in practice its not ideal for vms software. You might also try running it on w10.

 

[UKYooper]

I preferred it when Blue Iris ran happily on a VM on a modern rack mount server.

I appreciate your suggestion of using bare metal hardware but will only consider using software that runs in a VM environment; fortunately Blue Iris does just about still manage to do so.

 

[fenderman]

I preferred it when Blue Iris ran happily on a VM on a modern rack mount server.

I appreciate your suggestion of using bare metal hardware but will only consider using software that runs in a VM environment; fortunately Blue Iris does just about still manage to do so.

There are many vms options out there..be prepared to pay dearly unless you are using 8 cams or less...

 

[i960]

I'm having the same issue. BI ran flawlessly for the past 8 months or so, then suddenly a few days ago the CPU spikes and frame rate on the cameras drops to between 1-5 FPS and the BI interface becomes almost unusable. This is what my specs are:

Windows Server 2012 R2
Physical server, NOT a VM
2x Intel Xeon E5645 @ 2.4 Ghz
12 physical cores, 24 logical processors
96 GB memory (overkill I know, this was a repurposed server)
8x 1TB 10k RPM drives in RAID 10
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i RAID controller

13x Hikvison 4 MP cameras
Cameras set to 15 fps, i-frame interval 15
Direct to disc enabled on all cameras
Blue Iris 4.5.0.2

I started off with BI 4.3.4.0, then upgraded to 4.4.7.0 sometime last year. CPU has always hovered around 20% and everything was working flawlessly. The upgrade to 4.5.0.2 was done yesterday as something to try after trying to fix this CPU issue. Memory usage is around 6 GB for the server, with the BI service consuming around 3 GB. CPU is around 85-90%. The disks are basically idling, no issue there. If I restart the service, CPU drops back down to the 20% range and the cameras run smoothly at 15 fps. It will stay like this for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, then the CPU spikes right back up instantly and stays there. I'm not sure what to do about this. I have the installers for the older versions, so I could always try going back if needed. My license is also valid, so it's not that.

 

[fenderman]

I'm having the same issue. BI ran flawlessly for the past 8 months or so, then suddenly a few days ago the CPU spikes and frame rate on the cameras drops to between 1-5 FPS and the BI interface becomes almost unusable. This is what my specs are:

Windows Server 2012 R2
Physical server, NOT a VM
2x Intel Xeon E5645 @ 2.4 Ghz
12 physical cores, 24 logical processors
96 GB memory (overkill I know, this was a repurposed server)
8x 1TB 10k RPM drives in RAID 10
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9240-8i RAID controller

13x Hikvison 4 MP cameras
Cameras set to 15 fps, i-frame interval 15
Direct to disc enabled on all cameras
Blue Iris 4.5.0.2

I started off with BI 4.3.4.0, then upgraded to 4.4.7.0 sometime last year. CPU has always hovered around 20% and everything was working flawlessly. The upgrade to 4.5.0.2 was done yesterday as something to try after trying to fix this CPU issue. Memory usage is around 6 GB for the server, with the BI service consuming around 3 GB. CPU is around 85-90%. The disks are basically idling, no issue there. If I restart the service, CPU drops back down to the 20% range and the cameras run smoothly at 15 fps. It will stay like this for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, then the CPU spikes right back up instantly and stays there. I'm not sure what to do about this. I have the installers for the older versions, so I could always try going back if needed. My license is also valid, so it's not that.

can you see memory use creeping up?

 

[i960]

can you see memory use creeping up?

Very little, and only initially. The BI service starts at 3 GB and stays there the whole time. I just rebooted the server to get a baseline and I'm watching it. Memory is currently at 4.8 GB. CPU is sitting at 30%. I'm going to watch it for a bit to see if memory and CPU jump at the same time.

Also, I can connect to the cameras directly and the video is perfectly smooth. Incoming data to the server is around 110 Mbps. Our servers are on a 10 gig network, with 1 gig going to each camera, so I don't think it's network related. I'm trying to think if anything else changed the past couple of days that could have caused this. Like I said, BI has performed flawlessly for quite a while.