Blue Iris UI3

[TheWaterbug]

I haven't seen that happen but I haven't exported anything in a while. Is Blueiris.exe actually crashing when you click on them? If you right click the clips in UI3 you should be able to choose Download clip without having to open it the normal way at all and that would have a much higher chance of working because Blue Iris will just send you the file without decoding it.

BlueIris.exe is fine. I believe the bug is on the UI3 side.

If I trigger the bug, and then choose a different clip to Convert/Export, and I leave UI3 open long enough, it will automatically download successfully. And then if I go back into the Clipboard to try and re-download that same clip that downloaded automatically, it fails.

So I think the server side is doing the correct thing, and it looks like the Clipboard is populating with the wrong or malformed URLs. But that's just a guess.

 

[TheWaterbug]

I have encountered a recurring (but infrequent) display bug. Sometimes, one of my cameras gets displayed as zoomed in, but BI/UI3 thinks it's zoomed all the way out. Here's the correct view:



Sometimes, perhaps once every 2 weeks, I'll click on one of the cameras (say, the upper-right camera) to look closer, and I'll get a view of that camera, incorrectly zoomed all the way in:



If I click again to return to 4-Up view, that camera is still displaying zoomed in:



Using my mouse wheel to zoom out doesn't fix it, in either view, as UI3 believes it is already zoomed out to the minimum:



Reloading the page doesn't fix it, nor does clicking repeatedly to switch between solo and 4-Up. The only thing that restores a proper view of that camera is re-logging in by clicking my shortcut to

http://mydnsdomainname.dyndns.org:81/ui3.htm

I don't have to log out; I just have to click that bookmark again.

The curious thing is that, IIRC, this tends to happen with the one particular camera, and if I am rewinding/playing/stepping back and forth around a particular Alert clip, it happens repeatedly. As if there is something in the video stream at that particular time that's confusing either the server or the client.

The top two and lower-right cameras are Amcrest IP5M-T1179E; the lower left is Amcrest IP5M-B1186E which, IIUC, has the same core.

Has anyone else seen this?

 

[bp2008]

I have encountered a recurring (but infrequent) display bug. Sometimes, one of my cameras gets displayed as zoomed in, but BI/UI3 thinks it's zoomed all the way out.

Interesting bug. I haven't seen that before. It is definitely Blue Iris doing something weird (UI3 could not do that even if it wanted to).

 

[TheWaterbug]

Interesting bug. I haven't seen that before. It is definitely Blue Iris doing something weird (UI3 could not do that even if it wanted to).

Has it tried?

Well, I suppose I'll wait for BI 6 before submitting a bug for BI 5.

Still waiting for 6. . . . . . . .

 

[bp2008]

It won't get fixed in 5 if he doesn't know about it. Of course it probably is not easy to fix.

 

[EvanVanVan]

I'm having trouble getting ui3 to load on my remote computer via wireguard. I can ping the BI ip address via the tunnel successfully. It loads properly on my phone with the same wireguard tunnel. On the computer though, it just shows a blank page and spinning icon.

It's same issue in Chrome, incognito mode, Edge (Chromium), and Firefox. Windows 11.

BI version: 5.9.0.2.

Any ideas? My BI license is currently expired so updating isn't the easiest.

TY

 

[bp2008]

@EvanVanVan no idea

It won't be a fault of your BI version.
It also isn't likely to be a firewall issue since it works from your phone.
And you obviously have the VPN connection working since you can ping the BI machine from your affected machine.

 

[EvanVanVan]

Lol yeah me neither, I haven't dug too deep but think I hit all the most likely causes. I also don't know when it first started happening because I haven't checked the cameras regularly in 6 months

 

[Buxton]

Hello, I have a couple of requests that I've been considering for a while and thought I'd place them together to see if any are feasible.

Would it be possible to place a small warning icon on a camera's image when a camera is paused. My situation is that I pause cameras through Home Automation when certain situations arise, and then reset them through HA when the conditions expire. But sometimes the HTTP call that unpauses a camera fails, and the given camera remains paused until I stumble upon its state by going directly into Blue Iris. A small corner icon in the camera image signifying a paused state would give me a head's up that I need to take action. I'm not sure if Blue Iris supplies that paused data through its API.

Secondly, there are certain cameras in my setup that capture more critical alerts than my other cameras. I'd like to be able to specify these "critical" cameras in the UI3 camera properties so that if a camera is flagged as critical, there would be a notice or message on screen of an alert that would persist until I physically close the alert. The notice would be specific to a given instance (specific monitor) of UI3. So for example, my garage monitor would have different critical cameras than one of my house monitors. The alert should contain the camera name.

Finally, I often see a bug that involves a file lock. If I play back a clip on a given monitor (I have several monitors around the house) and then close the clip, Blue Iris or UI3 will not let me delete the clip unless I close the browser on the monitor I used to view the clip. Or I have to restart Blue Iris, which also clears the lock. Is there a way to clear the lock at the time that the clip is closed?

Thanks for looking at this and if not possible, no worries as I really appreciate what you've built here.

 

[bp2008]

Hi @Buxton.

Would it be possible to place a small warning icon on a camera's image when a camera is paused. My situation is that I pause cameras through Home Automation when certain situations arise, and then reset them through HA when the conditions expire. But sometimes the HTTP call that unpauses a camera fails, and the given camera remains paused until I stumble upon its state by going directly into Blue Iris. A small corner icon in the camera image signifying a paused state would give me a head's up that I need to take action. I'm not sure if Blue Iris supplies that paused data through its API.

I should be able to do that quite easily. I have a system in place for showing icons when certain camera properties are set, and "paused" is one of the properties available for consideration so I just need to code that up.

Secondly, there are certain cameras in my setup that capture more critical alerts than my other cameras. I'd like to be able to specify these "critical" cameras in the UI3 camera properties so that if a camera is flagged as critical, there would be a notice or message on screen of an alert that would persist until I physically close the alert. The notice would be specific to a given instance (specific monitor) of UI3. So for example, my garage monitor would have different critical cameras than one of my house monitors. The alert should contain the camera name.

This is a more open-ended suggestion, and significantly more work, but definitely possible.

Blue Iris keeps track of the number of unseen alerts, per camera, per web server user account, and this number is readily available to UI3 just like the "paused" state. Clearing this number can be done by opening the latest clip from each camera, or by right clicking the alert list shortcut in the top bar and choosing "clear counters".



Anyway I could have UI3 look for this number being > 0 and add another optional overlay icon that appears when this number is greater than 0. Or a toast message or something more custom. I'm not sure just what level of visibility you're looking for here.

With a minor extension to my icon overlay system, I could make an overlay icon show the number of unseen alerts (like the alerts shortcut in the top bar does already).

I could also make that icon into a button so that clicking on the icon sent you to the Alerts page and maximized that camera (in order to filter by it). Not sure I would want to do that though. That would only save you one click (instead, you could click the camera and click the alerts shortcut in the top bar), and I don't like the idea of adding clickable buttons in front of the video player any more than necessary.

Finally, I often see a bug that involves a file lock. If I play back a clip on a given monitor (I have several monitors around the house) and then close the clip, Blue Iris or UI3 will not let me delete the clip unless I close the browser on the monitor I used to view the clip. Or I have to restart Blue Iris, which also clears the lock. Is there a way to clear the lock at the time that the clip is closed?

This would be a bug in Blue Iris. Contact Blue Iris support about it

 

[Buxton]

Anyway I could have UI3 look for this number being > 0 and add another optional overlay icon that appears when this number is greater than 0. Or a toast message or something more custom. I'm not sure just what level of visibility you're looking for here.

This sounds like the way to go. The idea is that if I am in my garage, and there's an alert from the other side of the property on the front steps--which I have designated as a critical camera for the garage monitor-- there would be a toast like message on the screen with the message displaying the camera name + " alert". That way if I'm outside and I don't hear my MQTT audio warning for the front steps, when I return to the garage I will see the alert and then click on it to close. I can then subsequently act on the alert clip.

 

[bp2008]

@Buxton
UI3-284 includes these new features. It is just overlay icons for now, because I suspect a long-lasting toast message would be annoying to the point of being disruptive.

Version 284​

• Added a system for UI3 to store settings on a per-camera basis.

UI Settings > Event Triggered Icons​

• Added option to show an orange pause icon overlay on cameras with the Pause function active.
• Added option to show a yellow icon overlay on cameras with new alerts (newer than you've seen).
  • This option can also be enabled on a per-camera basis via UI3's Camera Properties dialog.

 

[Buxton]

That's awesome. Thank you so much.

 

[Buxton]

Hello,

I've had a chance to look at the new alert changes and there are a couple of problems.

The pause icon does show when UI3 enabled and I pause a camera from the UI3 camera properties. The icon does not show if I pause a camera through an http call to Blue Iris such as "

http://10.xx.yy.zz:8070/admin?camera=Front_Yard&pause=-1&user=Buxton&pw=*********

". I tried a browser refresh, and a forced browser refresh (ctlr + refresh) and neither worked. I also tried an http pause call while the browser was open and then closed and these too did not work, though the camera properties pause menu item showed the camera as paused.

The alert function appears to work but only for secondary cameras that are part of group alerts: for the primary triggering camera in a group of cameras, there is no alert icon. As well, cameras that are AI confirmed alert do not show the icon and these are definitely the alerts that I would like to see trigger an icon.

 

[bp2008]

Hello,

I've had a chance to look at the new alert changes and there are a couple of problems.

The pause icon does show when UI3 enabled and I pause a camera from the UI3 camera properties. The icon does not show if I pause a camera through an http call to Blue Iris such as "

http://10.xx.yy.zz:8070/admin?camera=Front_Yard&pause=-1&user=Buxton&pw=*********

". I tried a browser refresh, and a forced browser refresh (ctlr + refresh) and neither worked. I also tried an http pause call while the browser was open and then closed and these too did not work, though the camera properties pause menu item showed the camera as paused.

The alert function appears to work but only for secondary cameras that are part of group alerts: for the primary triggering camera in a group of cameras, there is no alert icon. As well, cameras that are AI confirmed alert do not show the icon and these are definitely the alerts that I would like to see trigger an icon.

Pause icon bug fixed in UI3-285.


As for the new alerts icon, I can't find any bugs in that implementation. Most likely something else is causing the newalerts field in your camera metadata to be reset to 0 prematurely, causing the icon to disappear for that camera.

If you view an alert for a camera, Blue Iris considers that alert and all older alerts from the same camera to be viewed. So if you view the latest alert, the newalerts field gets set to 0 for that camera, and the icon would disappear in UI3.

Viewing an alert is easy to do by accident. Mousing over the alert tile in UI3 causes the preview animation to open and that is sufficient for Blue Iris to consider the alert to be viewed. Reviewing past video via the timeline also can cause alerts to be marked as viewed. It could be a different device causing it, if you have more than once device logged in to the same Blue Iris user account, since they would share the same view state tracking. Maybe you have some automated action occurring upon trigger or alert that is accidentally considered it to be viewed. I also wonder if maybe something about the AI integration could cause it. E.g. if the AI engine is sent more than just the alert's thumbnail graphic, possibly Blue Iris could be consididering that to be a view and therefore resetting the newalerts field to 0. I don't use AI at all in my Blue Iris setups so I don't know if that is a bug or not but it would not surprise me.

 

[DarkHelmet]

@bp2008 Misc ideas:
When viewing a group, add ability to right click a PTZ cam and trigger a preset without needing to go fullscreen.

Add speed setting to PTZ control area and hotkey entry.

 

[CJ133]

I was going to start a new thread because I don't know what I have going on is a bug, or my stupidity but I'm fairly sure it's UI3 related.
For a long time I was running all of my cameras on H265 but I recently changed to 264 for both main and substreams. I feel like ever since I did that change (but don't know for sure) my UI3 under Chrome on my Android phone is only showing substreams no matter how long I wait after going to full screen on a camera or what I do.

I'm not sure if that's it or something else because a lot of motion makes the image far worse as if the bitrate isn't high enough. I'm using the same 2160P 4K profile I always have and I'm on wifi in my own house and I've confirmed it's not an internet or network bandwidth issue. I've tried changing the encoder settings under the webserver tab on BI and it doesn't seem to matter. I've put them back to default for the time being.


On the main system everything looks fantastic like always but on my phone it's as bad as a 2004 flip phones video recording.
I don't get it and I've run out of ideas. I'm currently on BI 5.9.3.4 x64

 

[bp2008]

I was going to start a new thread because I don't know what I have going on is a bug, or my stupidity but I'm fairly sure it's UI3 related.
For a long time I was running all of my cameras on H265 but I recently changed to 264 for both main and substreams. I feel like ever since I did that change (but don't know for sure) my UI3 under Chrome on my Android phone is only showing substreams no matter how long I wait after going to full screen on a camera or what I do.

I'm not sure if that's it or something else because a lot of motion makes the image far worse as if the bitrate isn't high enough. I'm using the same 2160P 4K profile I always have and I'm on wifi in my own house and I've confirmed it's not an internet or network bandwidth issue. I've tried changing the encoder settings under the webserver tab on BI and it doesn't seem to matter. I've put them back to default for the time being.


On the main system everything looks fantastic like always but on my phone it's as bad as a 2004 flip phones video recording.
I don't get it and I've run out of ideas. I'm currently on BI 5.9.3.4 x64

Weird. I am not sure what would cause that besides having a low res quality profile selected, which you don't. UI3 actually barely has any awareness of sub streams, and certainly does not control the transition between sub stream and main stream when maximizing a camera. This most likely a bug in Blue Iris, not in UI3.

Have you restarted the Blue Iris service at least once to see if that fixes it? (assuming you run BI as a service which is the only sane way to do it in my opinion)

Are other devices running UI3 affected?

For troubleshooting, you can try opening UI3 in an incognito window as that will not be able to access your normal UI3 settings so it will be all defaults.

Screenshot the configuration of your Streaming 0 profile so I can double check it for correctness. There are a few things in there that could limit your bit rate or resolution or both (mainly, UI3 needs to be allowed to override streaming settings or else the quality profile list in UI3 will be crippled).

 

[bp2008]

@bp2008 Misc ideas:
When viewing a group, add ability to right click a PTZ cam and trigger a preset without needing to go fullscreen.

Add speed setting to PTZ control area and hotkey entry.

Hmm, I am not thrilled with cluttering up the context menu for this especially since UI3 gets used on all kinds of screen sizes, some of them very small.

And unfortunately I can't control PTZ speed. Back when I was adding gamepad/joystick support, Blue Iris added a more advanced PTZ control method for me which does have per-axis speed control but unfortunately that never got to a reliable state before Ken stopped working on it so that feature is pretty much stuck in limbo.

The ultimate plan for PTZ is to replace the PTZ button pad with a virtual joystick with separate zoom/focus controls. That will have pan/tilt speed control naturally baked in without the need for a speed number to be inputted. But I'm not going to do that until the joystick API from Blue Iris is working properly and reliably. I intend to add a UI Setting at that time to restore the old PTZ pad for any users who just hate the joystick experience or can't use it for some technical reason.

 

[CJ133]

Weird. I am not sure what would cause that besides having a low res quality profile selected, which you don't. UI3 actually barely has any awareness of sub streams, and certainly does not control the transition between sub stream and main stream when maximizing a camera. This most likely a bug in Blue Iris, not in UI3.

Have you restarted the Blue Iris service at least once to see if that fixes it? (assuming you run BI as a service which is the only sane way to do it in my opinion)

Are other devices running UI3 affected?

For troubleshooting, you can try opening UI3 in an incognito window as that will not be able to access your normal UI3 settings so it will be all defaults.

Screenshot the configuration of your Streaming 0 profile so I can double check it for correctness. There are a few things in there that could limit your bit rate or resolution or both (mainly, UI3 needs to be allowed to override streaming settings or else the quality profile list in UI3 will be crippled).

Switching between main and substreams might just be me remembering what BI does rather than what I see on my phone.

Here's the Streaming 0 profile.



I just tried it on my son's ipad and it seemed like it was the exact same as my phone. Low quality and motion makes it worse.

I think I need to look at my internet connection on the camera PC and make sure that side of things is working correctly. It sure seems like something is having bandwidth problems no?