CrazyAsYou
Getting comfortable
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Yes, running fine on one of my systems, AMD CPU, Nvidia GPU with CUDA enabled for the CP.AI
- Thread starter Blue Iris Update Bot
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I totally get the trend that every developer seems to be moving to "subscription" based software plans these days to create a continuous income stream. I am totally fine paying for upgrades and new features annually bc there is a cost to support for the dev there and without a model for them to get a "regular paycheck", small devs like for BI would not be able to survive.
But some of it is getting out of hand. Heck, I heard last year or so, BMW started charging a monthly "subscription fee" to be able to turn on your seat heaters! ...Which you could not unsubscribe from during the summer.
But not a fan of having to pay for bug-fixes of a version you already have. Bug fix updates should always be free. That said, I am still on Ver. 5.2.9.2 because it works fine, ( for my needs and on Win 10.. which I'll also be forced to buy a whole new computer to go to Win11 some day!).
Someone in an earlier post asked when V6 was coming out and there was an appropriate response after that people are getting hung up on the versioning # and holding off to upgrade. I think that mentality is actually going to cost developers $$ from delayed purchases with this current subscription model.
Not sure where this is coming from...just had a few spare minutes to drop my unrequested 2 cents.
But some of it is getting out of hand. Heck, I heard last year or so, BMW started charging a monthly "subscription fee" to be able to turn on your seat heaters! ...Which you could not unsubscribe from during the summer.
But not a fan of having to pay for bug-fixes of a version you already have. Bug fix updates should always be free. That said, I am still on Ver. 5.2.9.2 because it works fine, ( for my needs and on Win 10.. which I'll also be forced to buy a whole new computer to go to Win11 some day!).
Someone in an earlier post asked when V6 was coming out and there was an appropriate response after that people are getting hung up on the versioning # and holding off to upgrade. I think that mentality is actually going to cost developers $$ from delayed purchases with this current subscription model.
Not sure where this is coming from...just had a few spare minutes to drop my unrequested 2 cents.
fenderman
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BI is not a subscription service. It will keep working indefinitely other than app push notifications (once the certificate expires). A subscription service and when you cancel your subscription - this is not the case here.
The developer knows his income stream and makes the decisions as he sees fit. You are not entitled to bug fixes after your subscription runs out - you will have to simply go back to the last stable version. This is how most software works.
Would it make you happier if he would simply hold all the new features for a year then simply release v6? A new version every year?
The website is clear that when you purchase BI the included basic protection provides for 1 year of Major version upgrade protection which would get you v6. Even if it didnt, someone putting off buying a VMS of potentially having to spend 40 bux down the line to upgrade has a bigger problem and should probably be looking at an alternative solution.
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It is a noble goal, but sadly impractical. Bugfixes and new features are mixed together in each update and there's no way to separate them that doesn't involve maintaining an ever-increasing number of branches of the code base (which would be a ridiculous waste of time).
I have been running on UI3 version 70, Blue Iris version: 5.4.9.17 for a few years and have been very satisfied with the software, but reluctant to upgrade knowing there would be bugs. I attempted to upgrade to a newer version with UIv253 a couple of years ago but didn't like the way the software arranged the cameras
I have my cameras set up to view in a 3x3 grid (at the time) and it would make a 4,4,1 arrangement. I wanted a way to force it to the 3x3 and didn't see it at the time so I reverted to UIv70.
I've been setting up new security systems and have the new systems under the latest software in Demo mode. I really wanted some of the new features such as
I paid the support fee and upgraded the software with an in place upgrade to version 5.8.3.3
. All was running well, for a short period but then problems persisted so badly that made me revert back to 5.4.9.17 and UI70.
- From the web interface, under different browsers, when clicking on a camera it either
* Has no response to bringing up the selected camera in an individual view
* Will pull up the camera for 1 second then switch to different camera
- After about a day or so of running half of the cameras starting going offline
(using some older FOSCAM FI89/FI98x cameras) The cameras are disconnected from the network, will not respond to pings although the network jack's lights are lit up and flashing as if showing activity and will not come back online until power cycled. They last from 1 to 5 minutes before going offline again. Other cameras stay online such as 3 RTSP feed cameras, a WANSCAM camera and a D-Link camera; it appears that most of the cameras going offline are the FOSCAM FI8918W Series
I removed and reinstalled BlueIris 5.4.1.9.17 and UI70 and all is running back to normal.
I read through the BlueIris history updates and determined that version 5.5.6.21 seems to have the major features that I am looking for and have upgraded my smaller home system for testing. So far so good.
I have my cameras set up to view in a 3x3 grid (at the time) and it would make a 4,4,1 arrangement. I wanted a way to force it to the 3x3 and didn't see it at the time so I reverted to UIv70.
I've been setting up new security systems and have the new systems under the latest software in Demo mode. I really wanted some of the new features such as
- the TIMELINE view / playback in the UI3 web interface
- the ability to rearrange the cameras for the individual groups
- the UI setting to turn off Dynamic camera arrangement
I paid the support fee and upgraded the software with an in place upgrade to version 5.8.3.3
. All was running well, for a short period but then problems persisted so badly that made me revert back to 5.4.9.17 and UI70.
- From the web interface, under different browsers, when clicking on a camera it either
* Has no response to bringing up the selected camera in an individual view
* Will pull up the camera for 1 second then switch to different camera
- After about a day or so of running half of the cameras starting going offline
(using some older FOSCAM FI89/FI98x cameras) The cameras are disconnected from the network, will not respond to pings although the network jack's lights are lit up and flashing as if showing activity and will not come back online until power cycled. They last from 1 to 5 minutes before going offline again. Other cameras stay online such as 3 RTSP feed cameras, a WANSCAM camera and a D-Link camera; it appears that most of the cameras going offline are the FOSCAM FI8918W Series
I removed and reinstalled BlueIris 5.4.1.9.17 and UI70 and all is running back to normal.
I read through the BlueIris history updates and determined that version 5.5.6.21 seems to have the major features that I am looking for and have upgraded my smaller home system for testing. So far so good.
- turn off dynamic view of the camera arrangement
- the TIMELINE playback in the web interface
- camera groups positioning
When you have dynamic camera layout enabled, you can right click the video in UI3 and choose "Group Settings" where you can increase the group streaming resolution for one thing, but you also have the option to lock the group stream to any aspect ratio you want. This way you aren't forced to choose from a few predefined options like if you lock the aspect ratio in Blue Iris's layout editor. UI3 lets you fine-tune it to achieve the layout you want with a minimum of wasted black space between or around cameras. But it is not a server-side setting, so it is something you have to configure in every browser where you use UI3, so it may not be worth the tradeoff for you.
You may have just picked a particularly buggy version. It sounds like UI3 was not understanding the camera layout information it was receiving from Blue Iris. If you experience that again, it would not hurt to clear the browser cache (don't clear cookies though) and reload the page to ensure that you're getting the correct version of UI3's script files to load. It is possible that if a UI3 update got extracted at just the wrong time or didn't extract fully, then your browser has cached the wrong version of a script file.
Thank you! Sound like I have some playing to do ... and some patience to learn. This will work well as I have many different viewing devices and can adjust each station and group for each such as tablets, phones, big screens, etc. I don't do well with change
Gonna stick with 5.6 for a while and may work my way up a ways, creeping and testing the UI3 and BI software as I go.
IAmATeaf
Known around here
I suspect that after the backend server meltdown the method used to determine and also access the updates has most likely been closed?
The bot was a God send as the actual BI updates web page most times always seems to be out of sync when compare to the latest actual update available via the BI GUI itself.
Fortunately, we get somewhat more detailed update notes from @fenderman when most full "point" (second to last octet or higher) releases come out. Often with a day or two delay, but thankfully they are more complete than the extremely brief release notes on the "update screen".
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Well, I went up to version 5.7.9.12 UI3v253 and seem to have all of the controls I want so farThank you! Sound like I have some playing to do ... and some patience to learn. This will work well as I have many different viewing devices and can adjust each station and group for each such as tablets, phones, big screens, etc. I don't do well with change
- TimeLine
- Individual Group Camera Arrangements
I did determine the problem with the cameras not coming up or showing the wrong camera when clicking on a camera for control - apparently, it messes up when Dynamic Group Layout is [Off]. Turning on Dynamic Group and I can click on Cameras
I was able to use the Group Settings and get the cameras to arrange in a 4x3 or 4x4 grid depending the groups - thank you for that advice. I still wouldn't mind seeing a Fit to X x Y Grid function that would just force the arrangement desired.
I did again have the problem where all of my cameras and my wifi power plugs on the cameras went offline. I tracked it down to maybe a problem with my network switch OR one of the other computers on the bench in for repair. I think one of those devices couldn't handle the traffic and put bad stuff out on the network. I'm not 100% sure it is directly related to the Blue Iris software - although, the computer on the bench was my test bed for latest Blue Iris for software and hardware testing. So, I may have had 2 systems on the network accessing the cameras.
Gonna keep running it and testing it for a while.
SpacemanSpiff
Known around here
Well - more news no my disappearing cameras problem after a week of monitoring. I let things run for a while longer without any significant problems. Friday I decided to make a new group and camera arrangement. To do this you of course go to the camera settings, modify the group and save. When you save the camera settings the BlueIris software appears to send a soft reset, or maybe more, to the camera, After about the 3rd camera all of the normal suspect cameras (Foscam FI89xxx series cameras) started going offline (lost connection & no ping response) again. This tells me that the suspect other devices on the network that were offline have nothing to do with the cameras going offline. It took me a while, but I did get them all back online by powering them all down and back up a few times, resetting the BlueIris server a couple of times and taking one more suspect machine on the bench offline. All started working well again for about 6 hours then the same cameras went offline.
Back to the shop to fight with cameras again Sat afternoon. This time all I did was power cycle all of the cameras again for them to come back onilne, last about 3-5 minutes then offline again. I went ahead and created the group and rearranged the cameras while the cameras were offline. Next step shut down the BlueIris service, power up all of the cameras and monitor the cameras with a ping test look and different (TinyCam Pro) software from one of my tablets. I let that run for about 30 minutes then started up BlueIris Service and shut down the TinyCam Pro monitor. I went to each suspect camera's video configuration settings while everything is online and had the BlueIris software rescan and reset the driver for the camera. They've been up for 13 hours without dropping offline yet.
Short answer, I am quite convinced that something in Blue Iris is communicating bad data causing the cameras to shut down until reset. This server and these cameras have been running without a problem for years on the older 5.4.9.17 software and didn't act like this until the upgrade. Of course, the group management funcitons weren't available so I didn't go through the same process with the cameras to set & reset cameras quite the same. Problem could have been on the older versions too, just didn't show up so frequently.
If anyone is interested, I'll report back on further findings. I'm really trying to not revert back to the older version. I'm a little disappointed that I haven't heard back from the Blue Iris support team (or guy).
IAmATeaf
Known around here
It read everything but with the very latest update isn’t there an issue where some cams without audio have audio enabled and as the latest update now has a watchdog for audio thinks there is an issue?
Fix is to check and disable audio in the cam?
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Blue Iris Update Bot updated Blue Iris Updates (64 bit) with a new update entry:
5.8.5.3
5.8.5.3
Read the rest of this update entry...
IAmATeaf
Known around here
Oh my God, is this now working? People and minions of these forums, I say rejoice! 
Wow, a BIG THANKS to whoever was involved in getting this working
Wow, a BIG THANKS to whoever was involved in getting this working
It's working! @bp2008 and I fixed itOh my God, is this now working? People and minions of these forums, I say rejoice!
Wow, a BIG THANKS to whoever was involved in getting this working
How about this?Where the hell is the I Salute you guys emoji
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Blue Iris Update Bot updated Blue Iris Updates (64 bit) with a new update entry:
5.8.5.4
5.8.5.4
Read the rest of this update entry...