Computer becoming non-responsive and losing alerts in time line

[Gilera]

I have been using Blue Iris for a few weeks now. Im am running on a Dell 5820 with Xeon and Nvidia P2000. Only other application on the machine is Home Assistant on a Hyper V VM. Licensed version of Windows 10 Pro. I have had 5 instances now of a random non-responsive computer. Recordings stop, usb keyboard and mouse do nothing. I have to force restart by holding down the power button. Previously i was running Milestone on another windows computer and it has been rock solid for 5 years. One of the reasons for changing was that i bought a couple of Dahua 5442 cams and i wanted to use camera side IVS and have alerts show up in the timeline which Xprotect could not do. I am recording 24/7 on 5 cams and download certain clips that are triggered by the camera side IVS.

I have been struggling a bit with BI in general. Its always takes a while to get used to new software but i personally find BI quite unituitive when it comes to the user intetface on both the console and the UI. Exporting a certain piece of footage for example seems unecessarily complicated to me. I'm sure I'll get used to it but having the computer crash is really testing me. There is nothing in either the windows logs or the BI logs just prior to the crash to give me any clues. Of course it is possible that it is a hardware or windows issue but my feeling is that it is BI causing the crash. When searching, i have found quite a few reports of similar behaviour but no resolution.

For some reason, the most recent crash on 26/12 caused all previous red alert lines in the timeline and in the clips list to dissapear. I now only have clips since the last crash. This seems odd behaviour and very frustrating as there were several clips I was planning on downloading in the list.

I have updated graphics card driver to latest from NVIDIA website, updated to latest version of windows, updated to latest version of BIOS, checked memory usage in case of memory leak (RAM about 50% CPU 20%). All this prior to last two crashes.

If I cant work it out I guess I'll put Xprotect on the mschine and see if it still happens. If not i guess I'll go back to it despite its lack of sbility to display camera side alerts in the timeline.

Any suggestions?

 

[wittaj]

Your experience isn't normal.

What is the GPU being used for? If you are not using it for CodeProject, it is a waste of CPU and energy.

Turn off Hardware Acceleration and do not use the GPU for that - only use the GPU for CodeProject.

Have you done the optimizations in the wiki?

Are you allowing BI and Windows to auto update?

What version of BI are you using?

 

[Gilera]

I am using it for HA. I am not running substreams at the moment, just limiting frame rate in the view to 5 FPS. Apart from that yes i have gone through the wiki. I have not downloaded codeproject. For me just alerts via IVS is enough. Its the latest stable version (not on computer right now). When i login it says im up to date but I can check. Ive turned off windows auto updates. Ive added exceptions to defender for blue iris folders and ticked the options to let BI through firewall on both public and private.

 

[Gilera]

Blue Iris is not set to autoupdate.

 

[wittaj]

Using it for Hardware Acceleration is probably your problem.

Around the time AI was introduced in BI, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration on (even if not using DeepStack or CodeProject). Some have also been fine. I started to see that error when I was using hardware acceleration several updates into when AI was added.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, but the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU (internal or external) is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using hardware acceleration.

My CPU % went down by not using hardware acceleration. Here is a recent thread where someone turned off hardware acceleration based on my post and their CPU dropped 10-15% and BI became stable. A GPU is only needed if you plan to do a lot of CodeProject, which would be insane as most find the AI in the cameras to be more than enough.

But if you use HA, use plain intel and not the variants.

You really should use substreams. If they were not of benefit, none of us would be using them. NVRs have taken advantage of the substreams for years. You can always bump the bitrate of the substream if the quality is too low for you in multi-camera view. And the camera will go to mainstream if you solo it.

You can still record 24/7 mainstream while using substreams. There really is no downside to running substreams. After a day or two of the multicamera in substream, most get used to it.

 

[Sybertiger]

Let me throw this out here:

BI GUI perpetually stuck

Trying to get the GUI going and it just seems stuck starting the service. From the UI3 interface I can see memory usage has jumped way up. Not sure what started this. I haven't updated any thing at all in quite some time. No driver updates and no BI updates....zilch, nada, nothing. The only...

ipcamtalk.com

Make sure your video storage disk isn't starting to crap out.

 

[Gilera]

Using it for Hardware Acceleration is probably your problem.

Around the time AI was introduced in BI, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration on (even if not using DeepStack or CodeProject). Some have also been fine. I started to see that error when I was using hardware acceleration several updates into when AI was added.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, but the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU (internal or external) is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using hardware acceleration.

My CPU % went down by not using hardware acceleration. Here is a recent thread where someone turned off hardware acceleration based on my post and their CPU dropped 10-15% and BI became stable. A GPU is only needed if you plan to do a lot of CodeProject, which would be insane as most find the AI in the cameras to be more than enough.

But if you use HA, use plain intel and not the variants.

You really should use substreams. If they were not of benefit, none of us would be using them. NVRs have taken advantage of the substreams for years. You can always bump the bitrate of the substream if the quality is too low for you in multi-camera view. And the camera will go to mainstream if you solo it.

You can still record 24/7 mainstream while using substreams. There really is no downside to running substreams. After a day or two of the multicamera in substream, most get used to it.

Well you have convinced me to try that for sure. The Xeon doesn't have iGPU so using the card was needed for HA. I'll activate substreams and turn off HA and see if it helps.

 

[TonyR]

Well you have convinced me to try that for sure. The Xeon doesn't have iGPU so using the card was needed for HA. I'll activate substreams and turn off HA and see if it helps.

Just an observer here.....
Your reference to "HA" is "Home Assistant", correct?
I think @wittaj 's reference to "HA" is "Hardware Acceleration" in Blue Iris.

 

[Gilera]

Let me throw this out here:

BI GUI perpetually stuck

Trying to get the GUI going and it just seems stuck starting the service. From the UI3 interface I can see memory usage has jumped way up. Not sure what started this. I haven't updated any thing at all in quite some time. No driver updates and no BI updates....zilch, nada, nothing. The only...

ipcamtalk.com

Make sure your video storage disk isn't starting to crap out.

I had wondered this. Im using 2 Skyhawk 4tb drives as a dynamic volume. They pass the healthchecks on crystaldiskinfo but do have some hours of them. How to tell?

 

[Gilera]

Just an observer here.....
Your reference to "HA" is "Home Assistant", correct?
I think @wittaj 's reference to "HA" is "Hardware Acceleration" in Blue Iris.

No sorry that is confusing. I meant Hardware Acceleration.

 

[wittaj]

That was the beauty of substreams is it allowed so many computers without a iGPU to become functional computers for BI, along with older computers becoming viable options as well.

As a test, I disabled and deleted the iGPU driver in mine and the computer worked just fine, so unless you are doing CodeProject or need that port on the GPU to go to a monitor, you are simply burning energy running that GPU.

Make sure you turn off Hardware Acceleration at the global and camera level.

 

[Gilera]

Any ideas on the older alerts disappearing from the timeline and alerts clip list? You think it could also be related to using harware acceleration?

 

[wittaj]

Any ideas on the older alerts disappearing from the timeline and alerts clip list? You think it could also be related to using harware acceleration?

That is certainly a possibility if the crash was enough of an issue and at the wrong time, I could see it rebuilding the database and when the database is rebuilt, it will lose the thumbnail alerts for anything prior to the rebuild - but all the video is still there, just the alert pointers and thumbnails are gone.

But usually crashes don't result in a DB rebuild, so hopefully turning off HA and going to substreams fixes your issue!