Detecting remote PC hang up

[fishinforfacts]

I am running BI on a dedicated desk top computer at my normal winter home. However, I am not there this year due to Covid 19. Periodically the PC hangs up and I have to remotely power it down and repower it to get it running again. I use a smart plug to accomplish that task. The problem is intermittent and seems to be related to power surges / brown outs. Although, it may be related to something else which I am not aware of eg. overheating. I have found that if I do an automated middle of the night recycle power where I power off and almost immediately power on that I have fewer problems. Occasionally I will still get a hang up. Normally, I access the remote computer at least once a day and review any events for the last 24 hours. However, sometimes I am unable to access it due to the freeze up, so I go through the power recycle and about 3 minutes later I am back up and running. The problem is I never know how long the system was hung. Now for the question. Is there a way in BI or BI Tools to send me an email or text message on some schedule to let me know everything is fine. That way if I don't get a message I know that I need to take action. Barring that does anyone have a suggestion for how to accomplish something close. Essentially a heart beat monitor. Also, has anyone experienced anything like this that might have suggestions on what might be causing the hangup.? All last winter and up until about July or August I never experienced this problem. Thanks.

 

[bp2008]

ipcamtalk just happens to have the ability to monitor your Blue Iris server, if you have it port-forwarded through your router.

Uptime Watchdog

ipcamtalk.com

 

[samplenhold]

if you have it port-forwarded through your router.

But I thought port forwarding was bad.

"You're gonna endanger us, you're gonna endanger our client - the nice lady, who paid us in advance, before she became a dog..."

 

[bp2008]

Port forwarding is only as unsecure as the service you expose through it. Big NVR brands like Hikvision and Dahua have lots of known issues and almost never get software updates, and they expose multiple endpoints to the web which increases the attack surface.

So I don't trust NVRs. But I do trust Blue Iris. Blue Iris only exposes one port. Blue Iris does not have a big list of known cybersecurity problems, and the few that have been discovered were quickly patched. Blue Iris gets updated very frequently (if you bother to keep support active and install the updates). It is also easy to check your remote connections status in Blue Iris once in a while to see how many unwanted IP addresses are in there. I almost never see any because I use high port numbers that don't get scanned very often.

I'm willing to expose Blue Iris without a VPN because I'm willing to accept the risks in exchange for the benefits of it being openly accessible.

 

[samplenhold]

I almost never see any because I use high port numbers that don't get scanned very often.

So if I understand this correctly, you used the Remote access Wizard and instead of using port 81, you used a high number port, like 32681, and have not had any issues? No other changes to the default wizard entries?

 

[SouthernYankee]

some PC computers have a hardware watch dog time , it is set in the BIOS I believe,

 

[fishinforfacts]

ipcamtalk just happens to have the ability to monitor your Blue Iris server, if you have it port-forwarded through your router.

Uptime Watchdog

ipcamtalk.com

Can you provide instructions on how to set this up? How do I set up the text message or email, specifically the email address or phone number? Do I set it up on the remote machine or my local machine.

ipcamtalk just happens to have the ability to monitor your Blue Iris server, if you have it port-forwarded through your router.

Uptime Watchdog

ipcamtalk.com

Thank you for you help on this. I got it working and it is precisely what I was looking for. Thanks again.