First System Lockup Since Commissioned

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Last night at 11:15, I decided to power up my monitor and verify my system is nominal before retiring for the night. To my surprise, the PC was fully locked, BI was frozen on daytime view at 4:50 PM. I couldn't even get the mouse pointer to move, couldn't get task manager up (CTRL + ALT + DEL), nothing, frozen. Had to hard shutdown via power button. Paused a few minutes, powered up, started BI: the timeline tracks were blank, all recording stopped at 4:50 PM, recording resumed nominally upon launching BI, checked the BI Status "Log," nothing, nothing except the red X stating "Restarted after unexpected shutdown (1500/240)"

But I wouldn't believe the system actually "shut down." If it did, why would the BI GUI be displayed in a frozen state from 4:50 PM? I was home watching TV at 4:50, and no clocks are blinking, no evidence of a power surge or outage.

Is there anywhere else I can look for "logs" to try and understand what went awry?

System was deployed in December this past year and has run free of hiccups until yesterday.
 

Mike A.

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I've had that happen a couple of times for no apparent reason. Over a long period of time. Wouldn't bother trying to chase it unless you have it happening more than that. Too many variables.
 

Flintstone61

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I'll toe the Forum line here and say what was said to me a few times, " Did you perform a clean install of Windows using the Media Creation Tool?" before installing BI?
2.Have there been any Intel graphics updates in Windows updates?
 
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Last night at 11:15, I decided to power up my monitor and verify my system is nominal before retiring for the night. To my surprise, the PC was fully locked, BI was frozen on daytime view at 4:50 PM.
So why did you decide to look at it then? Is that something you do every night?

checked the BI Status "Log," nothing, nothing except the red X stating "Restarted after unexpected shutdown (1500/240)"

But I wouldn't believe the system actually "shut down."
It states that it RESTARTED after unexpected shutdown. Which means that it did not make a normal shutdown. The shutdown was you powering the PC off with the power switch.
 
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Mike A. “…Wouldn't bother trying to chase it unless you have it happening more than that. Too many variables.”
Yep, pretty much my mindset at this point, I didn't stress too much last night, but was just glad I caught it.

Flintstone "…Did you perform a clean install of Windows using the Media Creation Tool?" before installing BI?" Yes, back in December before deploying the system.
“2. Have there been any Intel graphics updates in Windows updates? Ummm, not sure? But this machine never sees (can’t POSSIBLY see) the internet. But how do I check anyhow? :confused:

wittaj “And 3, have you turned off Windows updates and BI updates?”
Windows updates is turned off now, but it was “running” before (my oversight). BI updates is/was off from the get-to.
Can Windows Updates still perform actions even if the machine never sees/and is physically unable to ever see the internet?
Services.jpg

Updates.jpg


samplenhold: “So why did you decide to look at it then? Is that something you do every night?”
Yes, in fact, multiple times daily, but particularly every night before bedtime. Remember, I have a stalker to keep an eye on...so at the end of my day, I check the cams (and walk outside) to survey the street, verify the 'hood is "quiet," and take note of the last time I reviewed footage so I know where to pick up in the morning when checking for my stalker (not to mention any other creepy assholes that are compelled to troll our street for no apparent reason). For what it's worth, I've had an LPR lock up in the past (and a turret go completely out of focus) for no apparent reason, so I'm a bit cautious (overly, perhaps) about keeping tabs on the system at all times, and last night at 11:15 was exactly the reason why...my surprise discovery validated my concerns. With a trash-tossing stalker still harassing me, I can't afford to miss anything. I'm still waiting for the cops to address my report, and still collecting evidence...yesterday morning at 3:10 or so, the asshole threw a white kitchen trash bag full of rotten black banana peels in front of my driveway...hey, at least he's keeping the evidence coming while the cops chase murderers.

Tracks.jpg


"It states that it RESTARTED after unexpected shutdown. Which means that it did not make a normal shutdown. The shutdown was you powering the PC off with the power switch."
Okay, I get that, it's showing me what it logged when it was able to take data. But why wouldn't there be anything logged when it locked up or the system froze? Is there a place I can look for such data? It seems to me that the blank tracks suggest that BI became incapable of recording anything at 4:50 when the tracks end, I suppose BI was just unable to do/log anything from that point on because the whole system became disabled.

Log.jpg


Banana Peels...

Banana Peels.jpg
 
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I should have elaborated in the post above.

At 4:50pm your PC froze. For whatever reason. So BI no longer was writing to disk. That is why you have no entries for that time after until you forced a reboot.

Your log file has no entries before the reboot since it was cleared at the reboot time. But if you click on 'Open File' at the bottom, the entire file for the month will open in a Notepad window. I doubt it will give you much info at the freeze.

Sorry about your stalker. I have been reading your posts about the prick. Did you by any chance remote log in at 4:50pm? Or pull up or close a UI3 connection at that time? I have had hiccups on rare occasions from remote access sessions.

As far as your PC updating w/o internet access, can't happen. If it is truly isolated from the internet, then it can't update.

I have had cams freeze when the SD card got full even though it was supposed to overwrite. Reformatting the card seemed to fix that.

You could bring up event viewer to see what happened at 4:50pm. It might give you some idea, at least what program froze maybe. I have rarely had much luck digging around those logs in Windows.
 

Flintstone61

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I had trouble with this on my optiplex 7020. But I had a myriad of glitches to work out and did not nail it down to 1 thing exactly.
But I suspect the HDD was having trouble and perhaps making errors. ( Refurbished WD 6TB Blue with a 5 second warranty)
and a WD refurb 5TB Blue.
I discovered much later, when I put the 6TB Blue drive in my home machine, that it stalls and stammers once in awhile. might be a rebadged WD Green drive that liked to Park the heads every 30 fucking seconds.
once I got rolling with a good Surveillance drive. and a 6 core intel, things have gone swimmingly. :)
 
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Your log file has no entries before the reboot since it was cleared at the reboot time. But if you click on 'Open File' at the bottom, the entire file for the month will open in a Notepad window. I doubt it will give you much info at the freeze.







Speed Test
 
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Hi guys, my apologies for the laggy reply, it was a bit rude, but I wanted to dig into my system to investigate some of your questions and get to the bottom of some of it, and then time got away from me, so here goes....

@samplenhold, you said/asked: (in blue)

Your log file has no entries before the reboot since it was cleared at the reboot time. But if you click on 'Open File' at the bottom, the entire file for the month will open in a Notepad window. I doubt it will give you much info at the freeze.

Response: I've clicked on 'Open File' many times ever since I started using Blue Iris, largely because I'm a "click-and-poke-around" type of guy and I want to investigate what's behind closed doors, and to my curiosity, every time I've ever clicked 'Open File' I've been greeted with the Blue Iris dialog box, one with the RED-X railroad crossing icon, that says "Sorry, the file could not be found." And, same in this case, same after the freeze-and-reboot, same always, "Sorry, the file could not be found." I must have something set up incorrectly.

Did you by any chance remote log in at 4:50pm? Or pull up or close a UI3 connection at that time?
Response: No, I have the absolute, most rudimentary setup, it is completely isolated from any access other than right at the PC keyboard; no wifi, no ethernet to the web, no routers, no 2nd NIC, no nothing, a prime example of an entirely stand-alone system closed off from the rest of the world. Your comment about no updates reaffirms my understanding in this case: that no automatic updates can occur in my situation.

I have had cams freeze when the SD card got full even though it was supposed to overwrite.
Response: I don't have SD cards in any of my cams.

____

@looney2ns, you said/asked: (in green)

Is the system on a good Backup UPS, including all POE switch's?

Response: No, not yet. I have been investigating options, but I think I need something that can carry the system for several hours during a power outage, and those seem to be unavailable, except at exorbitant price points. When the power goes out at my house, it's usually not a brief event, but can last an hour or more. I do believe I understand the point of the UPS that you're referring to: it's to keep the system up during brief drops in power/voltage, or at least long enough so that I can implement a longer-term backup power response as soon as we do lose power. But, what if it happens in the night, when I'm sleeping? Then the UPS goes dead in 15 or 20 minutes, does it not? And then I'm at square one, am I not?

Have performed every single item here: Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage | IP Cam Talk
Pay particular attention for the part about Antivirus software, even Windows Defender.

Response: Most of them, but not substreams...yet. I just went in and set anti-virus exclusions for my BI program/database folder per the wiki. I also just went and turned off Disk Defragmenter for the 4TB Purple where all of my New clips go, per the wiki....I then noticed in the Optimize Drives dialog that it stated "Needs optimization (65% fragmented)" I presume this is a non-issue and to just let Blue Iris manage the disk.

Oh, and the "loser" drove by at 1:30 this morning and tossed another blue "surgical" face-mask out the window in front of my driveway. Keepin' it fresh. Let'c if the Popo gonna do sumptin' about it.

Thanks again for your replies, I keep learning more all the time as I go along.
 

sebastiantombs

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A decent UPS supply will gracefully shut down the system before the batteries of the UPS go dead during a power outage. That is some insurance that nothing gets corrupted or lost during the power outage.
 
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Your log file has no entries before the reboot since it was cleared at the reboot time. But if you click on 'Open File' at the bottom, the entire file for the month will open in a Notepad window. I doubt it will give you much info at the freeze.
Response: I've clicked on 'Open File' many times ever since I started using Blue Iris, largely because I'm a "click-and-poke-around" type of guy and I want to investigate what's behind closed doors, and to my curiosity, every time I've ever clicked 'Open File' I've been greeted with the Blue Iris dialog box, one with the RED-X railroad crossing icon, that says "Sorry, the file could not be found." And, same in this case, same after the freeze-and-reboot, same always, "Sorry, the file could not be found." I must have something set up incorrectly.
Do you have the Save to file box checked?

1652561387270.png

Maybe you have not defined a proper folder for the files to be written to. What happens if you click on Open Folder? You can define the location by using the three dots button to the right of the file path.
 
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Do you have the Save to file box checked?
Maybe you have not defined a proper folder for the files to be written to. What happens if you click on Open Folder? You can define the location by using the three dots button to the right of the file path.
Ahh! I do not :)

As looney2ns would say, I better go to the "Help File!" :p
 
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