FTPS works…sometimes

[watcher444]

Hello, I am looking for some help from someone familiar with the FTP (with TLS authentication) functionality of Blue Iris (BI). I am enabling FTPS transfers from my BI remote sites so if someone breaks into my property, sees the computer and run off with it, I should have some of the files already transferred to my “home base”.

Before it’s brought up…I already have the files saved to an hidden external USB drive but it would be better for me if I had the video files transferred to my home rather than having to fly out to the remote sites to retrieve the video.

As far as the remote BI FTP configurations are concerned, I believe they are OK. When I test the connection everything works fine.

A little relevant information about my setup:, I have “idle disconnect” set to 30 seconds and “max connections” set to 3. For each camera I have checked “Queue new clips for backup” and my home base FTPS server chosen in my “Clip Backup” FTP server, and “Leave file as-is” selected for the “After Upload” option.

This setup will work perfectly for about a day then stops working until I log into remote system and stop/start the BI service; then, without any other changes, everything will work fine for about another day.

One thing I did notice is that BI is not closing the FTP sessions after transferring files. I was expecting it to close the session after 30 seconds because of the “idle disconnect” setting. This is definitely not happening. According to the log files on my FTP server (proftp) these sessions will stay open for about 10 more minutes after the last file transfer. Eventually the proftp server will reach its allotted timeout and close the session. My theory is that BI does not like the FTP session being closed by the server and something is hanging.

Sorry about the short novel, but wanted to give as much info up front as I could. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[hmjgriffon]

Hello, I am looking for some help from someone familiar with the FTP (with TLS authentication) functionality of Blue Iris (BI). I am enabling FTPS transfers from my BI remote sites so if someone breaks into my property, sees the computer and run off with it, I should have some of the files already transferred to my “home base”.

Before it’s brought up…I already have the files saved to an hidden external USB drive but it would be better for me if I had the video files transferred to my home rather than having to fly out to the remote sites to retrieve the video.

As far as the remote BI FTP configurations are concerned, I believe they are OK. When I test the connection everything works fine.

A little relevant information about my setup:, I have “idle disconnect” set to 30 seconds and “max connections” set to 3. For each camera I have checked “Queue new clips for backup” and my home base FTPS server chosen in my “Clip Backup” FTP server, and “Leave file as-is” selected for the “After Upload” option.

This setup will work perfectly for about a day then stops working until I log into remote system and stop/start the BI service; then, without any other changes, everything will work fine for about another day.

One thing I did notice is that BI is not closing the FTP sessions after transferring files. I was expecting it to close the session after 30 seconds because of the “idle disconnect” setting. This is definitely not happening. According to the log files on my FTP server (proftp) these sessions will stay open for about 10 more minutes after the last file transfer. Eventually the proftp server will reach its allotted timeout and close the session. My theory is that BI does not like the FTP session being closed by the server and something is hanging.

Sorry about the short novel, but wanted to give as much info up front as I could. Any help would be appreciated.

Could be a bug, have you tried not running blue iris as a service to see if it makes a difference?

 

[watcher444]

I have not. I'll try that later today and report back. Thank you.

 

[hmjgriffon]

I have not. I'll try that later today and report back. Thank you.

Like you said it's not closing the connection, could just be BI got an update that made it not speak ftps well anymore. Could also try a different ftp server.

 

[watcher444]

I'm going to try setting this up tonight. I don't have another FTPS server available right now that I want to expose to the Internet. I'll keep you posted.

 

[watcher444]

OK, after a few days of testing while not running blue iris as a service the issue is still present. I'm stating to agree, this may be a bug in the software. I am going to play with max number of connections. I believe that Blue Iris is not closing the FTP sessions and will eventually reach its max number of connections and stop sending files. In theory, if I lower the max number of connections BI will stop sending files pretty quickly. If I raise the max number of connections the issue should take longer to manifest.