Hikvision Storage Server suddenly only has 2-3 days of history instead of the usual 8 days!

[zigner]

Can anyone help me understand what is happening with my sudden shortened archive of Hikvision cam video on my Storage Server.

I have a dedicated physical 1TB hard drive on my Windows 10 PC configured to be only used by the Hikvision Storage Server. For at least the last 3 years, I have barely had a need to touch any settings on the camera, client, or storage server. I have it set up to record 24x7. Once every 2-3 months, I'd start up iVMS-4200 Version 2.7.1.4, and just do a search to pull up about 8 days of video that was stored on the drive, just to periodically check on things. I never had an issue. About 8 days would be there to view, until now!

Sometime in the last 3 months or so (the last time I remember checking the history), I noticed that now I have only 2-3 days of video stored on the hard drive! I have rebooted, I have restarted the Storage Server, browsed the settings for clues, and still, I have only 2-3 days stored. UPDATE: I believe the 2-3 days of video that IVMS 4200 is showing is the video stored on the SD chip in the camera itself! If this is correct, that would mean that the archive on the Storage Server really isn't there, or at least IVMS is not showing it. Theory, could the Windows 10 update to Version 1909 have caused an issue with IVMS and/or Storage Server. But, IVMS it shows the Cam and the Storage Server as active, just like always.

Here is something that is strange to me, and possibly it is just something that I am wrong about. I could have sworn that when I used to try to view the contents of the dedicated video storage drive with Windows Explorer, that nothing would show. The drive would be present, but I'd get some kind of error when trying to view the drive, and no folders were visible. I just assumed that the Hikvision stored the video in some kind of format that Windows cannot view, so I never questioned it. That has never been a problem for me since I start iVMS-4200 whenever I want to view video, and view it from there.

Well, now that I have this issue, I noticed that when I view the drive in explorer, I see a bunch of 265MB hivxxxx.mp4 files on the drive, in a Package000 folder, and of course, those are videos from the camera.

More crazy info. When I browse the mp4 files on the PC in the Package000 folder, all of the files have dates in the past 2 or so days. But, when I tried to randomly play some of the older files in this list in Windows (file date for the file in windows is yesterday), some of them appear as just a single frame (no motion when the video plays) with the timestamp in the picture saying it is a image from a day in March of this year!

I am totally lost as what I am seeing, and why I am seeing all these changes. I have made zero modifications in the camera settings, and I have no updated any of the Hikvision software in about 18 months.

Can anyone point me as to what to look at, or offer ideas as to what is happening?

 

[zigner]

Responding to my own problem as it looks to be resolved. I took so many actions that it is hard to say which one, or ones, did the trick. I upgraded iVMS-4200 to Version 2.7.1.4 (from 2.6.x). I reformatted the dedicated hard drive, and recreated the storage schedule of 24x7 recording, basically , reinstalling the Storage Server and settings.

First, after doing this, iVMS-4200 was only showing the short recorded history from the SD chip in the camera. In the IVMS-4200 Storage Server tab settings, I had to click on the "Storage Server:" field, and chose my newly recreated Storage Server name. This might have been reset due to the iVMS upgrade, or the re-addition/configuration of the dedicated hard drive on my PC. Once I did that, the Remote Playback started showing me the full history of the Storage Server files, which are now up to 6 days of history and counting.

The idea that I had posted that in earlier years, I could not see any folders on the Storage Server drive using Windows Explorer, is not the case now. I was either mistaken earlier, or possibly this was only true at first, 4 years ago when I installed this Hikvision Camera, but is no longer true now. I found in another thread how to play these files in Windows, without using iVMS to view them.

As this issue suddenly cropped up in the last 3 or so months, despite making no changes in configuration, or settings, still has me baffled, but I've recovered and learned a bit more about my setup.

 

[PJ Will]

Zigner,

i am new to ivms 4200 (used to use nvms7000) and I notice there are many hikxxxxx.mp4 files that are automatically downloaded to my hard drive when my storage server is connected. I deleted the files then closed and reopened storage server and all those files re-downloaded again. Is this normal Behavior?

My hard drive will go from 700 by free space to 35 mb free space when storage server is running .

 

[zigner]

Zigner,

i am new to ivms 4200 (used to use nvms7000) and I notice there are many hikxxxxx.mp4 files that are automatically downloaded to my hard drive when my storage server is connected. I deleted the files then closed and reopened storage server and all those files re-downloaded again. Is this normal Behavior?

I'm far from an expert on this, but based on observation, I have concluded this. When you first assign the Storage Server to store to a designated hard drive partition, it allocates many hikxxxx.mp4 files on the drive, as many as it needs to hold the amount of days you have set it to store, or the max that drive will hold, if you chose to store the max. Those files, although having the correct size, aren't viewable. They are in effect, empty placeholders. They have no video data in them, and they will have a file date of the time of initialization.

As you start to record, the IVMS 4200 Storage Server will update, overwrite, and save the file, with the current video at the time. It will overwrite each file, keeping the same file name, until it loops through and starts overwriting each one again.

I agree, it is a bit confusing/surprising, to see the drive filled up with video files right from the start. And the fact that you can't really view them (as a working video) makes it seem like something is wrong. But, that's just the way it appears to work

 

[PJ Will]

I'm far from an expert on this, but based on observation, I have concluded this. When you first assign the Storage Server to store to a designated hard drive partition, it allocates many hikxxxx.mp4 files on the drive, as many as it needs to hold the amount of days you have set it to store, or the max that drive will hold, if you chose to store the max. Those files, although having the correct size, aren't viewable. They are in effect, empty placeholders. They have no video data in them, and they will have a file date of the time of initialization.

As you start to record, the IVMS 4200 Storage Server will update, overwrite, and save the file, with the current video at the time. It will overwrite each file, keeping the same file name, until it loops through and starts overwriting each one again.

I agree, it is a bit confusing/surprising, to see the drive filled up with video files right from the start. And the fact that you can't really view them (as a working video) makes it seem like something is wrong. But, that's just the way it appears to work

Ah I see, your conclusion sounds plausible. I have tried different versions of IVMS 4200 and NVMS 7000 with their storage devices. My hard drive is always filled up with a bunch of hivxxxx.mp4 files; maxes out the entire hard drive. I thought it was a bug but your explanation makes sense. I also tried to record motion with the storage server but it looks like it is only accepting all day, weekday, or event templates. Is this what you see on your end as well? How do you record motion to pc hard drive'?

 

[zigner]

Because of my particular setup, I have need for 24x7 recording, as I don't want to risk missing something that motion detection missed. So, I've never experimented with anything other than 24x7. I have things working so well that I don't want to screw it up playing around with those settings!

UPDATE2: I see what you mean, I can't chose the "Capture Schedule" option on the Storage Server recording choices, only the "Recording Schedule" option.... But, if you chose a "Template 01", or "Template 02", etc, under "Recording Schedule" and then edit the schedule, you can click on the "Event Recording" tab in the schedule, and then optionally set times it is to be running. The Advanced setting lets you set pre and post record event padding, to save to the drive. I would expect that to work, but didn't save the settings when trying it.

I do have the camera FTP the motion detection still pictures to a FTP directory on my PC, that's how I know that not all motion is being detected, probably in part due to the camera being placed behind a window, and the long distance to the subjects being recorded. Although not perfect, the stills are helpful, many times. That process works fine.

 

[PJ Will]

I prefer motion to only show me what is triggered since my camera can't record 24/7 and highlight the motion areas. Anyways, I have it recording 24/7 right now because it seem to be the only thing that is working. Event template doesn't seem to trigger anything. The thing with 24/7 is that I don't know when to look for a specific event since its always recording and its saved with the initialization date and time still. It doesn't save at the time the camera is recording, which I find odd. Is your hivxxxx.mp4 files saved with different dates?

 

[zigner]

The files have the initialization date and time on them until they get fresh video in them, then the dates change. One by one they will get the timestamp of when they were recorded. So, yes, eventually almost all of the files have different timestamps on them. You can use the timestamps to pull up the exact video you want to view for that time period.

Maybe you can post a new thread here, with a title about recording with a event template and someone who has that set up can answer it. I tried a couple of things, and didn't seem to get it to work either, but like I said earlier, I don't want to screw up my setup by playing around too much.

Like I mentioned, I use the motion detection still pictures which are FTPed by the camera into a folder my my desktop, to review, when I want to. Then if I see something in the stills that I want to review in detail, I pull up the video from that day, and watch it. That works well for me, since in my case, only about 1% of the time do I see something that warrants pulling up the video.

UPDATE: I got the triggered stored video to work like you want it to, I think. Will try to post what I did, in detail.

 

[zigner]

On Storage Server settings, I chose Event Template from the drop down list. This does 24x7 Event recording. Under Advanced setting choose your pre and post event recording padding times.

Then, go to the Event Management Tab. Under that, the Camera Event Tab. Select Event Type = Motion Detection. Then below, I checked Enable. Arming schedule All Day template. Then down below I checked all the boxes except Email Linkage, and Audible Warning, because I don't have/want those set up.

Of course, be sure to click save when you make the changes. That is 95% of what I did. I left out things obvious, like selecting the right camera name. Since I only have one, it's obvious.

I have 3 hours of events in one 9 minute sized file.

See if that works for you.

 

[PJ Will]

On Storage Server settings, I chose Event Template from the drop down list. This does 24x7 Event recording. Under Advanced setting choose your pre and post event recording padding times.

Then, go to the Event Management Tab. Under that, the Camera Event Tab. Select Event Type = Motion Detection. Then below, I checked Enable. Arming schedule All Day template. Then down below I checked all the boxes except Email Linkage, and Audible Warning, because I don't have/want those set up.

Of course, be sure to click save when you make the changes. That is 95% of what I did. I left out things obvious, like selecting the right camera name. Since I only have one, it's obvious.

I have 3 hours of events in one 9 minute sized file.

See if that works for you.

"go to the Event Management Tab. Under that, the Camera Event Tab. Select Event Type = Motion Detection. Then below, I checked Enable. Arming schedule All Day template. Then down below I checked all the boxes except Email Linkage, and Audible Warning, because I don't have/want those set up."

I don't have the same menu you have. I attached a screenshot as a reference. Am I in the right area?

 

[zigner]

This is how my version looks. I am on Version 2.7.1.4. I blocked out a bit too much with the paper in pic 2. The first column has "Trigger Alarm Output" checked, and the second column has "Trigger Recording" checked, probably both pretty important.

 

[PJ Will]

Ah, so you're on an older version. I am on version 3.2.16 build 20200509. You don't have Capture Storage checked in your first pic? How are you getting pictures sent to your PC?

 

[zigner]

I don't want to go past version 2.7 since I suspect it will be more taxing to my PC, and it works fine.

The FTP setup is done from the Camera settings side, not the Storage Server. It is possible you might have to set this alarm trigger, shown below, on the camera side as part of the setup. I've always had this checked, even for 24x7 recording, but maybe its even more important to set this to trigger event based recording.

Obviously there is more setup to get FTP to work, but I don't think you are interested in that now.

 

[PJ Will]

I got the Event template working thanks to you. Now I am working on getting those images saved when motion is detected so I can coming back to view it like you do. How did you set up the FTP part on your pc?

 

[zigner]

Great to hear! Was there one thing in the setup that was the problem?

The FTP is more involved on the PC part than the camera part. I set this up years ago, so I might be missing something.

First, the PC that the pics are FTP'ed to, should have a static local IP address. Probably not a new concept as you probably had to do the same thing, originally, to access the camera. This step is done on your router.

Then, easier to just show my camera FTP settings from the browser. My desktop PC has the 114 local IP address.



The other setting on the cam side can also be set up via web browser on the cam. Configuration tab, then Advanced Configuration on left, then Events. On that screen check I assume motion detection is checked. On the bottom, Linkage Method, check Upload to FTP. On occasion, I go back to the settings and uncheck that whenever I want to temporarily turn off the FTP pic transfer

Here is a guide to setting up an FTP server in Windows 10, if that's what you are running. Set up and manage an FTP server on Windows 10 I used "anonymous" in the Authentication section, rather than basic.

When you get to the firewall setting in the guide, I think I set it up only for just private, not public. This way, using anonymous shouldn't be a security issue. My FTP port, 21, is not open to the Internet. If you use a different firewall, then the setup will look slightly different. When you get to the "How to configure a router to allow external connections", I purposely skipped this step for the same reason. And from that point down, I pretty much skipped those steps (many of the access steps can be skipped due to using "anonymous", above).

I remember setting up a few FTP directories, tinkering with the settings on each FTP "Site" on my PC, pointing the Camera to one, then the other, etc, until I got it right. It took a while. Since this was 4-5 years ago, I don't remember too many details.

I have a LOT of motion events that I have no interest in, and a ton of pics in the directory. Only a few times a month do I have need to browse the pics to look for an event and then use that pic to pull up the video from that time to view the action. So, my directory gets Gigs of pictures, which need to be pruned. If you are interested, and once you get the FTP running, I can show you the icing on the cake.... adding a weekly Windows Scheduled Task command to prune the directory to the last XX days so that the folder doesn't end up taking up too much space.