Massive number of files in alerts directory

T

Thanamite

Young grasshopper
Jan 7, 2022
45
18
New York
Hi,

I have been using Blue Iris for about a year now and I am very happy with it. I have 9 cameras with the main stream at 4K/30fps. I have two 14TB drives. One holds a month of 24/7 recording. The other keeps 14 months of alerts. All record at 4K/30fps.

The problem is that I estimate my alerts folder to grow to about 1.4 million files. At this point it only has 400K files and the windows file manager is unusable already. Total Commander can load the directory in 20 seconds and that will probably become 1-2 minutes once the directory fills up.

It will be much better if the alerts directory can be hierarchical in some way. For example one subdirectory per date, or one per month or one per camera.

Does BI have such a feature? Is there any other way to work around this?

Thanks
 
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Under the main SETUP tab, Clips and archiving, Folders there is the option to Limit clip age to X number of days then the next option under that can be set to delete. Mine defaulted to 7 days. Also under each cameras Trigger tab there is option under When triggered Add to alerts list: "Database only" which mine is set to by default.
 
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Be aware that once you pass about 200,000 clips the database in BI becomes unstable and unreliable. Look in the help file.
 
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Broachoski said:
Under the main SETUP tab, Clips and archiving, Folders there is the option to Limit clip age to X number of days then the next option under that can be set to delete. Mine defaulted to 7 days. Also under each cameras Trigger tab there is option under When triggered Add to alerts list: "Database only" which mine is set to by default.
Click to expand...
Restricting the number of days is not good for me because I want to keep about a year of alert clips.

Doesn’t the “Database only” option mean that you must have a 24/7 recording? A year of 24/7 recording would be about 150TB so out of the question. Unless I misunderstand what the “Database only” option does?
 
sebastiantombs said:
Be aware that once you pass about 200,000 clips the database in BI becomes unstable and unreliable. Look in the help file.
Click to expand...
Thank you but what option do I have? How can I have the equivalent of a year of alert clips without a million mp4 files?

if BI could merge the clips or if it could put them into a separate subdirectory per day or even a subdirectory per camera, there would be no problem.

Can we ask the developer? BI is an otherwise amazing trouble free system.
 
You can ask the developer however you're the first I've seen ask for this.

With 25/7 recording alerts are just time markers in the database. If you record alerts only each is a separate file. Either way the sheer number that can occur in a year becomes unmanageable, even for traditional database engines.
 
Alerts should be just thumbnail pointers to the BVR file. If you are saving video clips as alerts you are doubling effort and wasting resources.

Then under record tab is cut and combine which takes all the triggers and video and combines them into one file per your setup.
 
wittaj said:
Alerts should be just thumbnail pointers to the BVR file. If you are saving video clips as alerts you are doubling effort and wasting resources.

Then under record tab is cut and combine which takes all the triggers and video and combines them into one file per your setup.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I will look into the cut and combine feature.

Can the BVR file you mentioned not be continuous 24/7 and hold alerts only?
 
No matter how the alerts are saved the numbers involved are far past the design limitations of the Blue Iris database.
 
You are doing something that isn't typical. Either saving hi rez alert images for every camera and/or saving every AI burned image and/or saving video alert files and/or lots of flagged images that never get deleted and they trigger a lot or double saving files or something else.

Alerts saved to database only are pointers and don't add up in the clip file (clips are any video, pictures).

But if you are not using the default BVR file then EVERY trigger is its own clip and they can add up fast.
 
Is there a quick way to deleted everything that was recorded and all the alerts?

I'm thinking that the start of every month after I've looked at everything it would be nice to start fresh.
 
@anotherone Just set the size and let BI handle the deletions. If you delete them manually you'll need to delete and recreate the database every month. Eventually Murphy will catch up to you and things will go sideways if you do it that way. I've been running BI for almost five years based on size alone. I have about a month of video all the time and never have any database problems. If I haven't noticed an incident in a month, or a neighbor hasn't asked me if I saw anything in a month, that's more than enough of an archive for a "normal" homeowner IMHO.
 
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I think the simplistic role of saving video evidence to catch a trend in behavior or non compliance/crime,etc... is the primary purpose of security cam systems.....what in the living fuck are you gonna do with 1.4 million alert files?
who is gonna search thru that 6 months after the fact?
what about offloading them to a NAS?
Why are you keeping 1.4 million alerts?
My Condo system records 5-6 weeks of behavior,,,,,,if I see a repeat offender pattern....It will usually fall several times in this period.....
I don't think thats the intended purpose for Blue Iris at the moment.....
 
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got it. ok....
 
I review overnight alerts every morning. Daily alerts get checked, basically, when they happen either directly on the console or remotely using UI3 or the BI app. If a neighbor asks for something within a month time frame I'll look for it, but it's not my objective to protect my neighbors as well. If anything shows that's worthy of noting a simple export takes the guesswork and drudgery out of trying to keep a few million alerts and then trying to scan through them for what you really need. As an example with your friend, you might spend three days looking for the right alert, assuming you could even maintain those few million alerts. Maybe you don't have the time to review them daily, but if you're that concerned you could do it weekly or even make the time to do it daily.

If you don't want to do that then you'll need a commercial VMS solution, but bring your checkbook since license fees add up very quickly. Blue Iris is simply not designed to handle that many alerts.
 
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