Memory leak in BI5

[Norseman]

I was running BI5 without issue on a NUC 8th generation but it failed on me so I got a NUC 10th gen. Fresh install of Windows 10 and fresh setup of BI (didn't do a backup/restore) and I'm struggling with a memory leak I can't seem to resolve. Doesn't matter if I use Intel HW acceleration or not. When I start the BI service the memory usage is around 3.8GB but within an hour or two it will go up over 20GB and eventually consume 98% of all available RAM (32GB in the NUC). I emailed support but no response. I'm running the latest Intel driver and the latest version of BI.

Anyone has any ideas of what to do?

Thanks in advance!

 

[bp2008]

Are you sure it is Blueiris.exe that is using the memory?

Try disabling and re-enabling each camera one at a time after the memory usage has risen, to see if that clears some or all of the leaked memory. That could help narrow down where the leak is happening.

 

[Norseman]

Thanks for the reply. Definitely Blue Iris that's causing the memory leak:



The cameras are the exact same ones as before but I can try to disable them one at a time to see if that helps.

 

[Old Timer]

Did you import the setup? or build it from scratch?
I had a problem with a leak a long time back, and I ended up building cameras all up from scratch and it all worked properly.

Also I might mention, use the last stable version of Blue Iris.

Blue Iris Software Updates

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Norseman]

Built from scratch, didn’t do an import. I can revert to the last stable. I’m pretty sure I tried that but happy to try again.

 

[Old Timer]

Last stable Is
5.3.2.11

 

[Old Timer]

Built from scratch, didn’t do an import. I can revert to the last stable. I’m pretty sure I tried that but happy to try again.

What version are you running?

 

[Norseman]

The latest available but just reverted to stable. Will monitor. Usually the leak starts within an hour of me starting the service. I did disable one camera as well as I noticed the memory usage seemed to drop drastically when I did that.

 

[Norseman]

I was able to figure out what the issue was. Turns out the root cause wasn't BI at all but a driver issue where it seems Windows 10 on a NUC 10th gen isn't able to access a 2.5" SSD drive correctly without installing the specific Intel RAID driver. I reinstalled Windows from scratch and wasn't able to format the 2.5" drive, just tons of error messages in the event log. Tried all the workaround I could find on the Internet but nothing worked. Did another clean install and installed all the Intel drivers and sure enough, now it worked. And now BI runs stable without leaking memory.

What was interesting in all this is that before I could solve it, I could see a yellow exclamation mark on my cameras but couldn't see any details why. Perhaps something that can be worked on; if video files can't be saved then show an error message?

Glad things work now, thanks everyone for your help!

 

[bp2008]

Blue Iris definitely has a bit of trouble showing when something subtle is wrong with a cam. Typically you'll find such messages in Blue Iris's log (viewable in Blue Iris Status window > Messages tab). Though I think it will also show the exclamation icon if the frame rate just happens to be too low or something, and not create a log entry. I'm not sure. It is a complex beast.

 

[dhenzler]

I was running BI5 without issue on a NUC 8th generation but it failed on me so I got a NUC 10th gen. Fresh install of Windows 10 and fresh setup of BI (didn't do a backup/restore) and I'm struggling with a memory leak I can't seem to resolve. Doesn't matter if I use Intel HW acceleration or not. When I start the BI service the memory usage is around 3.8GB but within an hour or two it will go up over 20GB and eventually consume 98% of all available RAM (32GB in the NUC). I emailed support but no response. I'm running the latest Intel driver and the latest version of BI.

Anyone has any ideas of what to do?

Thanks in advance!

I'd believe the leak is a Windowz thing not BI. MS is famous for bad housekeeping. That's why I don't use it unless forced to. I'm running a HP Proliant DL380g7 server with ESXi VMware (thin client) software. I have Windowz 10 running and limit it's memory use to 8GB. I run BI as a service and it runs great despite the memory topping off at 8GB. I have Linux running as well as a web server for a dozen websites. Still have plenty of resources untouched for future VM's. If you have the space for a BIG rackmount box like the DL380, it's a great way to get a LOT of power for low $$. Way less than a beefed up desktop machine and a whole bunch more power.

 

[fenderman]

I'd believe the leak is a Windowz thing not BI. MS is famous for bad housekeeping. That's why I don't use it unless forced to. I'm running a HP Proliant DL380g7 server with ESXi VMware (thin client) software. I have Windowz 10 running and limit it's memory use to 8GB. I run BI as a service and it runs great despite the memory topping off at 8GB. I have Linux running as well as a web server for a dozen websites. Still have plenty of resources untouched for future VM's. If you have the space for a BIG rackmount box like the DL380, it's a great way to get a LOT of power for low $$. Way less than a beefed up desktop machine and a whole bunch more power.

Memory leaks are a result of either BI or the intel driver. I have more than 20 BI machines with low memory usage and many many more business windows machines with no memory leaks.

 

[dhenzler]

the intel driver

What Intel driver?

 

[Flintstone61]

My memory leak came from the 55mph telephone pole that jumped out in front of my Maverick in 1980.

 

[bp2008]

If you have the space for a BIG rackmount box like the DL380, it's a great way to get a LOT of power for low $$. Way less than a beefed up desktop machine and a whole bunch more power.

Old servers are not a whole bunch more power than modern desktop machines, unless when you say power you are talking about watts.

The newest DL380 machines I could find without trying too hard were these with V4 CPUs, about 2016 era. I'm not too impressed by the prices. For those prices or just a little more, you could build a modern desktop PC on AMD Ryzen with comparable CPU performance and a lot less noise and power consumption. You could also choose an older server to lower the cost to levels unattainable when buying new PC hardware, but the performance drops too and power consumption stays the same or goes up. So that sucks. I guess if you needed something with a lot of drive bays for a NAS and didn't care about energy-efficiency then you could do pretty well with one of these.

 

[bp2008]

What Intel driver?

He's talking about the Intel graphics driver. Years ago there was a long time where the latest Intel graphics driver versions leaked memory when you used Quick Sync Video, and Intel didn't care because most use cases for Quick Sync Video are short-lived (transcode or encode one video for a couple minutes or hours and then exit, which cleans up the leaked memory).

 

[dhenzler]

Old servers are not a whole bunch more power than modern desktop machines, unless when you say power you are talking about watts.

The newest DL380 machines I could find without trying too hard were these with V4 CPUs, about 2016 era. I'm not too impressed by the prices. For those prices or just a little more, you could build a modern desktop PC on AMD Ryzen with comparable CPU performance and a lot less noise and power consumption. You could also choose an older server to lower the cost to levels unattainable when buying new PC hardware, but the performance drops too and power consumption stays the same or goes up. So that sucks. I guess if you needed something with a lot of drive bays for a NAS and didn't care about energy-efficiency then you could do pretty well with one of these.

View attachment 75003

I bought two of these as shown below for $75 each delivered. Came with e5-2420 CPU's which are fine for most use. Memory 16GB for $20 stick... I put in four sticks and Drives are between $20 for used SAS and $50. Or you can use SATA brand new drives from Best Buy or wherever if you like... beats the heck out of a desktop.

 

[dhenzler]

I bought two of these as shown below for $75 each delivered. Came with e5-2420 CPU's which are fine for most use. Memory 16GB for $20 stick... I put in four sticks and Drives are between $20 for used SAS and $50. Or you can use SATA brand new drives from Best Buy or wherever if you like... beats the heck out of a desktop.
View attachment 75005

You can't even get a Good CPU cooler for what I paid for the whole box. Dual CPU... lots of cores. Better cooling, real RAID or HBA at your choice... Run VMware to manage your resources... I used to build machines using quality components and you can't get one together for less than $300, and that isn't even top CPU performance.

You like what you have... stay with it! I won't try to convert you. But I have been there, done that, and switched!

 

[bp2008]

I can't argue that there isn't still value in those old servers. If you don't need CPU performance better than that, and don't care about the energy efficiency or noise, there's a lot these can still do. E5-2420 is a seriously bad CPU by modern standards though. Pretty much every desktop CPU released in the past 2-3 years is better than one or even two of those old Xeons.

 

[dhenzler]

I can't argue that there isn't still value in those old servers. If you don't need CPU performance better than that, and don't care about the energy efficiency or noise, there's a lot these can still do. E5-2420 is a seriously bad CPU by modern standards though. Pretty much every desktop CPU released in the past 2-3 years is better than one or even two of those old Xeons.

You must be kidding... how many desktop CPU's have 16 cores, 32 threads? If you're not multi-tasking I suppose you'd be correct. But I can build many more services into one of these old dogs, and not have to worry about power supply failure... why... cuz I have dual power supplies. Four NIC's, Six fans which by the way produce about 58dBa of noise. Tolerable considering I'm not sitting next to them very often. I put e5-2450L's in my production servers. Cost me $50/pair. What does your CPU cost?
Folks with desktop mentality will never see the widsom of a server class machine because to them it's all about high clock speeds & expensive graphics cards. I have a very basic graphic card built into the server mother board which suffices to get ESXi up and running. Management is done from my desktop.

If you haven't really been there, you'll not know the benefits & differences.