Notifications not working

[xyrgh]

To be upfront, I have been dealing with Ken on this but so far haven't found a solution.

I have alerts set up in BI for motion for all six cameras and use the iOS app and running BI as a service. There has literally been zero change to my setup (other than BI updates) that has changed.

Up until about 5-6 weeks ago, everything worked fine. Since around the 31/05/2015, alerts have acted up.

Motion will be deteceted, a clip will be captured and an alert will appear in the iOS app when I open it, but nothing comes through the iPhone notification centre, which means I have to constantly open the app the check for alerts. Kinda inconvenient.

So far, I've done the following:
-Checked my port forwards in my router. Default route exists for all outgoing traffic, there is also a port forward for 8085 which is what the web server is on.
-Checked the windows firewall for BlueIris.exe and BlueIrisApplePush.exe and allowed both through the firewall
-Deleted and reinstalled the BI app (including re-adding the phone back into BI)
-Disabled and re-enabled notifications in the app
-Disabled then re-enabled alerts in the BI console

I'm at a loss to what has changed, has anyone else had issues?

 

[fenderman]

Sounds like an issue with the BI ios app or ios and not the blue iris server side, since you are getting the notification on the app itself..
Port forwarding is not relevant to outgoing notifications.

 

[xyrgh]

Sounds like an issue with the BI ios app or ios and not the blue iris server side, since you are getting the notification on the app itself..
Port forwarding is not relevant to outgoing notifications.

Exactly what I'm thinking. The alerts are happening in the console/service, but just not 'making it' to the notification centre.

I remember a while back there was a certificate issue which prevented notifications, I wonder if this is an issue. I assume more people would be saying so if this was an issue.

Also, as an extra note, doing a 'TEST' alert in the BI console does actually send the notification to my phone, albeit delayed by about 10-15 minutes. But legitimate notifications don't work. I'm stumped.

 

[ruppmeister]

I am running my system a lot like you with BI as a service and pushing notifications to my iPhone through the BI app. I was just getting my alerts not more than an hour ago without problems.

Did you by chance reboot the phone after you deleted the app before reinstalling? I know the Apple forums recommend a reboot in between the reinstall in most cases.

 

[xyrgh]

I am running my system a lot like you with BI as a service and pushing notifications to my iPhone through the BI app. I was just getting my alerts not more than an hour ago without problems.

Did you by chance reboot the phone after you deleted the app before reinstalling? I know the Apple forums recommend a reboot in between the reinstall in most cases.

Good to hear it's just an isolated problem. Yep, rebooted the phone before reinstalling. Also tried the notification reset trick that apple advises devs where you delete the app, turn the date forward a day, then reboot, reinstall the app and fix the date. Still no dice.

The weirdest thing is that test alerts work, just any normal alert from a camera doesn't. The alert email sends fine. About ready to do a complete reinstall.

 

[ruppmeister]

I just double checked my server and app setup for your problem and am not able to reproduce it at all. Mine works as expected. I tested with 3 variants (email, mms, notification) each worked perfectly and are showing up in the phone notification center. Is it possible that you have the app notifications turned off somehow? In iPhone: Settings>Notifications>Blue Iris making sure they are allowed

If you want a second set of eyes send screen shots of your camera configs for Alerts, Motion/Trigger and Record. Perhaps a small detail that is overlooked?

I hope you get your problem sorted out.

 

[ruppmeister]

And I just checked on my iPhone, I do NOT have "In-app alerts" turned on (BI App>Settings). Not sure what this does or if it has anything to do with your problem or not, just thought I would throw it out there.

 

[xyrgh]

Here are the screenshots from my BI setup and the app settings. Also tried turning off 'in app alerts' but still no dice.

Motion detection works fine though, I still get clips and images from motion alerts, just the alerts don't come through the notification centre, they are there on the app when I open it. This makes me think it's related to mi iPhone rather than BI itself.

 

[fenderman]

side note and not related to your issue, however, you may want to uncheck object detect reject or you will likely miss important motion..

 

[xyrgh]

side note and not related to your issue, however, you may want to uncheck object detect reject or you will likely miss important motion..

I'm finding it's working good at the moment, detects the motion I want. I also have the cameras duplicated with motion detection off that record 24/7, so as long as I get a tiny bit of motion, I can always go back and look at the streaming footage. If I have detect reject off, I have a lot of bushes/shrubs around the place and they set of the motion detection and I never had time to fully 'tune' the detection to get rid of the false alerts.

The main reason I have the 24/7 recording is about a week after installing the cameras we had an unwanted visitor try to break into both cars. We captured perfect video of him, but the motion detection didn't kick in until he was basically at the front of the house, so I have zero idea where he came from and where he went afterwards, which pushed me to have 24/7 streams (kept for five days).

 

[fenderman]

I'm finding it's working good at the moment, detects the motion I want. I also have the cameras duplicated with motion detection off that record 24/7, so as long as I get a tiny bit of motion, I can always go back and look at the streaming footage. If I have detect reject off, I have a lot of bushes/shrubs around the place and they set of the motion detection and I never had time to fully 'tune' the detection to get rid of the false alerts.

The main reason I have the 24/7 recording is about a week after installing the cameras we had an unwanted visitor try to break into both cars. We captured perfect video of him, but the motion detection didn't kick in until he was basically at the front of the house, so I have zero idea where he came from and where he went afterwards, which pushed me to have 24/7 streams (kept for five days).

Well if you have it set to 24/7 then it doesnt matter because you capture everything..but the reason you missed the motion was because of object detect reject and a high make time..

 

[xyrgh]

Well if you have it set to 24/7 then it doesnt matter because you capture everything..but the reason you missed the motion was because of object detect reject and a high make time..

Exactly, but I'm happy to let that slide, I just need an alert, basically a timestamp of when *something* happened, which I can revert back to. I'm actually wanting to fiddle with the settings at some point, but need to get the notifications issue resolved first.

 

[ruppmeister]

I am not seeing anything in your current setup that would cause the notifications to not show in your phone notification center. You didn't mention, did you check in the phone settings>notifications>blue iris to ensure that notification are turned on there?

One last thing, not sure how this is managed by BI app, but do you have Background App Refresh turned off for BI by chance? Mine is set to on for what it's worth.

 

[xyrgh]

I am not seeing anything in your current setup that would cause the notifications to not show in your phone notification center. You didn't mention, did you check in the phone settings>notifications>blue iris to ensure that notification are turned on there?

One last thing, not sure how this is managed by BI app, but do you have Background App Refresh turned off for BI by chance? Mine is set to on for what it's worth.

Notifications are set to on and background app refresh is also on. I've actually disabled notifications and re-enabled them and no dice.

 

[ruppmeister]

And if you turn off your windows firewall and anti-virus, still having problems?

 

[xyrgh]

And if you turn off your windows firewall and anti-virus, still having problems?

Yep. This is *just* normal alerts. Sending a test alert from the push notification box works exactly as intended, but when a real alert goes off, nothing.

 

[fenderman]

Yep. This is *just* normal alerts. Sending a test alert from the push notification box works exactly as intended, but when a real alert goes off, nothing.

To clarify the when you get a standard alert, you can still see it in your app, just dont get it in the notification center?
Long ago had an issue where I would not get alerts (android) but the test worked..turns out I put the alert cams into a separate group that the username did not have access to...test worked but never got real alerts. It sounds like you are getting the alerts in the app though...

 

[xyrgh]

To clarify the when you get a standard alert, you can still see it in your app, just dont get it in the notification center?
Long ago had an issue where I would not get alerts (android) but the test worked..turns out I put the alert cams into a separate group that the username did not have access to...test worked but never got real alerts. It sounds like you are getting the alerts in the app though...

Correct, the alerts are in the app, just don't appear in the notification centre. To me, logging into the app is just like logging into the console, so by logic, the alerts just aren't making it to my phone.

And huh.......you might be onto something here. Going to check the groups when I get home, maybe there is something hidden in there that I've done/changed or that a software update has slightly changed.

 

[fenderman]

Correct, the alerts are in the app, just don't appear in the notification centre. To me, logging into the app is just like logging into the console, so by logic, the alerts just aren't making it to my phone.

And huh.......you might be onto something here. Going to check the groups when I get home, maybe there is something hidden in there that I've done/changed or that a software update has slightly changed.

You are correct, if you just mean seeing the alert after logging into the app and connecting to the webserver then yes, its the same as logging into the webserver/application..I misunderstood and though that once you logged into the app you would see the notification pop up...
If it was a group issue you should not be able to see the alerts for the camera though but double check and make sure you are an admin user with access to all groups..

 

[xyrgh]

SOLUTION!

Well, a solution to the problem, but somewhat of a workaround.

So I took fenderman's advice and checked the groups, tried a few different things, nothing. Finally narrowed it down to the setting "Allow disarm time by delaying alerts". I basically have this set so that when I get home, it gives time for the geofence to kick in and change the profile, so I don't get alerts of myself pulling into the drive way. I had it set to 15 seconds, if anyone cares.

After meticulously enabling and disabling the checkbox, 100% confirmed that the alerts did not come through with this checked, with all other settings left exactly the same. Down in the bottom right in the status panel (with the icons), when you have the "allow disarm time" unchecked, it flashes straight away advising a push message is being sent. If you check that box, that icon never flashes. I watched it for a good 5 minutes (timed it on my phone) and it didn't flash.

Now as before, I haven't touched any settings prior to this, so I assume an update has done something, or the way apple's push protocol has changed or something.

So at least notifications are back working albeit with a (very) slight annoyance, I'll advise Ken and see what he thinks.