Update Fixes and Enhancements

[srglassw]

Is there somewhere where one can find out details of what changes are being made in each Blue Iris software update? With the rapid releases happening again, four updates in five days, while I am hesitant to update until a release is known to be stable, it would be nice to know what issues or enhancements are addressed.

 

[Q™]

Start the Blue Iris Admin application. Click on the large question mark to launch the Blue Iris Help file. Click on "What's New" link in the right side pane...

What's New

As updates are released, this page will be updated with a detailed list of what's new and what's been changed.

4.6.4.6 - October 26, 2017

• It's now possible to drag/drop files from a network share into the main window to open them in the viewer; previously this resulted in a path error (3).
  
• MP4 files exported will now be post-processed to move the index and metadata to the beginning of the file for faster opening on remote drives/systems.
  
• Fixes a startup bug that occurs if you attempt to limit the admin account (used for the console) to camera groups.

4.6.4.5 - October 25, 2017

• As "inactive" cameras are no longer hidden by default, new options have been added to hide inactive cameras. You will find these on the right-click menus in the video window as well as on the group settings page (gears icon near group selection box beneath the video window). Individual cameras on the camera lists found in the browser interface will be hidden/shown based on the settings of the "all cameras" group.

4.6.4 - October 23, 2017

• A new option on the Video tab in camera properties "Limit decoding unless required" can be used to lower CPU demand by only decoding video key frames instead of all frames. Generally an H.264, H.265 or MPEG4 stream will encode a key frame once each second, and this is usually enough for the motion detector to operate. When the software determines that ALL frames are required for webcasting or recording without direct-to-disc mode, all frames will be decoded. In addition, all frames will be decoded if the camera is selected or full screen. One CAVEAT to note: the H.264 decoder uses a pipeline--4 or more frames can be in this pipeline at any time. You will notice this effect when decoding only key frames--the output may be delayed by 4-12 or more seconds and will "catch up" once all frames are again decoded.
  
• A new option on the Schedule tab in camera properties "Camera is only active when viewed remotely or full screen" can be used (in conjunction with un-checking the box Continue to display and stream video) to close the camera stream completely when not required for webcasting.
  
• Following an ONVIF find/inspect operation, the "events subscription" was always enabled if the camera reported support for this. However this needlessly used network bandwidth if it was not required (in conjunction with camera triggering for example). The default is now OFF.
  
• The camera border will be yellow when the motion detection is paused, such as after a PTZ command or PTZ preset position change.

4.6.3 - October 9, 2017

• Significant architectural changes have been made to the main camera frame processing loop in order to virtually eliminate the possibility for dropped frames when using direct-to-disc recording. With direct-to-disc, dropped frames cause "ghosting" or trailing artifacts evident during playback. When the CPU is slammed (at/near 100%) or the camera frame processing loop cannot keep up, the possibility for dropped frames increases, however with this update it is possible for frames to be recorded without further processing in order to insure that they make it into the file.
  
• A long-standing but rare (and difficult to reproduce) bug may now be fixed. This bug had the potential to cause the time stamps on video to drift from real-time, especially when frames are dropped due to high CPU load.

4.6.2 - September 27, 2017

• Options/Email server DNS IP address for advanced use
  
• Fix for incompatible H.265 streams
  
• Foscam 89xx (and the many compatibles) audio decoding adjustments
  
• If not already running, the console process can launch the service process without requiring a re-start of the console
  
• The console process will install the service automatically if registry options "service" value disagrees with the service manager
  
• If the console is open with admin access and a software update occurs, the console will perform the update and the console will be restarted as well as the service process
  
• Audio output devices are now referenced by name instead of index when used for alerts, allowing you to add/remove devices without altering configuration
  
• Code signing certificate renewed for 2 years, all EXEs have been resigned

4.6.1 - September 15, 2017

• Fixed a bug which resulted in "movefile 2" errors in the log and files not being moved on some systems.
  
• Inactive cameras (enabled but profile 0 or ~) that also have the "Continue to display and stream video while inactive" box unchecked on the Schedule tab in camera properties were previously handled almost identically to disabled cameras. Now they are handled a bit more like cameras in the "no signal" state. They will now appear on group images with an "inactive" message. You can also use a JPEG image in place of the "inactive" message by placing an "inactive.jpg" file in the camera's folder in the Blue Iris program files folder. These cameras will still be skipped in camera cycle functions.
  
• Camera window borders are now drawn in red only when triggered or when recording when camera headers/names are hidden and this applies to group streams as well. Previously they were drawn red whenever triggered or recording for any reason.
  
• On camera properties/Audio, options for "hail" and "goodbye" WAV files which will be sent to the camera speaker when the "talk" button is used from either the main Blue Iris UI or one of the client apps. The 2 audio files correspond to the press and release of the talk button.
  
• Fixes for 2-way audio functionality on the Beward/Wellcam cameras, providing another excellent option for a doorbell camera
  
• Fixes for cameras with streams on port 34567 such as SUNBA, CantonK
  
• Updated decoders and other audio/video components

4.6.0.3 - September 6, 2017

• Changes to allow the client apps for iOS and Android to pull full-resolution images when using the Snapshot button
  
• Changes to allow the client apps to display current login status and current camera/group stream on the users list from the Status button

4.6.0 - August 29, 2017

• A new status icon (an orange database) appears in the lower/right area of the software UI whenever the database maintenance task is running. This task runs automatically each 5 minutes, but may require significant amounts of time to complete, especially if there are very large files to be transferred to external media.
  
• You can now manually kick-off the database maintenance task by using the right-click Database menu in the Clips window.
  
• A new setting on the PTZ/Presets window allows you to associate DIO input bit/s with preset positions. When the DIO input bits are detected, the PTZ preset position will be called. This allows you to move cameras in response to external triggers.
  
• The clip Move operation (from New to Stored for example) is now interruptible. Previously, moving several gigabyte files between drives may have been the cause for some failures to shutdown for software updates etc.
  
• The clip Move operation will show a progress bar on the clip that's being moved on the clips list.
  
• Manual clip move operations now display a cancelable progress display.

4.5.9 - July 20, 2017

• Advanced web server configuration options have been moved to a separate dialog to allow room to add more options
  
• New advanced web server settings allow for the banning of IP addresses either temporarily or permanently. Permanently banned IP addresses are automatically added to the "limit IP address" box.
  
• The web server attempts to slow responses to unauthenticated requests in order to limit the impact of a malicious client or other attack
  
• Further effort has been made to more fully support the Doorbird camera including a PTZ/control option to enable door-open (via the DIO output button) and light-on (via the IR light button)
  
• Further effort has been made to limit the number of connections required for the new 3D push notifications
  
• An update to the iOS app 1.57.01 will now allow retrieval of the 3D push images from servers using Stunnel
  
• As some users struggle to understand how/why clips are/are not moved/deleted, the clip database move/delete logging has become much more verbose. A log entry is emitted following each database scan, approximately each 5 minutes. The entries show the age of the next clip that's up for movement/deletion along with the folder size, occupancy and free space, as well as the number of locked files and database errors encountered. When writing to support for issues with clip management please provide these log entries.
  
• Email alert MP4 attachment durations have been repaired. They are now also recorded at the camera's full frame rate.
  
• Video component updates fixing potential decoding bugs

4.5.8 - June 23, 2017

• The functionality of the BlueIrisApplePush.exe is now built-into the main executable, so this file is no longer required and will be removed from the installer. This new version is much more efficient and can be extended to support new Apple and iOS features.
  
• Support for "rich notification" content via iOS push notifications. A corresponding update to the iOS app is forthcoming--you will be able to "long press" the notification to preview an image without launching the app. A web server session key is generated in order to allow the app to connect back to the server to retrieve the image--you may notice this on the Status/Connections page as IP address 0.0.0.0 unless/until the app retrieves the image.
  
• The Status Connections and Status Messages pages now memorize column widths when you adjust them
  
• The Status Messages page now performs a refresh without losing list position and selected item state. Previously it was difficult use the list while it was continuously updated, taking you back to the top of the list each time.

4.5.7 - May 25, 2017

• Copy option on Options/Users
  
• Copy option when adding a new camera
  
• A "maximum FPS" setting has been added to the group settings page, allowing you to go beyond the default 5 fps. Historically this was limited due to the significant computing power required to compose larger group images. However, users have expressed interest in increasing this number.
  
• Motion triggers are now distinguished from other triggers on the Timeline view via the use of the "walking man" icon in place of the more generic Trigger icon.
  
• Capture JPEG images with 0.1 second precision on the Record tab. Use with caution as this may quickly result in thousands of files and database entries.

4.5.6 - May 17, 2017

• Video component updates
  
• H.265 parsing and decoding fixes
  
• MP4 format direct-to-disc fixes for file compatibility, affecting both recording and convert/export
  
• The web server now responds to the HTTP Accept-Encoding header with zlib "deflate" encoding for JSON, HTML, and other text requests made by the client apps. This reduces the size of the transmitted reply significantly.
  
• Rolling back the default group image resolution change which has adversely affected our Android client app--crashes have been reported with the new 960p resolution, so it's once again 720p. You can still override this size as required via the group settings pages.

4.5.5 - May 8, 2017

• Improved efficiency in the generation of the clips view for camera groups and/or removal of hidden cameras
  
• Group images now default to a resolution of 960 for better resolution on HD monitors. You can still override this with any value on the group settings page.
  
• The site canhazip is no longer used for retrieving your WAN IP address. There was nothing wrong with using this site, but an update to a popular package "malwarebytes" has caused this to be flagged as "suspicious." The software instead will now use the Blue Iris website for this purpose.
  
• On the camera properties Video tab, you may now select either "ceiling" or "wall/vertical" (hemispherical) for the mounting of a 360-degree camera. This value is used as a default for the clip viewer's de-warping capability.
  
• A new value "hemispherical" has been added to the viewer's right-click 360 de-warping menu. This method is appropriate for 360-degree cameras mounted vertically as on a wall or door. The viewer maintains a separate default value depending on the camera's "360" setting.

4.5.4 - May 4, 2017

• The viewer now has built-in 360 degree camera de-warping for BVR source files. From a right-click menu select one of No (original image), Regional (allows panning left and right), or Panoramic (fits the entire 360 de-warped image into two rows in the video frame).
  
• On the same Viewer right-click 360 degree menu you will find an HQ scaling option. This will provide a smoother image, but it will use more CPU so may be undesirable for use with higher resolution cameras or on systems where CPU cycles are in short supply.
  
• A new checkbox on the Video tab in camera properties allows you to designate a camera as being 360 degrees fisheye. When selected, clips opened from this camera will use the viewer's most recent "360 degree de-warp" setting.
  
• When remotely viewing a clip from a 360 degree camera, Panoramic de-warping is always used. Further de-warping options eventually will be added to the client apps.
  
• The export/trim dialog now offers an option to include/exclude the audio track
  
• When using export/trim from the viewer, the current 360 de-warping setting is used. This is applicable only when re-encoding the video.
  
• Admin access is now required locally and remotely to set a PTZ preset position
  
• The default vertical resolution for group images/streams has increased from 720 to 960
  
• When using parent/child camera windows, children may now be quickly identified via asterisks in their headers
  
• Status information supplied via the JSON "status" command for the smart phone and UI2 client interfaces has been expanded

4.5.3 - March 31, 2017

• Fix for browser clips list
  
• Security updates for FTP client components
  
• Security updates for web server including cache-control headers for video files. HTTP authentication now takes precedence over URL authentication.

4.5.2 - March 21, 2017

• Stability updates for Sealevel E120 and other Ethernet DIO models
  
• "Console: has died" issue experienced by some users when running as a service has been addressed
  
• Support for Generic/HLS (HTTP live streaming) camera sources
  
• A time-lapse output feature has been added to the Convert/Export page. You may specify the speed factor (time multiplier) and output fps. The option is currently only available when used from the viewer with BVR source files.
  
• The system tray icons have been enlarged and re-rendered. Several new icons have been added to show Triggered, Paused, and Alert states. The icon will be cycled to reflect all applicable states.
  
• A new custom date formatting code %D may be used to add the English "st, nd, rd, th" to a day of the month value

4.5.1 - February 13, 2017

• Stability issues with Ethernet based SeaLevel devices have been addressed. A driver issue eventually causes a software crash and appropriate work-around measures have been implemented.
  
• Stability and quality issues with ReoLink cameras have been addressed. A firmware issue causes RTSP quality and device instability. However, newer versions of the ReoLink firmware support RTMP streaming instead, and this appears to work well. A new make/model device entry has been added for this on both the Video/Network and PTZ tabs. You must still set the camera's H.264 encoding to "base line."
  
• The 64-bit version of the software no longer appears to run on Vista 64 bit. This may be due to a number of OS updates and DLL incompatibilities which we are unable to resolve. The preferred solution would be upgrade to Windows 10 64-bit, but we have found that the software does continue to run on 32-versions of both Vista and XPSP3 (or you may select 32-bit when installing the software even on the 64-bit OS).
  
• The software is now compiled with Microsoft's latest Visual Studio 2017 RC.
  
• Video components updated

4.5.0 - January 22, 2017

• Added integration with Amazon Echo via physical device emulation. Begin Amazon Echo discovery via a new button on the Options/Mobile devices page. A "Blue Iris" device is added, along with a device for each camera where you have configured its Amazon setting. See the Mobile devices Help topic in order to learn about this integration.
  
• Memory leak bug fixed in RTMP/S device streaming (some Nest and Dropcam).
  
• Fix for issue with convert/export to AVI format

4.4.9 - November 29, 2016

• Support for Vista 64-bit has been restored.
  
• A bug has been corrected which resulted in a crash under specific web server conditions.
  
• A secure web server session now survives a software restart within 60 seconds. Clients streaming via browser may resume without a re-login.
  
• The Options/Web server page now allows you to set a virtual folder. If set to something other than /, the web server will expect requests to be pre-pended with this value. This may be useful if you are forwarding requests from another server.
  
• Video encoding/decoding components once again have been updated.

4.4.8 - November 12, 2016

• The client apps now use the FLAC audio compression codec. This lossless codec provides a lower bit rate yet much better audio quality than the previous μ-law configuration. Look for updates to the client apps.
  
• New by default, but optional, you may now also use lossless FLAC audio compression for BVR files. Previously, audio was stored uncompressed, potentially accounting for hundreds of MB/hour of storage. You will find the option on the Record tab's Format window.
  
• The ActiveX control has been updated to 4.0.0.9 in order to request and accommodate FLAC compressed audio.
  
• Several issues with H.264 decoding introduced with version 4.4.7's video component updates have been found and corrected.

4.4.7 - October 27, 2016

• H.265 cameras are supported via RTSP
  
• H.265 direct-to-disc recording and MP4 file exports are available only on the 64-bit version
  
• Other video compression and processing components have been updated

4.4.6 - October 11, 2016

• A bug fixed which led to dropped frames during recording. The bug only surfaced with cameras that send multiple video frames with identical or nearly identical time codes (less than 2ms difference). Many Foscam models appear to be affected by this.
  
• Effort has been put into attempting to smooth local playback of BVR content. Previously without an output buffer, playback could appear to pause and then jump forward slightly at each key frame boundary, as these frames take slightly long to decode.
  
• From a group settings page, you can enable a "manual mixing mode" for the remote streaming camera cycle. This allows you to control which camera is visible remotely by selecting the camera window from the PC console software.
  
• From the Trigger tab in camera properties, you may now select to move entire group/s of cameras to a specific preset position when one camera is triggered.
  
• The Database/Repair function now logs errors with inaccessible folders. It will also delete empty folders when they are encountered.

4.4.5 - September 23, 2016

• Handling of DIO modules has been moved to a separate thread. This prevents issues with these devices from causing the UI to appear possibly to hang.
  
• Connections to SeaLevel Ethernet devices will now be refreshed each 30 seconds to prevent them from timing out, which has been linked to system instability.
  
• The number of supported inputs and outputs for DIO modules has been increased to 16 each.
  
• The Blue Iris web server has been updated to increase responsiveness during times of heavy demand such as after a software update release.
  
• The iOS app version 1.54.05 is pending Apple release. This version addresses a number of issues introduced by the switchover to iOS 10.

4.4.4.1 - September 13, 2016

• A bug finally found and fixed where an automatic adjustment of the "max frame rate" may cause issues with direct to disc recording dropping frames.
  
• When using the clip viewer's motion detection test feature, the window border will turn red when triggered. Previously it was necessary to use object detection rectangles to visualize the trigger.
  
• The Status/Cameras page contains a column for megapixels (MP). There's also a total MP/second calculation displayed at the bottom of the window.
  
• Analog/USB cameras are now treated more like Network IP cameras when it comes to a "no signal" status. Watchdog, recording, image posting and web casting functions continue through until signal is restored.
  
• The software should now be able to follow a 301/302/303 RTSP "moved" event for redirection

4.4.3 - August 28, 2016

• This version represents a week of fine-tuning and bug repair based on user feedback

4.4.2 - August 19, 2016

• There is an adjustable brush size on the Trigger/Motion/Mask window
  
• When you drag desktop camera windows by their title bars they will "snap" edges for easier alignment. You may still combine cameras into multi-camera frame windows by dragging a camera into another camera's frame.
  
• You may choose to exempt specific user logins from the Status/Messages/Alerts Remote Access alert condition. This is done with a new check box on each Options/Users page.
  
• The digital output alert on the Alerts tab now allows you to specify a duration for the alert in seconds
  
• Page up and down keys can be used to move between selected objects when editing graphic/text overlays from the Video tab

4.4.1 - August 4, 2016 ... (4.4.1.3 August 14)

• The camera group setting for "Only cycle when at least one camera is triggered" now works remotely via browser and client app
  
• A new feature on the Record tab allows you to set a time along with the "Cut video when triggered" option. The purpose is to allow you to keep the file open for a period of time following he last trigger so that trigger events may be grouped together by time proximity rather than strictly by the time of day.
  
• On the camera properties Trigger/Motion/Object page, you may now add a single zone letter as an argument to the zone-crossing box, allowing for zone crossing detection in addition to standard detection zones.
  
• On this same Trigger/Motion/Object page, you have the option to not use the zone crossing for re-triggers (triggers that occur while the camera is already triggered). This might be useful if motion continues for extended periods of time following the initial zone crossing.
  
• The ActiveX control and installer has been updated to version 4.0.0.7. There have been bug fixes concerning full screen mode and stream restarting.
  
• HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) code has been updated to provide precise segment sizes. There's also a setting for the segment size on the stream encoder settings page from Options/Web server.
  
• For very high resolution cameras (6MP+) the motion detector block size is now automatically adjusted smaller, offering a finer resolution for detection. Also use the "High definition" setting on the Trigger/Motion page for an even smaller block size for tracking much smaller objects.

4.4.0 - July 21, 2016

• 
  
• Foscam R2 compatibility fix
  
  
• Adjust PTZ speed from camera right-click PTZ menu
  
  
• From a user's Options/Users page, you may now choose to not use the new-alert and status counters locally and on the client apps. This will suppress the red badge numbers on the app icon and alert images as well as prevent the re-ordering of the most recent alert for each camera to the top of the alerts list.
  
  
• The WAN IP address box on Options/Web server will now recognize an IPv6 address. Provided the remote devices and your router are also IPv6-aware and you have done the proper routing, you should be able to use this IPv6 address remotely. The procedure to pull the address automatically however is still looking for your IPv4.
  
  
• If you use the /admin?camera=cam1&profile=x method, this now overrides the camera's profile in all cases unless you are overriding the global profile number and do not have the option checked on the camera's Schedule page to ignore the global override. Sending a value of profile=-1 now will remove the override.
  
  
• On the camera properties page you may now assign a keyboard shortcut to each camera so that you may quickly select/focus a specific camera.
  
  
• You may now add fps=x to a Blue Iris web server request for /h264/ and /mjpg/ video streams. Previously some users were inappropriately using the "frame rate limiting compatibility" mode for this functionality when pulling streams from other Blue Iris servers.
  
  
• As the "frame rate limiting compatibility mode" function has been increasingly deprecated, it has now been fully removed. The proper way to manage the stream FPS is on the camera/server side, not the software/client side by attempting to manipulate the receive buffer size and timing as this function once did.
  
  
• The pre-trigger video buffer on the Record tab now has units of tenths of seconds rather than frames. You may need to revisit this field to adjust as necessary for your requirements.
  
  
• A previous method of tracking alerts by file position offset in the BVR format is being deprecated; new alerts will be marked with time position offset.
  
  
• When recording using any of the continuous options, the pre-trigger video buffer setting is now used to offset the playback position of any recorded alerts.
  
  
• A few users have written to say the RTSP timecode option is not working properly, causing odd times to display on some camera streams. While it's possible to disable the RTSP timecode on the camera's Video/Network page, additional error-checking has been added to the code that makes use of the RTSP timecode in an effort to prevent erroneous times from being used.
  
  
• Camera borders are suppressed when a camera is shown full-screen and the "show camera names" function is also disabled.

 

[Tinman]

Is there somewhere where one can find out details of what changes are being made in each Blue Iris software update? With the rapid releases happening again, four updates in five days, while I am hesitant to update until a release is known to be stable, it would be nice to know what issues or enhancements are addressed.

The last few updates were dealing with Keekoon camera issues, so not all minor updates will you see any change at all depending type of cams you are running. I myself just read this forum and see what issues people are having. There are many users here that update every time and test. Here is where I read about the last 2 updates:
Last two updates causing problems

 

[srglassw]

Start the Blue Iris Admin application. Click on the large question mark to launch the Blue Iris Help file. Click on "What's New" link in the right side pane...

That lists the updates up to and including the version that is installed. I was thinking of some way to know what updates are before installing a new release. But thanks for responding.

 

[fenderman]

That lists the updates up to and including the version that is installed. I was thinking of some way to know what updates are before installing a new release. But thanks for responding.

I post them in the whats new section here...

 

[Philip Gonzales]

@srglassw

It is also very easy to revert back to a previous version should you have any issues. Especially if you run BiUpdateHelper which automatically saves updates. You revert by double clicking the exe... not much to it. You could also save your key, deactivate, double click the exe, then activate again. I did this a few times as an extra precaution in case something jacked up, but nothing bad has happened so far. Heck even a full reinstall is easy as the reg files are also backed up. In that case you would deactivate, uninstall, do clean install from desired installer, reactivate, import reg settings.

Blue Iris Update Helper (BiUpdateHelper)

 

[srglassw]

@srglassw

It is also very easy to revert back to a previous version should you have any issues...

Yes, I have done that many times. I was just asking if there was anywhere one can find what the updates are for each release.

 

[srglassw]

I post them in the whats new section here...

Those posts are the first thing I look for when there is a new release and I appreciate you doing that. Sometimes there is no post for releases and I wondered if there was somewhere else I could find that information.

 

[fenderman]

Those posts are the first thing I look for when there is a new release and I appreciate you doing that. Sometimes there is no post for releases and I wondered if there was somewhere else I could find that information.

I post every release change he does...he does not update changes for Minor release...