Win 10 BI server becomes unresponsive when running BI4

[voodooboy]

Hi folks,

First post here, although I've been lurking around for a long time (and been using BI for ~4 years) now. I decided to post here because I didn't end up getting any response when I emailed BI support (and followed up with another email). So here it goes...

I'm basically running a (headless) Core i7-5775C, 2x8GB DDR4 Windows 10 Pro machine that I use as my BI/Plex server as well as my NAS (running StableBit DrivePool). I have 5x Reolink PoE cameras (set to 1080p @5Mbps) feeding into BI4. I remote into it from time to time, but mostly just access the clips and other media through different clients. Honestly, I've had no real issues with any of the applications or the system itself ever. However, I've been facing a strange issue since the last couple of weeks.

I noticed that every other day or so, I would not be able to remote into the machine, or access any shares on the machine. I tried plugging in a monitor into the machine, but the display just stays blank. The only way to get it running again is to perform a hard reboot. Troubleshooting a headless machine is pretty difficult, but basically through the process of elimination (closing apps/killing background services etc.), I've nailed it down to Blue Iris being the culprit. When I killed the app/service, the server ran for 4 straight days without any issues. I then started BI and let it run, and sure enough the next morning, the machine is unresponsive. I then tried the experiment again, and once again, with BI not running, the machine had no issues for a couple of days. I then decided to turn BI back ON again yesterday evening, and sure enough, today afternoon, the server is unresponsive.

I'm honestly lost here; Windows event logs don't show anything out of the ordinary. What could be the problem? The only supposed theory I have is that this problem started right around when BI enabled QuickSync/HW acceleration a few weeks ago. I've tried running BI with HW acceleration enabled/disabled for the cameras, but it doesn't seem to make any difference in stability.

What gives?

 

[fenderman]

What exact version of BI?

 

[voodooboy]

It looks like BI just updated to version 4.3.7.0 (x64) earlier today. Before that, it was whatever was the version available prior to the update.

 

[voodooboy]

Ping?

It happened again; tried playing around with a couple of settings (direct to disk enabled, HW+VPP enabled etc.), no luck. This time I pulled the server out and hooked it up to a monitor and kept the display ON all the time. It looks like the machine just hard freezes...no BSOD or errors.

 

[captain_jim1]

I am having the same problems. Latest version of BI on a Win 10 machines. Nothing else is installed except Chrome...direct to disk enabled, HW+VPP enabled (and supported). I lock up daily. Logs show nothing. Did you ever have any luck figuring out your issue?

 

[fenderman]

I am having the same problems. Latest version of BI on a Win 10 machines. Nothing else is installed except Chrome...direct to disk enabled, HW+VPP enabled (and supported). I lock up daily. Logs show nothing. Did you ever have any luck figuring out your issue?

System specs?

 

[captain_jim1]

i5-6600 @3.3ghz, 8GB RM, Win 10x64, 125GB SSD, 4TB WD Purple, Latest BIv4 -- I'm checking out winDBG now -- it looks like the problem might be coming from a system driver - "igdkmd64" - -which appears to be video related. I guess I'll force a reload of my video drivers and see if things get better.

 

[fenderman]

i5-6600 @3.3ghz, 8GB RM, Win 10x64, 125GB SSD, 4TB WD Purple, Latest BIv4 -- I'm checking out winDBG now -- it looks like the problem might be coming from a system driver - "igdkmd64" - -which appears to be video related. I guess I'll force a reload of my video drivers and see if things get better.

search the forum.. there is a known issue with Intel drivers for skylake when decoding h264... there is a memory leak...see of they released a new driver..

 

[Reconguy]

Same/similar problem here. Seems to have started locking up after I upgraded to Windows-10. I had previously run the BI software on Win 8 with few problems and no system changes for over a year. Now once or twice a day the screen just goes blank and the system appears to freeze. Power is still on, but the PC is unresponsive. I have to cycle power to get it going again. I can let the system run without the BI software and it never crashes or locks up.

 

[fenderman]

Same/similar problem here. Seems to have started locking up after I upgraded to Windows-10. I had previously run the BI software on Win 8 with few problems and no system changes for over a year. Now once or twice a day the screen just goes blank and the system appears to freeze. Power is still on, but the PC is unresponsive. I have to cycle power to get it going again. I can let the system run without the BI software and it never crashes or locks up.

are you using a skylake processor with hardware acceleration? if so see above. If not, did you do an in place upgrade or clean install of 10?

 

[Reconguy]

I'm not completely sure of the system configuration. I got the PC about 2 years ago. I know its a AMD processor with 16G of memory. I did a in-place Win-10 install. (Win 8 kept shutting down BI and nagging me about upgrading to Win 10 until I finally gave in). I have no definitive proof that the problem is Windows-10 related. It just seems like the problem started happening about that time. I'm running a test now to confirm that I can go 24 hours crash-free without BI running. The only other thing I'm wondering about is a possible video chip problem. Tonight I hope to play a long movie on the PC to see if it makes it through without crashing. If I can figure out how, I'll have the PC loop through the movie for 24 hours to see if it has any problems. Another possible test would be to have BI run as a service without the on-screen video to see if it runs longer. If it does run without crashes, it would pretty much indicate that there is a interaction problem between BI and the video chip.

 

[bp2008]

Hmm. With an AMD CPU then hardware acceleration is out. It sounds like a good idea to test by playing a video. If this instability was in fact caused by the Windows upgrade, then a driver may be at fault. It could help to update your bios and as many drivers as you can.

Some other things you might try:
* Intel Burn Test (this is a stress testing tool often used by overclockers, I've seen it freeze up an unstable system in under a minute)
* Handbrake. Try transcoding a long video clip to h264 or h265 (try to get a few hours of encoding time out of it). This has been known to reveal hardware instability that other stress tests somehow miss.
* Memtest86+. If it runs for 24 hours or so without any memory errors, you can be fairly certain that your memory is good. Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool
* GSmartControl. You can check some HDD/SSD statistics with this, and execute self-tests on the disks.
* chkdsk

A fresh install of Windows 10 may also be warranted. If you took the free Win10 upgrade then your hardware is already licensed for it and supposedly you do not need a product key to install it. Windows 10

Remember to deactivate Blue Iris before you wipe the OS.

 

[Reconguy]

Thanks! I may try those options. I already did a chkdsk. I'll try some of the other tools also.

 

[Reconguy]

Just a FYI. I ran the Passmark Burn-in test suite (2D video, 3d video, memory, disk, etc) for several hours last night without any problems. Still troubleshooting...

 

[hawkigrad]

Same issue for me. My system only hard freezes with BI running. Windows 10 Pro with fresh install. No other issues. I did memory tests, switched from Nvidia to AMD video card. It locks about every day or every other day and I can only do a hard reset so no error log. I have monitored system temps and nothing is remotely close to being hot.

 

[msantic]

Hello!

If you use Intel HD hardware acceleration try to turn it off.

Blue Iris options -> Cameras -> Intel HD hardware acceleration --> No

 

[hawkigrad]

I already had it set to no. BI appears to be slowly eating memory but I can't say for certain as I just started to watch it more closely.

 

[hawkigrad]

 

[hawkigrad]

Starts around 785MB of memory and continues to go up slowly.

 

[nayr]

see this: H264 Encoding Memory leak with latest HD Graphics 510 driver

you might actually need to downgrade if its still not fixed

I tried previously released drivers and can confirm that the 15.40.10.4300 driver does not have the memory leak. The memory leak seems be introduced in 15.40.22.4424 and still exist in newer drivers.