Blue Iris

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Hardware acceleration (GPUs)

2022-02-23T00:19:04+00:00

Introduction

Hardware acceleration is one lever that can be used to optimize your BI server. This article provides clarity on leveraging GPUs when available in BI.

If you are interested in determining hardware specifications for a new server, see server recommendations.

If you need to know how to activate GPUs on your BI server, see the video tab.

iGPU vs GPU

Performance tab of Windows Task Manager.

Integrated GPU
An iGPU stands for Integrated GPU. In image above, GPU 0 is the iGPU. Integrated means the display circuitry in the chipset resides on the motherboard or on the same chip as the CPU. An integrated GPU shares memory with the CPU and provides a more economical alternative to a stand-alone card.

When a computer states QuickSync support, the hardware implementation resides on the iGPU.

Dedicated GPU
A dedicated GPU is generally much more powerful than an iGPU and often used with video editing or gaming software. Dedicated GPUs are also valuable when running AI solutions such as DeepStack. In the image above, GPU 1 is the dedicated GPU. In this case, it is an nVidia GTX 1070 Ti.

GPU utilization

Users often ask how do I know whether the GPU is being used. The below example illustrates how to do so. My system only has (4) 2 MP cameras, not a huge decoding load for today's chips.

No streaming
The no streaming section shows zero activity. I had BI set to the Inactive profile and the inactive profile is set to NOT stream any cameras. This test is just to level set. It is clear that the hardware decoder is not utilized at all when cameras are not streaming.

Group view
I then show the load when streaming in mosaic view (I have dual streams set for all my cameras). Thus each stream from the camera is the sub stream (856 x 480). You notice a bump in the decode usage. With more cameras and higher resolutions the bump will be more pronounced but you get the idea.

Single camera view
Finally, I go to single camera view, i.e. stream one camera in high resolution (2 MP). Notice another slight bump in usage.

Gotchas
This section provides learnings from past tickets.

Gotcha 1: GPU overloaded
Customer ticket

Symptoms: With 25 cameras displayed on the screen in a 5x5 grid of thumbnails, we find your app becomes lethargic and the CPU is almost always running 99 to 100% and the GPU is lightly loaded at maybe 5-10 %. We see delays on the cameras approaching 2 mins on the display.

Server:
Win 10 Pro
Intel i5-7500 3.4 ghz
8 gb ram
NVidia GeForce GT 1030 PCI Express X4 Gen 3 (driver version 451.48)

From engineering

With 25 cameras, your server may be spending more time switching between feeds than actually decoding.
Engineering stated one telltale sign the GPU is overloaded is FPS drops on the camera.
An easy test is to disable some of the other cameras and see if FPS bumps back up for the problem camera.

Gotcha 2: iGPU & dGPU
If your computer has multiple GPUs like above, make sure the bios is set appropriately. I would recommend enabling the iGPU. In below ticket, the user decided to choose the dGPU.

Customer ticket

The moment Ive sent this mail, I have realized the Igpu and Dgpu were both enabled. Deactivating the Igpu in the bios freed up the CPU.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Wed Feb 23, 2022 12:19 am

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Networking Gotchas

2021-12-22T15:12:04+00:00

Introduction

Gotchas are learnings from past tickets. We document issues from past tickets and their resolutions for the benefit of the community.
Click here If you are setting up your network for remote access.

Gotchas

Gotcha 5: LAN connectivity

Issue: On rare occasions, remote endpoints (mobile app, UI3) work on the WAN but NOT on the LAN. This always has to do with network configuration issues. See some documented examples below.

Customer Anecdotes (all network configuration issues)
Maybe triggers ideas as to what is wrong with your network setup.

Anecdotal 1:
Issue from a user where Push notifications worked on the WAN but not the LAN.

User switched to dynamic DNS (e.g. NGROK) from port forwarding. Changed mobile app WAN server settings accordingly.
Modified his local dns server to map the dynamic dns hostname to the internal IP. This user had a DNS server, perhaps company deployment. Most homeowners do not.
BI Server was not using the LAN interface associated with above DNS server, so DDNS URL was not being resolved to correct IP address. (oops)

The above is complicated for the average user and I doubt many have a local dns server. To keep it simple, most users just point the LAN address to the BI Server's IP Address.

Anecdotal 2:
It was a local IP issue. My WiFi LAN router assigned somehow assisted devices on the WiFi network a 192.156.**.*** oddly it assigned things plugged in via cable a 10.0.0.***. It was acting like a double NAT inside the same router/WiFi box. Oddly it had separated the WiFi and wired connections on separate LANs.

I put the WiFi side into bridge mode and let only one side assign the IP addresses. This forced both the wired and wireless devices on to the same IP setup 10.0.0.***. It took a few minutes for the network to rediscover everything. I rebooted everything.

Boom. It works.

Gotcha 4: Multiple Ethernet Adapters

Many users setup their BI servers to have multiple ethernet adapters. A common setup is to use the ethernet adapter exclusively to talk to cameras. Users want to keep their cameras completely off the internet for security reasons. However, they use the WIFI adapter to setup remote access, i.e. to view cameras from the mobile app or remote browser.

Or because of virtual machines, users may have virtual adapters listed. In general, BI will listen on all adapters.
Global settings -> Web server tab

Service
However, if you are running BI as a service, on occasion Windows can start services before the ethernet adapters are set. Delay the start of the BI service. Select Delayed Start from Windows Services for the BI service. This way Windows has time to set the adapters before starting the BI service.

Even with the delayed start, on occasion the adaptor will not be ready. With 5.5.0.14, the software will now retry the web server connection each 4 seconds after an initial failure until it is successful.

Bind exclusively is not normally needed since the web server will listen by default on all available adapters.

Gotcha 3: Ad blockers

Ad-blockers work by blocking IP addresses they suspect are connecting to serve ads.
Ad-blockers have confused valid BI connections from a web browser or mobile app as ad servers, thus disrupting connections.

Users, for example, would never get the login page.

Thanks, I figured it out. My host based adblocker, for some reason, started blocking the connection. Whitelisted the blueiris IP and all is well.

The ad-blocker (Adguard) on an Android device caused the mobile app to crash. Error message was lost connection to service 2.

Gotcha 2: Android & STunnel

Issue: I can connect to my server using UI3 on the mobile web browser. However, my mobile app will not connect.

Android / Google came out with tighter certificate restrictions recently. You need to make some changes to your Stunnel config file. The Android Gotcha article documents how other customers resolved issue.

Gotcha 1: Mobile apps no longer connect

Issue: The mobile app or web browser can no longer connect to the BI server.
You may have not done anything. Maybe router restarted? Maybe your ISP provider rotated your WAN address?
Easy to confirm. Email your support info to yourself. Click on the WAN URL. Does the web login page pop up?
If not, something has changed. The Remote Access Wizard will also tell you if there is an issue.

This gotcha ONLY applies to port forwarding setups.

The above diagram was used in the Remote Access Webinar to explain port forwarding. If the above is confusing, first review the webinar which is based on the Remote Access section of the BI Help file. The Help file with the webinar is a good start to understanding Remote Access.

Based on diagram, the ISP provider originally assigned 97.56.23.168 as your WAN address. Based on diagram, the router assigned the BI Server 192.168.1.7 as the LAN address.

After the router restart:

ISP could have assigned a new WAN address. 97.56.23.168 -> 97.56.28.15
Consequence: Mobile devices will no longer be able to connect to the BI server from the WAN.
Fix: Logout of BI Mobile App -> Edit (server) -> Lookup key (iOS) / Get IPS button (Android). You should observe the WAN address update.

This will only work if Global settings -> Web server tab -> Refresh external IP at startup... is checked.

For Commercial accounts where the ISP provides permanent IP Addresses, this feature can be unchecked. Commercial accounts are usually guaranteed the same WAN address
For residential accounts, WAN addresses are usually NOT guaranteed. The Refresh external IP... feature comes in handy to get the mobile apps reconnected.
Router could have assigned BI a new IP address. 192.168.1.7 -> 192.168.1.15.
Consequence: The router's port forwarding is broken.
Fix: Update the router's port forwarding to the new IP address. Also change the router setting to provide a Static IP Address to the BI server so it never changes again to prevent future issues.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:12 pm

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Windows Tuning

2021-09-17T17:16:06+00:00

Introduction

The Blue Iris status log webinar walks through this article if you prefer to listen instead.

If you are a new user or just installed BI on a machine, it's always good to go through this article just to confirm Windows settings are not in conflict with BI functionality. If you are experiencing instability or crashes, it's also good to revisit this article.

BI can be run either as a regular Windows application or as a Windows service.
The first section is applicable to both deployments. It walks through anti-virus software exclusions needed for BI to run properly.
The second section is applicable to deployments where you run BI as a service.

Windows settings

Local admin account (LocalSystem)

Double check your Windows user accounts and permissions. Specifically, BI runs best under a local admin account, not as LocalSystem.
Follow the Windows instructions to create a local windows account with admin privileges.

If you log into your Windows machine as a non-admin user and then start BI it is very possible the BI application will not have the proper permissions to write to the storage drives specified in Clips and archiving.

Static IP Address
If you setup Remote Access using port forwarding, always good to assign a static IP address to your server.

Ad blockers
Ad blockers can have an adverse affect on remote access.

Power savings

I like to start with the easiest checks first. If you are noticing No Signal issues or gaps in recording only when away from the computer, make sure there are no Power saving settings such as Battery saver mode etc. The monitor can go to sleep. The PC needs to be running at full power. Users have reported No signal issues due to power savings mode.

Response from a user with incorrect power savings and getting No signal from his USB camera. Issue applies to USB & IP cameras.

At last, sorted. I said it would probably be my fault and something daft. Well it was, Ken. When I set up the pc I adjusted the power options for the screen to shut down after 10 mins. Also, to sleep after 10 minutes of no activity. This I did not know shuts off the camera even thou the program is running, active. So I did not bother to check that the pc was going to sleep even thou this was running.

Laptops are notorious for having power saving modes that can affect access to system resources such as CPU. In this case, BI was stating 100% CPU usage in the lower right corner of the application. However, the CPU utilization from Windows Task Manager was hovering at 33%! Power savings was throttling BI.

Hey thank you for your help, turns out it is a windows issue not allowing my cpu usage over 40% (capped at 39% as seen on resource monitor). Blue iris is running on a laptop and seems a battery/ac adapter driver/process is malfunctioning. I have not isolated it yet but I confirmed by unplugging and then plugging back in the ac power adapter, now my machine is able to run at 100% cpu when needed. Found this out down a reddit rabbit hole.

Antivirus software

Your Security Software (Windows defender, McAfee, BitDefender etc) or a Security Software update is interfering with Blue Iris.
Symptoms: Performance issues, Crashes, Software will not start, Auto-update is blocked, UI3 is not connecting are all symptoms due to improper software security exemptions.

It seems like either the last update to BI or an update to windows 10 has stopped the ui3 from showing anything on the screen. All I am getting is a Spinning Circle.

It was the dang SOPHOS anti virus. I figured it out

Below is an example of robust Software Security Exemptions for Windows Defender. Similar exemptions need to be provided for your Security Software.

Note the BI executable is excluded: BlueIris.exe
Note ALL the BI folders (New, DB, Stored, Alerts etc) for storage are excluded.
In my case, all these folders reside under G:\BlueIris so only one exclusion was needed to cover ALL my folders.
If you have a NAS device or storage on USB drives, make sure those devices are excluded from a folder perspective AND a firewall perspective.
Note bvr file types are excluded

See help file topic "Security Software Exemption" as well. This section provides additional details associated with other vendors (McAfee, Malware Bytes etc). If you are experiencing instability, the easiest step to take is to just turn off your security software and observe over time if the issues go away.

Windows BitLocker is another security measure provided with Windows 10 which allows encryption of the hard drive. BI performs constant reads/writes to storage. Most users have not enabled BitLocker.

Quote from another user.

I figured it out. Somehow the check box for allowing blue iris in bitdefender was turned off. Not sure how that could have happened.

Firewall Settings

There is no way BI can talk with your cameras or the web interface or the mobile apps unless BI is allowed access to the network.

Windows allows the ability to categorize networks as public or private. My server running BI is connected directly to my switch containing all the cameras and does not move. I'm not concerned about whether I categorized my network correctly since I know it is physically safe on my private switch. Thus I keep Firewall settings simple and allow access to all networks, the public and private network as seen below.

You may have BI running on a laptop that you use at Starbucks and other networks. In those cases, labeling networks as private / public and allowing BI access to private networks is more of a concern that should be addressed.

If you receive the below error at startup, it could be the internet service is down, your network equipment (switches/routers) or cables went bad etc. Definitely check those components first. It could also very well be your firewall is blocking BI.

Storage

Database/New folder

The database folder is often on the SAME drive as the New folder because we recommend both folders to be on your fastest local SSD drive.
Keep in mind the drive needs to have enough free space for the BI database functions to operate. In particular, make sure there is enough free space on the drive containing the database to duplicate/copy the Database folder at all times. If the db folder is 200 MB, than BI will need at least 2x or 400MB of free space on the drive.
Best practice is to NOT use all the storage space available on SSD drives. Many vendors recommend leaving 25% of a drive empty for optimal performance. Maintaining this convention should suffice for BI needs.

Database Gotcha:

Many users do not realize the settings in the Alerts folder affect content stored in the Alerts folder AND content stored in the Alerts table in the database. Do not uncheck Limit clip age in the Alerts folder. By doing so, you effectively told BI never to delete Alerts in the database causing the database to grow indefinitely. In below image, 30 days effectively tells BI to store Alerts in the database for 30 days. Alerts older than 30 days will be deleted and will NOT appear in the Alerts list.

BI will tell you how many alert records are stored in the database. Similarly, the clips list will also tell you how many records (files) are archived.

A good benchmark is less than 100,000 records. If you need to store more files, simply increase the file size (4 GB default) in Camera settings -> Record tab for all your cameras, thus reducing the number of files created moving forward.

NAS Storage

If you use Network storage there are three important steps to make the storage work with BI.
1. Make sure the NAS drive is completely exempt from your anti-virus software. See Antivirus section above for details.
2. Make sure the username/password used to access the NAS exactly matches your Windows login credentials.
3. Use the UNC name in BI, not a drive letter.
For example, \\ip address\path\to\write\to or \\server name\path\to\write\to

Storage Troubleshooting

The logs are the first place to look for Storage errors.
Make sure you have Storage events recorded to the logs.

System Restore

Starting with Microsoft Windows XP and still available in Windows 10 there is a recovery tool called ‘System Restore’. Essentially this tool takes snap-shots of critical files at certain points in time (e.g. software installations, system updates, etc. as well as at your request.) These system restore points are accumulated and if needed will often (but not always) return a PC to its operating status at the selected point-in-time.

Since it is part of the Operating System and easy to use, we highly recommend using it. See Windows Tools article for details.

Service

Running BI as a service is a very popular feature. Running as a service means BI is always running in the background. Windows will automatically restart the service if the application crashes. The "Running as a Service" topic in Help explains all the details associated with setting up BI to run as a service.

Many users get confused when running BI as a service initially because the console is not up (nor should it be). It's a client server implementation. When you want to view the console, simply click on the application icon in the Windows menu. The console (client) will connect to the server and you see the cameras. When done, CLOSE the console to free up resources (especially GPU resources). The server is still running in the background!

Below are known issues based on past tickets.

Running Service as LocalSystem
While discouraged, it is possible to run a Windows service under the account "localsystem" by leaving username/password blank when selecting to run BI as a service (image below). LocalSystem may not have the access rights for certain functions. A common issue is alerts to run batch files or MQTT commands may not get executed when the service is run under the LocalSystem account. Running BI as a Windows service under the account "LocalSystem" can also cause instability because localsystem may not have the needed privileges for NAS devices or sending alerts. See Help file, Topic "Running as a Service" for details.

Follow steps below to fix:

Basic idea: Disable and re-enable the service to run under a Windows account instead of localsystem.
Create a local windows account with admin privileges.
Global settings -> Startup tab ->Run as a Windows service. Uncheck selection. Restart BI.
Go back to Global settings -> Startup tab -> Run as a Windows service. Re-check the selection.
Enter your own local Windows account (w/ admin privileges) in pop-up dialog
Restart BI once again as a service.
If you are using a NAS device for storage, the Windows username/password used to run the service has to be identical to the credentials on the NAS device otherwise writing to the NAS device will not work.

Web server has incorrect IP Address

On rare occasions, Windows will start the BI service before initializing the network card/stack. This results in the BI web server binding to a random ethernet interface even though you told BI to bind exclusively to a particular ethernet interface.

The temporary fix is to restart the service. The permanent fix is to configure Windows to delay the start of the BI service. This should provide Windows the needed time to configure all the available ethernet adapters before starting the BI service.

Windows Errors

The Service errors section documents known errors associated with running BI as a service.

Routine maintenance

Miscellaneous

Know your license key. The easiest way to store your license key is to mail your support info to yourself.
This way you will always have a copy of your license in your email.
When your BI is running perfectly, SAVE a copy of your BI registry settings on a thumb drive/cloud folder.
If you change settings or add a camera and you have BI running perfectly, SAVE a copy of your BI registry settings again on a thumb drive.
This way if your PC crashes, your BI settings are still accessible.
FYI, BI automatically saves your settings from the last 3 days. Go to your program installation directory, usually "C:\Program Files\Blue Iris 5". You will find 3 settings: backup.reg, backup2.reg and backup3.reg from newest to oldest. This assumes Auto export is enabled. Global settings -> About tab (highly recommended).

Run as a service
If you are seeing instability, many users run BI as a service. By doing so, BI automatically restarts if it crashes.
See Running as a Service section in the Help file.

Status alerts
After you have your system setup, you still need to monitor BI is running well on an ongoing basis. Fortunately, doing so is easy in BI.
Setup your Status Alerts. Status button -> Log tab -> Status alerts.
Users can create alerts (push, email, sms) when there are system log errors to catch an issue early.
All the different types of alerts are located in Status -> Log tab. Select "Status Alerts" button. Hit the Help button in the dialog for details.
The Status Log Errors article (work in progress) provides some more level of details.

Watchdog alerts
Furthermore, users can also create alerts for each and every camera that is causing issues (e.g. no signal).
Camera settings -> Watchdog tab has details.

If you tend to be near the BI server, this allows you to examine the machine near the time of errors in order to gather clues to instability prior to a possible crash.

Many users just open their BI in the morning, select the current day and play back events across all cameras using the timeline view or per camera using the clips list. Doing so, tests a lot of functionality at once and makes you aware when cameras are not monitoring correctly, e.g. no alerts came from one camera all night.

Server Health
Many issues / tickets can be alleviated by just looking at the Status button and alleviating any known problems. Use the Status button (button with chart and arrow in top left of console) to access the Log tab.
Any time the Status button turns red, the BI server encountered an error. Check errors as soon as you can.

Log tab
The Log tab is NOT the log file. The log tab aggregates events since the server started or restarted.

In the image above the highlighted error, YARDPOOL Clip: Disk not ready did not occur one time. This error happened 6,897 times since the last restart! A major issue.

Errors (e.g. crashes) are easily identifiable by the Red X. The Help button in the Status log dialog has additional information. See Status Log Errors article for error details also.

Aggregation is beneficial when you are in front of the console and have the log tab open. As BI performs functions based on your settings, you see the events pop up in the logs. It's a great way to understand what BI is doing based on your settings. The aggregation helps you digest the info. Otherwise the logs would scroll too fast.

The Log tab is also a wealth of information when you are trying to figure out if something new you are trying to build is working.

For example, Group triggers and Alerts can get complicated and hairy especially if the Group has more than two cameras. First recommendation, get Group triggers working with two cameras before adding to the group. Understand the log events associated with the simple use case so when you add cameras to the group, you can figure out what is going on or breaking.

Another common issue is your Push alerts stopped firing. The log tab is a great way to know if the BI server is firing Push notifications. If so, the problem resides with your network or mobile app. If not, something is wrong with your BI Trigger or Alert settings.

Status -> Cameras tab
Are the camera streams healthy. You MUST know your camera stats. Help button in Cameras tab dialog has additional information.

Status -> Clip Storage
Any red errors? See corresponding Help file by pushing Help.
The Storage and Recording section of the Checklist has details.

Log files
Always good to review the log files monthly and when facing instability.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Fri Sep 17, 2021 5:16 pm

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Networking - Remote Access

2021-08-17T03:10:36+00:00

Introduction

Remote access is a key component of BI functionality. Users want to see their cameras and alerts remotely either through a browser or their mobile apps. In order to do so, your home or office network needs to be setup so your mobile apps or browsers can connect to your BI server. This article has the following sections.

Network setup
The choices for setting up the network seem to be growing. The Network setup section shares the options available so users can decide what works best for them.

Network connectivity
Once the network is setup, the Remote access wizard section helps to confirm the network setup is correct.

The Remote device tests section provides additional tests to confirm what components are working and not working by simply using your mobile phone and a mobile web browser on the phone. If you need support, knowing the results of your tests is important to diagnose the issue.

Network tests
This section documents how to diagnose networking issues. This section is used when troubleshooting issues, not so much during initial setup.

Mobile apps
If you have mobile apps, after this article, jump to Mobile devices article to setup phone/mobile app.

If you have already setup your network and are now facing issues, see the Networking Gotchas article. We document learnings from past tickets.

Network setup

This article complements the Remote access chapter in the Help file. It's a step by step practical guide on how to setup your network for remote access.

Port forwarding and NGROK (DDNS)

The Networking and Router Configuration section in Help provides a nice overview of Port forwarding and NGROK. Port forwarding was the original way of setting up your network for Remote access. Network saavy folks still use port forwarding, but for many, setting up port forwarding is challenging.

The Remote Access 101 webinar guides you through the process of setting up your network using Port forwarding and NGROK. The webinar begins by explaining the concept of port forwarding and walks you through an example. Troubleshooting your network and port forwarding is beyond BI support. Research the forum/internet and/or contact a local managed IT services company or security company.

The webinar then closes by explaining how to implement NGROK for remote access. NGROK is one of many DDNS solution for remote access. Furthermore, NGROK provides https support for free so not only is it easy to deploy, but also provides strong security/encryption. The webinar complements the NGROK section in the Help files.

Mesh networks
Google Wifi, Orbi, Eero etc
I personally started with port forwarding but have since switched to NGROK after purchasing an Orbi mesh router and not wanting to deal with cascading routers. See Multiple routers section in Help for details. Most users are using NGROK (ddns) these days since it's easier.

The only gotcha is if the Windows server running BI restarts, you have to restart NGROK and re-enter the url in the mobile app(s). The paid version gives you a persistent URL. However, the NGROK section in Help provides detailed instructions on how to start NGROK automatically and get Remote access working again.

Other third party solutions

This section shares other networking solutions for remote access that seems to be catching on with users.

ZeroTier
ZeroTier sounds like a more robust DDNS tunneling solution that also bypasses port forwarding.
ZeroTier comes with a free version. It also provides encryption.
Works with the Starlink network from SpaceX.
See details on YouTube.

Web server settings

Once you have the network setup, you can now setup the BI server. Global settings -> Web server tab
The Help button goes to the Web server topic in Help. This is a good time to review Help to get an overall understanding of the fields in the dialog.

Port forwarding
This section talks about the key fields when you choose to setup remote access via port forwarding.
Web server port: You can leave the default 81 or choose another port based on how you setup port forwarding on your router.
Adaptors: BI listens on all available adaptors so leaving selection as is should be fine. See Help for more info.
WAN: Use the refresh button to populate the WAN address. Check the router connected to the internet to confirm the address is correct.

Port forwarding + SSL(HTTPS)
Many users that have implemented port forwarding also want https / encryption for better security. If you are interested in maintaining your own SSL certificates for encryption, see the SSL and HTTPS section in the BI Help file. STunnel is one solution. Keep in mind, Android recently changed their policy on public certificates.
The Android gotchas article lists examples of fixes to meet these new requirements.

NGROK

Follow steps below to setup BI properly to work with NGROK.
The below instructions provide an https remote connection.

NGROK Server
Start the NGROK server if not done so already. Below is the console window after doing so. I told NGROK to use port 7000.

Web server settings
Since NGROK provides https for free, I took advantage of it. Simply copy the https address into the WAN field.

Note STunnel/NGROK is selected.
Note Refresh external IP at startup and again every is unchecked.

Mobile app - Server settings

What's great about BI is if your Global settings -> Web server tab settings are set correctly, the Lookup key will correctly populate the server settings in the mobile app!

Note https choice for WAN with the ngrok address which corresponds to the https setup in the Web server tab above.
For the LAN, I chose to keep my IP address with http, so the router can access the BI server faster when home.

Remote access wizard

BI comes with a diagnostic tool to determine whether you have successfully setup your network and the BI server for remote access.
Global settings -> Web server tab -> Remote access Wizard.
Start the Wizard and in parallel read the Remote Access Wizard section in Help. The Help documentation explains the checks associated with each page and helps you resolve issues.

Remote device tests

You can now test whether your network is setup correctly by using the UI3 browser!

Test 1: Localhost

This test is good because it takes the network out of the equation, but still leverages the server's network card.
Open a browser window on your BI server. Go to your BI web server. localhost:. Does the login page pop up?

When you login is the interface responsive? Do the camera streams appear smooth and healthy?
If not, either the BI web server is not running well or your camera streams are not setup correctly or maybe you do not have the proper Antivirus and Firewall exemptions. I would think using localhost in the URL would not be impacted by firewall / antivirus exemptions, but you never know.

Windows Firewall & Anti-virus
Sophos is an example of anti-virus software that held the video stream for something like 30s before releasing the data to UI3.
See Windows tuning article on how to setup proper exemptions.

Camera streams
Confirm streams are smooth and healthy in the console. Garbage in = Garbage out.
If not, see Console - Live view article.

Web server
The Remote Access Wizard will help you determine whether your web server is running ok.

Test 2: LAN & UI3

After test 1, this test helps determine if your LAN network is setup correctly.
From a device on the LAN (laptop or mobile phone), connect to UI3 using the web browser.

Web server
If the login page does not appear, double check your web server is not blocking access by Limit IP address settings. Global settings -> Web server tab -> Advanced button.

Network configuration
If the login page still does not appear, your network is not setup correctly.
You need to determine why your remote device on the LAN cannot talk to the BI server. You will need to check your Router(s) settings and any equipment that has to do with the routing.

Login
Login to UI3 if the login page appears.
If you cannot login see login gotchas.

Network latency
Do the cameras (video streams) load? After login, does the web interface state "Loading" with a spinning circle?
With Dynamic Group Layout which was released with 5.5, the group stream resolution can be a lot higher than before. The higher resolution takes more CPU time to encode which could be the issue. See the 5.5 Release notes -> Gotcha 8 for details and resolution.

Is UI3 responsive? Are the video streams smooth and current? Any error/warning messages?
Run through the Windows Tuning article just to make sure Windows is not in conflict with BI. Pay attention to Anti-virus and Firewall sections. This is frequently the biggest cause of poor performance or poor remote access.

Use the gear icon (lower right) in UI3 to alter video streams to lower the network bandwidth to meet the constraints of your network!

Endpoint
BI also provides the ability to examine the endpoint device. In UI3, you can right click on Stats for Nerds and observe the stats on the endpoint.
Latency = Network delay + Player delay
If either delay is above 1000ms it could indicate an issue.

High network delay normally indicates a network problem but could also happen if the BI server is overwhelmed and unable to encode the stream properly.

High player delay means there is something wrong with the computer running UI3 (too slow, bad video driver, etc).

If there is 5-11 seconds of video delay that cannot be attributed to the delays in Stats for nerds, then I would suspect internet security software is intercepting the video stream and trying to scan it for viruses for a while before releasing it.

Test 3: WAN (internet) & UI3

Turn off Wifi on your mobile phone, i.e. connect to your cellular network.
Can the mobile browser on your phone still connect to the login page?

If not, your router or network is not setup so devices on the internet can communicate with your BI web server.
Revisit Network Setup section above.

Mobile apps

Confirm Mobile App Server settings.
Login to the web interface from the phone while on your cellular network.

You can be confident your network is setup correctly.
Your web server is configured properly to work with your mobile app.
You know the LAN/WAN addresses needed to connect to the server are correct.
You confirmed a Username / Password by logging into the web interface.

If you have a mobile app, connecting the app to your server should be easy. You now have all the critical pieces of information needed to connect your mobile app. The Mobile Devices article walks you through setting up your phone.

Network tests

The Network is a huge dependency for BI to run well. When BI is NOT running well, this section helps diagnose network equipment failures that could be the root cause of the BI issues.

BI Server - Network utilization

Surveillance systems put a heavy load on networking equipment. Users often keep adding cameras to their network without paying attention to the load. The network load can be the reason cameras randomly disconnect from BI.

Below are the stats from the Resource Monitor on my Windows machine. If you are not familiar with resource monitor, there are many good tutorials on YouTube. Here is a link to one such video.

As you can see, when BI is active, the network card on my PC is close to saturated. When BI is inactive, e.g. off or Inactive profile, the network traffic drops to less than 1 Mbps! When network utilization creeps up, network congestion occurs. Some obvious affects of this situation are dropped camera connections. This example illustrates one of the bottlenecks with surveillance systems, all of the traffic that needs to aggregate into the BI server. The other potential bottleneck are the switch(es) and/or router(s) connecting your camera(s).

Some good tests to determine whether the network is the issue:

Leveraging VLC. VLC will validate the network and the camera. A somewhat safer test because all third party apps use the same ports to access the camera.
Disable cameras in BI. Do other cameras start working? If so, your network card or your server is dropping frames and camera connections.

Customer anecdotal

I have a problem I cannot seem to solve, I cannot access from WAN for more than a minute only LAN, I go through the access Wizard and everything comes up ok with green ticks and it will work via WAN for a minute and then won't connect "unable to reach server". It will never connect again until I click through the wizard again, still all settings ok and green. The IP address is correct at all times.

I have narrowed it down to the network card, how it could be that I have no idea but it appears to be. So the new NIC has been running now for a few hours and it appears to be working perfectly! How that could be the cause I just don't know, possibly the amount of packets for streaming outbound it had issues with.

Anyway for now it's working, so I'm happy! Should it reappear I'll let you know

Cameras

Some good tests to determine whether the camera is the issue:

Always good to restart/reboot/factory reset the camera(s) and see if they start working. Loss of signal could be due to maybe the camera being overloaded. If you are pulling dual streams, does the fps go up if BI only pulls one stream? If you can pull the main stream or the sub stream correctly, but not both together, you may need to reach out to the camera vendor for more information.
I was in the process of setting up the camera for remote support (opening port) and once got stuck so I did a factory reset and now I don't appear to be having the issues anymore. Weird.... I'll let it it run for a few days and see.
Leverage the camera's mobile app or web interface to confirm network connectivity.
The easiest way to confirm the camera is working is by seeing if the cameras connect with another 3rd party application. Leverage VLC.
If another 3rd party player cannot access the camera
- either the network is not setup correctly
- the camera/device does not allow 3rd party access
- there is hardware failure with the network and/or the camera

Network hardware

This section explains how to leverage your cameras to determine whether your networking equipment and cables are functioning. Below are examples of network failures from past customers that led to resolution.

Many customers have a hard time believing their networking hardware is bad or incorrectly configured. Below are a list of issues to provide clues on how to investigate your network.

Router: If some cameras work and others do not work, switch the router ports at the router of the non-working cameras with working cameras. Rule out the router has gone bad.

I had a user with 5 cameras, most of which were high resolution (4 MP+). The issue was the router which was eventually replaced. The problem was not obvious. 4 of the cameras worked for the most part (but they too would lose signal on occasion). The 8 MP camera (PoE) was the most problematic. Even more strange the lower resolution wireless cameras worked better than the 8 MP camera. The user had no issues after replacing his router. Troubleshooting network issues is beyond BI support.
No, only one camera was initially causing trouble. I have 4 reolink and the amcrest. Interestingly, the wireless reolink worked great. The poe 810A was the most problematic,..and I think also the highest resolution. Hence, perhaps some timeouts or something with my old / bad modem. No problems since I replace the modem.
Cables: If you have a camera that you know works well, replace a problem camera with the good camera temporarily. If the good camera also stops working, then you know that particular cable has a problem.

Network

The above are practical tests that can be used to isolate network issues with the server, cameras and network hardware used by your surveillance system.

There are broader network issues that may need to be addressed that goes beyond BI support. BI is also a streaming server. If for example remote access to a phone or UI3 interface on the LAN or WAN is poor, determining the root cause is beyond BI support. These issues need to be addressed by a local networking engineer or local IT managed services company.

Gotchas

If you have already setup your network and are now facing issues, see the Networking Gotchas article. We document learnings from past tickets.

Next steps

We are not networking experts. Nor do we know your ISP provider or their policies.
Basic troubleshooting is to turn features off and reduce complexity (STunnel, VPN etc) and observe whether functionality returns.
Speak with your local experts at Managed IT firms or Video Surveillance firms if your setup is not working.
The forum may be a good place to pose your question. blueirissoftware.com/forum

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Tue Aug 17, 2021 3:10 am

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Server Management: Upgrade BI / Move BI license

2021-07-22T03:37:01+00:00

Introduction

Common requests are

What are the recommended steps to upgrade from BI4 to BI5.
I just bought a new server. How do I move BI to the new machine?

Upgrade

Steps to upgrade from BI4 to BI5. Version 5 is a full install upgrade, so you would download from the Download page at http://blueirissoftware.com/Download, and use the same version 4 license key to register only AFTER deciding to upgrade.

Shutdown BI4

Secure the license key.
Suggestion: Click the Help button (? button).
Copy Email support info to copy critical system info to the clipboard.
Then paste the clipboard into an email and send email to yourself.
This way you have a copy of all your support info.
Global settings -> About dialog -> Export settings (v4). Save this file to a thumb drive. Settings are designed to go in one direction. Going back to v4 requires restoring BI4 settings, NOT using settings modified/exported by v5.
Turn off BI V4 including service if running as a service.

Start BI5

Install BI5 (download from website)
Blue Iris 5 is considered a new application for your Antivirus and Firewall software. The exceptions you added for BI4 needs to be replicated for BI5, including Antivirus exemptions for the BI executable, blueiris.exe. The Window Tuning article walks you through all the checks.
Start BI5. Cameras and recordings should come up since info is already in registry.
If it does not, import your BI4 settings. Global settings -> About dialog -> Import settings (only necessary if registry was mistakenly deleted)
Insert license key (optional. you can run trial as well)
Right click in clip list -> Database -> Repair / regenerate. Just to be safe.

Cleanup
Uninstall BI4 (Once BI5 is up and running)

Move
Steps to move BI to a new machine.

Old machine

Secure the license key.
Suggestion: Click the Help button (? button).
Copy Email support info to copy critical system info to the clipboard.
Then paste the clipboard into an email and send email to yourself.
This way you have a copy of all your support info.
Global settings -> About dialog -> Export settings. Save this file to a thumb drive.
Stop BI.
(optional) If you want to keep your recordings, move all local directories containing clips and the database directory to external storage.
If you want to start with new recordings, skip.

New machine

Install BI on new machine
Add Security Software Exemptions. See Windows Tuning Article for details.
Start BI. Run BI using the 15-day trial to setup your machine properly.
Global settings -> About dialog -> Import settings (pull in BI camera and storage info from old machine)

Optional: Readjust storage on new machine. Import recordings and alerts from old machine. Could start out new as well.

Activate the red shield. This will allow BI to run but stops core functionality such as Triggers/Recordings/Alerts and other stuff temporarily.
Most importantly you are preventing writes to the database while trying to restore the old database.
(Optional) Re-adjust storage locations if desired. Global settings -> Clips and archiving. You could have BI just keep the same directory structure setup on previous server.
If you want to move BI recordings/files from previous machine to new machine, do so now, i.e. New -> New. DB -> DB etc.
Right click in clip list -> Database -> Repair / regenerate. Just to be safe.
If clip list does not show prior clips / alerts, then restart the console.
Un-pause BI (turn shield to green).
(Optional) When BI first started, it created default BI directories (C:\BlueIris). When you imported your settings, the directories specified in your import settings were created (if different from default directories). If you then changed those drives/directories a third time, you may want to delete the previous directories as a final cleanup.

Move license

Now that your new server is setup, deactivate your license on your old machine.
Insert license into new server.

Gotchas

Gotcha 2: Forgot password

Run REGEDIT and delete this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Perspective Software\Blue Iris\server\users\local_console

Then find the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Perspective Software\Blue Iris\Options

and set the "runasadmin" value back to its default of 1. This is the "require run as administrator" checkbox on the Settings/Startup page. This will disable the login prompt altogether and start the software.

Gotcha 1: Import settings fails

You just installed / re-install BI and you try to import your bi setting which you had saved. When trying to import, BI terminates without any message and after a restart I get the error shown below.

Running BI without admin privileges or security software such as Kaspersky is preventing access to the registry.

Run REGEDIT and locate the key "HKLM\Software\Perspective Software\Blue Iris Import". It's the import key you want.
Find the 'a1' key in "HKLM\Software\Perspective Software\Blue Iris Import" and right-click edit permissions. Add "full control" to the administrators group.
You should now be able to delete the import key and startup.

Go through the Windows Tuning article to make sure Windows is not in conflict with Blue iris.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:37 am

Infrastructure: Servers and Networks • Hardware Recommendations

2021-07-20T17:17:56+00:00

Introduction

Many users often ask for recommendations regarding hardware for cameras and servers. Blue Iris is directionally vendor agnostic, i.e. we run on standard Windows servers and support camera standards, i.e. RTSP and ONVIF. That being said here are some directional guidelines.

Cameras

Some vendors that are popular and tend to get good feedback with our customers (not an endorsement). We chose these vendors only because they address the different price points (low, high) we see in the market. With Amcrest, we do have a tighter integration relationship just because they provide their libraries which are included in the installer. Thus the Amcrest drivers tend to mostly work.

Amcrest
Axis

Will my cameras work with BI?

Video standards
RTSP tends to be the most popular today. Other standards such as RTMP, MJPEG or just regular JPG are also supported.

If you are uncertain, reach out to the camera manufacturer. Simply ask, how do I connect your camera to third party VMS systems using RTSP. One user asked how to connect the camera to VLC, a very popular media player. If VLC can connect to a camera, it should be possible via BI as well.

ONVIF
BI also supports the ONVIF standards. I would say ONVIF enabled devices make connectivity the easiest because often access to the video plus additional functionality such as PTZ comes over via ONVIF. ONVIF support is also the clearest indication that the camera provides 3rd party integration. Cameras that support ONVIF usually advertise they do so on their product page of the site where you are purchasing the camera.
www.onvif.org/conformant-products/ is a page where you can also check ONVIF support. Simply enter device/manufacturer/ Profile T of your camera and you will see the list of cameras that probably connect to BI.

Cameras that promote their own app or do not advertise ONVIF support are usually a red flag that third party access may not be possible.
Ring, Arlo and SimpliSafe are common vendors that do not allow third party access to their cameras.

Vendors we know that do not work with third party software (not exhaustive list):

Blink (Amazon acquisition)
Ring (Amazon acquisition)
SimpliSafe

BI Connectors

The Generic/RTSP Make / Model selection is automatically chosen if an ONVIF connection to the camera is possible.

In addition, the Make/Model list in the IP Config dialog provides an exhaustive list of the 1000s of manufacturers that are also supported via custom drivers. BI engineers continuously works with customers to add new cameras to the list.

For any manufacturer, the list of supported models are also provided. Often models that are not listed can use an existing driver. The only way to know whether BI will work with your cameras is to download the software and test. Test the video, PTZ and other functionality that comes with the camera.

New and advanced features

Cameras are coming out with more and more features, e.g. sirens, floodlights etc. Often we can reverse engineer functionality if you put the camera on the WAN for remote testing. A good litmus test as to whether this is possible is to determine whether the same functionality is available via their web interface? If so, then we have a good shot of reverse engineering the functionality into BI. If not, i.e. the functionality is only available via a proprietary app, probably not.

The Connect cameras correctly section in the Checklist documents best practices for connecting cameras.

We are software engineers with expertise in connecting to cameras.
If you are looking for the right camera, i.e. features/functionality to meet your requirements, reach out to the surveillance experts on the forum.
Alternatively speak with your local experts at Managed IT firms or Video Surveillance firms.

Server Recommendations

Official requirements from the website:

Some additional thoughts.

OS
Windows 10 Pro is preferred. Windows Server is also used by many users.
Many, many users have already migrated to Windows 11 with no issues. Be smart and have your license key and a copy of your BI settings on a thumb drive.

Intel processor + QuickSync
Intel introduced H.265 support with Skylake (6th generation i7) Ideal to get a processor that supports H.264 & H.265 (HEVC) encoding. Xeon versions with QuickSync also provide very efficient camera stream decoding. BI can take advantage of QuickSync for decoding H.264/H.265 streams from cameras.

AMD processor
Positive customer feedback from AMD processors that leverage our DirectX integration as well.

RAM
8 GB of RAM ok. 16 GB would be better. See RAM Calculator section below for more information

Storage
Fast, local SSD is good for the New folder and the Database folder. The SSD storage therefore does not need to be large. It really depends on your requirements (number of cameras, record settings).
Many users move from SSD to long-term slower storage over time. NAS drives and additional internal HDD drives are equally popular.

If your motherboard supports NVME drives then we do recommend taking advantage of this capability for improved performance. Not a requirement.

GPU
NVidia/GPU not a big boost for BI. We only use hardware acceleration (HA) for encoding/decoding. Intel QuickSync or an AMD equivalent is way more value.

AI
NVidia cards are a huge advantage for DeepStack/AI. I process images at 50 ms on my GTX 1070 Ti.
DeepStack also seems more stable running on NVidia.
I happened to have a gaming PC (mine is from ASUS) and find them very beneficial now for BI Surveillance + DeepStack AI.
My Intel QuickSync handles all the camera decoding efficiently. I have my NVidia card dedicated to just process DeepStack inferences.

There are many experts on the forum as well.

Below are some really good analysis articles that you should probably read. (external content)

Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage. https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/optimizing-b ... cpu-usage/
Choosing hardware for Blue Iris. https://ipcamtalk.com/wiki/choosing-har ... blue-iris/

The BI Updater stats shares some real-life deployed server stats.
https://biupdatehelper.hopto.org/default.html#stats

The "Case study: Large Enterprise Deployments" webinar is an interview with a reseller sharing how he deployed BI on a 64+ cameras site.

Customer anecdotal

I see resellers buying refurbished laptops on ebay for $300 with an i7+ and 1 TB of SSD. i7+ processor is important just to have QuickSync with H.264 & H.265 support.

In terms of bang for the buck, computer hardware and network bandwidth seems plenty good now to handle surveillance. Plus BI is a multi-threaded application optimized for the Windows operating system.

We have one user that was running 9 8MP cameras without dual streams on his CPU at 45 - 55% CPU utilization.

Server stats:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz
RAM: 5.82G/15.7G
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Cameras: 9

Conclusion:
Spending money on a processor with a dedicated core for encoding/decoding, i.e. Intel QuickSync or AMD is worth it.
The Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris article above provides recommendations on CPU and # of cores.

Multi-socket motherboards (multiple CPUs)

We do have some stats from users as well. The below example is from a user that had a server with 2 CPUs (Intel Xeon CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10 GHz).
Each CPU had 8 cores and an additional 8 virtual cores.
16 physical cores + 16 virtual cores.
Blue Iris is a multi-threaded server application.
As you can see, BI takes advantage of one of the 2 CPUs (16 logical cores).
Not sure why Windows does not take advantage of the second CPU.
My guess is Windows does not distribute threads from one application across CPUs.

From engineering:

Blue Iris does not specifically limit itself to a certain number of cores or processors, this is up to Windows.
Some interesting reading on Windows:
https://www.alphr.com/enable-all-cores-windows/

Many of the other hardware choices for a PC is not that crucial.

Storage calculator

Most users just want to know how much storage is needed to accommodate their recording requirements, for example I want recordings to go back 30 days.

There is a rough calculator in the Help file as well. Search for "How much storage space do I need?" in Help.

I would just set the New folder as large as possible in the beginning based on the size of the drive. Run the server for a week and play with your record settings.

For example, if you are continuous recording, many users cut the recordings every hour so the files are manageable. Because you are continuous recording, the size of recordings will not fluctuate day to day. After 1-2 days of recording, you know how much storage is needed for your cameras per day. Multiply storage per day by number of days to determine the overall storage need.

If you are using the When triggered / alerted settings, then obviously you are optimizing storage already and perhaps you can leave combine/cut at 8 hrs. Run BI for a week since storage needs fluctuate based on the activity of the camera. Then look at the average size of the recordings per day over a week of recordings for each camera.
Same as above, since you now know the size of the recordings from different cameras, you can easily determine how much storage is needed to meet your requirements, for example 30 days of recordings.

If you plan on using additional drives for fault tolerance, you can distribute the storage need across your different drives.

The Record tab article / webinar has details on record options discussed above.

As far as vendor recommendations for SSD/HDD/NAS, these questions are best asked to the community. blueirissoftware.com/forum.

RAM Calculator

Many users ask how much RAM is required for my system.

High level guidelines:
4 GB may be fine for small systems (4 or fewer cameras).
8 GB is the most common configuration (< 20 cameras).
The largest systems may benefit from 16 GB.
Memory section of Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris article has more details.

RAM requirements is dependent on number of cameras / fps per camera / compression / resolution per camera.

If you want to better approximate RAM requirements, you need to first understand how BI works.

Pre-trigger buffer (compressed)
BI maintains a pre-trigger buffer (could be empty, i.e. set to 0s). Depending on your record settings, the size can vary.

Buffer contains the compressed stream. Since the stream is compressed only way to approximate the memory usage is via the camera's bit rate.
Fortunately, BI shares the bit rates for each of the streams (dual streams) for each camera. Camera settings -> General tab.

Pre-trigger buffer size = (mainstream bit rate + sub stream bit rate) * pre-trigger length

For my stats, Pre-trigger buffer size = (258.0 kB/s + 31.0 kB/s) * 5.0s = 1445 kB = 1.445 MB.
This value is approximate, because the bitrate will fluctuate based on the network.

Frame buffer per stream (uncompressed)
BI also maintains a 1s uncompressed frame buffer per stream.

Camera resolution (main stream) = 1920 x 1080 = 2.1 MP
Camera resolution (sub stream) = 640 x 480 = 0.3 MP
Camera resolution = 2.1 + 0.3 = 2.4 MP
Camera resolution (in bytes) = 2.4 MP x 4 bytes per pixel = 9.6 MB
For my stats, 9.6 MB * 30 fps * 1s = 288 MB

Final results
Total RAM needed for one camera: 1.445 MB + 288 MB = 289.445 MB

Support

Blue Iris currently only provides two tiers of support: Support and Priority support. No phone service. Support is included with the purchase of a license for one year.

Priority support, first and foremost is to get you to front of the email queue each day and you may also receive multiple replies in a single day. We do have the option to use Teamviewer (remote support) if there's something that you are stuck on or otherwise want to "show engineering." There is no "call in" phone number, but if required we can be on the phone at the same time as Teamviewer.

On Premise Solution

Completely on-prem is a guiding design principle for Blue Iris.
The only time BI uses the internet is for updates and periodically recording the IP address (For remote access. See Help for details). Both connections are to blueirissoftware.com.
To turn off updates, Global settings -> About tab -> Software support and maintenance. Select No Update Prompt.
To turn off the latter, go to Global settings -> About tab -> Register IP address to assist with client app connections. Uncheck.

To find the current IP address of blueirissoftware.com, simply use the ping command.

Statistics: Posted by varghesesa — Tue Jul 20, 2021 5:17 pm