BI Freezing\not recording

[nbstl68]

Lately BI has been behaving oddly in a deteriorating manner.
Examples are:
The interface freezing up, (appears as if cameras were paused but they are not)
Not recording from any cameras when this occurs.
The application window hangs or just refuses to close. (cannot always end-task and forces a reboot to relaunch)
Rebooting and re-launching BI, it does not always open the interface after showing the splash screen...just nothing happens.
May only record on random days from random cameras.
After app hangs the rest of the computer is mostly unresponsive or takes a long time to even switch apps. These return to normal if I am able to close BI.
BI may only show 2% CPU (My normal is around 20%+) during issues.
Loses history of video from the last several months even though files are still there on the drive.
May store hist for 3 days of week, then next day only 1 shows.

I am running it as a service
primary drive is 128GB SSD with reasonable 32GB free space
All BI files except the main program and db are on separate internal D: drive (8TB WD Purple) with reasonable 1.2TB free space
Running older BI version 5, (hence cannot contact them for help but had no need for an upgrade for my purposes)
This setup has run just fine for several years. The setup has not changed and no new software added, no new settings changed.
Windows 10 - (Not upgradeable to Win11)Only used for BI, internet and remote office for work
i7-6700 CPU, 24GB RAM
Running 8-10 2MP cameras, 24/7 recording to HD


What I have tried so far:
Run the maintenance options in BI more than once.
Compact\Repair
Repair\regenerate (takes a long time then hangs at 72% and system must be rebooted for it to run again)
Run Maintenance
I have run different tests in Windows and a few I downloaded to inspect the system itself, the memory & disks but not seeing any errors reported or red flags.

My computer is approx. 7 yrs old so I am open to the possible assumption something else is just failing w the computer but other apps frequently used such as MS Office, internet, email seem to work fine.


Can I do a "re-fresh" install of my current BI version, (similar to how you can do a Windows OS refresh), without losing any files or config?

Any other recommended system diagnostic tests out there to see if the problem is elsewhere w the computer?

 

[bp2008]

What BI version are you running?

The interface freezing up, (appears as if cameras were paused but they are not)

This has been known to happen going back years. Even yesterday I saw it on my own system. A camera instance sometimes freezes when a car drives into view and the cam gets triggered. Seems to still record okay though.

After app hangs the rest of the computer is mostly unresponsive or takes a long time to even switch apps. These return to normal if I am able to close BI.

This is bad. But sadly not unheard of. I used to get it a lot on my BI machine particularly when installing a BI update. Not so much anymore.

If you're using hardware accelerated decoding, you might try turning that off. And assuming your BI version is capable of utilizing sub streams, do that. Sub Stream Guide

Loses history of video from the last several months even though files are still there on the drive.
May store hist for 3 days of week, then next day only 1 shows.

This sort of thing is usually the result of Blue Iris's remarkably bad database code (it has proven to be very unreliable over the years).

I recommend you close Blue Iris (stop the service), delete your clip database files, and open Blue Iris again. Then right click the clip list area and choose Database > Delete & Regenerate. You'll lose your alert history but hopefully it will rebuild properly.

There's a program called GSmartControl which you can use to run tests on your hard drive. Don't do this while the clip database is rebuilding though, it will only slow things down even more.

Also make sure your BI is configured to only put clips into just the "New" folder. Don't move them to "Stored" like in the default configuration. This move is unnecessary when you only have one hard drive and it only increases the system load and adds more opportunities for problems to occur in a historically problematic part of Blue Iris.

Can I do a "re-fresh" install of my current BI version, (similar to how you can do a Windows OS refresh), without losing any files or config?

You can re-install the update file for your current Blue Iris version if you want. it should extract a new executable and whatnot. I doubt it will make any difference though.

 

[nbstl68]

H @bp2008 i, thanks for the reply.

1. Running an older ver. of 5 (5.2.9.2) but it's more than I need for my purposes and was stable so have not upgraded.
2. Using sub streams.
   1. Using hardware accl decode (set to Nvidia NVDC).
   2. Have always done both to the the CPU down to its current 15%-20%
      1. Will try turning off, nut don't want to bc of addtl CPU use and just bc I didn't have to before. I'd rather fix than mask an issue.
   3. Went through the whole BI optimization tutorial on here a few years ago
3. I only see 1 clip db file called, "clips.dat". I will delete that.
   1. BI options show a "repair\regenerate" option, not a "Delete\ Regen" option.
   2. I will run "repair\regenerate" option but that is the one that took a looooong time and BI would never show more than 72% status and hung. Will try again.
4. Ran GSmartControl - passed
5. All clips currently only go into the "NEW" folder on the internal Purple drive. No moving around.

 

[wittaj]

Hardware Acceleration may be your problem.

Around the time AI was introduced in BI, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration on (even if not using DeepStack or CodeProject). Some have also been fine. I started to see that error when I was using hardware acceleration several updates into when AI was added.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, but the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point. Windows sneaks a driver update and the whole system goes to crap.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU (internal or external) is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using hardware acceleration.

My CPU % went down by not using hardware acceleration. Here is a recent thread where someone turned off hardware acceleration based on my post and their CPU dropped 10-15% and BI became stable.

But if you use HA, use plain intel and not the variants.

 

[nbstl68]

So confusing. BI was performing fine until a few weeks ago. I thought the whole point of using HA was to reduce CPU usage but you are showing more?
I'll also try turning it off and check the CPU usage BI reports.
Thanks

 

[wittaj]

All it needs is a Windows update or driver update (even if disabled they sometimes sneak thru) and the system goes to crap.

HA was needed and a must prior to substreams. Now with substreams and AI added to BI, for many people it has caused problems.

It may not be the issue, and the likely issue is a failing component.

But since you use the computer for other things, it is even more likely a common file or something needed for BI got updated.

One of the reasons why we suggest using the BI computer for just BI.

 

[bp2008]

Blue Iris is like a stress test of video hardware acceleration components, so if there is any instability at all in the drivers or the hardware, it is likely to show itself eventually, and it could show itself by freezing the system. In my experience, CPU decoding is more energy efficient than Nvidia hardware decoding anyway, so that is another argument in favor of turning it off.

When deleting the clip database you need to delete everything in the folder. If you delete some and leave others, you're asking for trouble.

The Delete & Regenerate option is available when you right click the clip list and choose Database. Not the button in Blue Iris Settings > Storage tab. Maybe your BI version is too old for that button to exist.

In GSmartControl, run the "extended" test on your hard drive. It will likely take between 8 and 24 hours to complete. You can run the "Short" test first if you want, as that only takes 2-3 minutes, but it is less likely to detect problems with the disk.

 

[nbstl68]

Well, turning off HA does not seem to change the CPU load but I'll leave it off to see if stability changes.
The computer is used
Deleting the clips.dat file and running repair\regen completed this time but it did not recognize any of the files other than today. There are about 5,300 .bvr files in the NEW folder back to 12/10 but BI shows none now for either month.


I re-ran the repair\ regen a 2nd time and after a few minutes BI just closed out. Now when I open it, no images at all and a frozen value of "Generating 7%" with no clips for any day and calendar greyed out.



Clicking to close\ restart bc cameras froze up.... Now BI refuses to die! It will not close unless I force close through Task manager.
Wah-wahhh...

 

[wittaj]

A consequence of deleting the DB file and regen is that all the alerts prior to that time disappear.

All of the video files are still there, but the alert thumbnails for the triggers are deleted.

 

[nbstl68]

So no "Regenerating them? I backed up the file and could replace it but it was not showing most of them then anyway.