My system has been working fine for some weeks then suddenly today I cannot watch any clips via the ip interface. I can see the live cameras thumbnails, make any of the live cameras into full screen, but if I try to view a recorded clip it says "connecting" then some seconds later "unable to connect". I'm using ie version 11 browser, Activex 4.0.0.9. Everything works fine including viewing clips if I go direct into the BI program. My partner's computer uses ms edge browser and it seems to work on on there, so I'm wondering if suddenly ie is no longer supported. I've tried using Firefox and Chrome and have the same problem. Any ideas please?
Cannot watch clips through ip interface
- Thread starter bricklayer1807
- Start date
I've been having major major issues with BI for the past week now. At one point all I had to do is check for updates every hour and it seemed there was a new one to push out which indicates Ken or someone he uses to code the software is aware of some ongoing issues perhaps? I rarely ever email them because usually someone else will notice the issues and email support before I can finish a sentence, but this one is apparently a big pot hole.
My IE (Activex) player is useless for playback, and any time I try to use it, BI crashes hard and has to recover. I also can't see the cams in the program itself. Just a black screen.
So for now I'm just going to wait this storm out. :-/
My IE (Activex) player is useless for playback, and any time I try to use it, BI crashes hard and has to recover. I also can't see the cams in the program itself. Just a black screen.
So for now I'm just going to wait this storm out. :-/
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
Does this mean ActiveX is now phased out at this point? I have no issues with updating procedures and bookmarks etc, but in the "What's New" it seemed voluntary and not completely ready yet. Perhaps that's changed idk.
Having the same problem here, i wounder if it has something to do with the latest windows 10 updates. BI has been freezing up on the server as well, although the service continues to run without issues. BI has been running here rock solid with no issues for over a year now, then all of the sudden we cant view clips anymore and the UI is freezing up.
My windows 10 boxes seem fine. I haven't updated them though either with windows 10 or BI lately. The largest amount of issues seem to come from my server 2008 boxes
Okay, I switched from IE to Chrome and now everything is working well. Love the new interface! Except, when i got back to the server, BI was froze up again... Maybe due to trying to access clips through IE?
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
it should work automatically for ie and there is even an option to disable UI3 for non ie browsers, but i dont see why anyone would want to use the activex...its garbage compared to ui3
Thanks for all the feedback to my post. So it seems that viewing BI using ie11 is history now (would be nice if BI announced this before unleashing the updates)... so I uninstalled Chrome and reinstalled it with the latest version and now it works, I can view the clips at last. The format is quite different, maybe I'll get used to it but at the moment I prefer the previous version. Can anyone tell me what is the difference between 'alerts' and 'clips' please?
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
Just because its not working for you doesnt mean its not working. It's not history, it still works..but why would you want to use that old crap?
Read the help file on alerts
Could you direct me to the 'help file on alerts' please? I've searched all over and the only 'help' I can find has five headings and none of them deal with alerts.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
looney2ns
IPCT Contributor
bob2701
Getting comfortable
From the Recordings tab.....
Alerts vs Clips
The "Alerts" and "Clips" tabs look similar, but are different in subtle ways. Clips may represent many triggered events or a continuous recording. Alerts, however, are treated as bookmarks into a clip.
Any time ActiveX gets pulled up, BI crashes hard and has to be reset. So again this is just a case of me having to update instruction sets for everyone I've done setups for and posting yet another bulletin ultimately reminding them of how unexpectedly unstable and volatile this program can be sometimes. Now time to insert the whole "If you don't like it, stop using it." and "For the price of the software, you should be doing Ken's laundry" replies, but in reality this kind of sucks for all of the calls and emails I'm getting for something that, if I had some advanced warning of, maybe I could help reduce my own headaches.
I keep my server OS environments stable as a rock without any changes made to them when these unstable updates get rolled out, so it's fairly easy to rule out hardware/software outside of BI.
fenderman
Staff member
- Mar 9, 2014
- 36,892
- 21,407
You want a personal email from Ken? the updates are posted here. Sometimes things go wrong on certain systems. He cannot test all. That is why he relies on bug reports.
Either stop bitching or use something else already- you won't....let us know we are waiting... stop bitching like a little girl and email support. Its not ken's fault that your idiot users update their primary machines constantly. Tell them to cut it out. The rest of us will enjoy the frequent feature updates. FYI, tested just for you, the latest version .3 does not crash with active -x...regardless, only an idiot would still be using it. So teach your users about chrome or edge, they will all survive and love the new ui3. Or let us know how they like your alternative software that is always flawless.
Last edited:
I value very much the help I get on this site and I'm very grateful if people take the time to comment, but I wish some contributors would remember that a lot of us are just regular guys who are trying to run an IP camera system at our home, we are not computer experts and often need something explained with just a little more detail in order to be following the correct path. The reason I couldn't find the 'help' article on alerts was because I was looking for it on this site, it seemed logical at the time, now of course I know it is to be found within the BI program.
So, now I'm viewing BI remotely using Chrome and IU3, the interface is quite different and I'm still getting used to it. If someone wants to tell me how to fix my previous setup using IE and Activx I'd be interested to hear it - Fenderman says "it's not history, it still works".
The new setup with Chrome has introduced a fresh problem - when I view clips, after a few seconds a big orange box appears in the bottom right saying "Your CPU is not fast enough to handle this stream in real time, consider changing the streaming quality". Sometimes, not so often, it says the same but refers to "network connection" instead of CPU. A typical reading of the CPU on the server computer is 83%, and 90% on the viewing computer so they're not exactly on the limit. And " slow network connection"? My viewing computer is connected directly to the server computer with an ethernet cable! I don't want to "change the streaming quality" because it already looks poor and smudgy compared to what I used to get using IE/activx.
By the way, who is Ken?
So, now I'm viewing BI remotely using Chrome and IU3, the interface is quite different and I'm still getting used to it. If someone wants to tell me how to fix my previous setup using IE and Activx I'd be interested to hear it - Fenderman says "it's not history, it still works".
The new setup with Chrome has introduced a fresh problem - when I view clips, after a few seconds a big orange box appears in the bottom right saying "Your CPU is not fast enough to handle this stream in real time, consider changing the streaming quality". Sometimes, not so often, it says the same but refers to "network connection" instead of CPU. A typical reading of the CPU on the server computer is 83%, and 90% on the viewing computer so they're not exactly on the limit. And " slow network connection"? My viewing computer is connected directly to the server computer with an ethernet cable! I don't want to "change the streaming quality" because it already looks poor and smudgy compared to what I used to get using IE/activx.
By the way, who is Ken?
Ken is the developer of Blue Iris.
I don't know why your ActiveX plugin stopped working, but generally when a plugin doesn't work it is because of security settings.
UI3 currently uses the same streams as the ActiveX plugin in IE so image quality should be identical unless you have chosen different streaming profiles in each UI.
It is true that the ActiveX plugin is faster. ActiveX runs native code and might even be able to use hardware acceleration to some extent, whereas UI3 must use JavaScript which has relatively terrible performance. That is why you get warnings about CPU speed on a PC that can run most other video players just fine.
90% CPU usage is really high for the viewing computer, and can easily be the reason you get the CPU warning. The CPU warning comes up if more than a few seconds worth of video are buffered (received but not processed yet). The only way this happens is if video comes in from the network faster than the CPU can process it. The network warning is a bit more complicated. Every video frame that comes in has a timestamp and if the timestamps start falling behind the system clock on the viewing PC by more than a few seconds, UI3 produces the network speed warning because it almost always means there is a network problem. However it could also be caused by very high CPU usage leading to bad network performance, and one guy recently discovered his system clock ran too fast and that caused UI3 to believe the network stream was always behind schedule.
So yeah, UI3 CPU warning: Frames aren't being processed fast enough. UI3 network warning: Frames are arriving slower than the expected rate.
I don't know why your ActiveX plugin stopped working, but generally when a plugin doesn't work it is because of security settings.
UI3 currently uses the same streams as the ActiveX plugin in IE so image quality should be identical unless you have chosen different streaming profiles in each UI.
It is true that the ActiveX plugin is faster. ActiveX runs native code and might even be able to use hardware acceleration to some extent, whereas UI3 must use JavaScript which has relatively terrible performance. That is why you get warnings about CPU speed on a PC that can run most other video players just fine.
90% CPU usage is really high for the viewing computer, and can easily be the reason you get the CPU warning. The CPU warning comes up if more than a few seconds worth of video are buffered (received but not processed yet). The only way this happens is if video comes in from the network faster than the CPU can process it. The network warning is a bit more complicated. Every video frame that comes in has a timestamp and if the timestamps start falling behind the system clock on the viewing PC by more than a few seconds, UI3 produces the network speed warning because it almost always means there is a network problem. However it could also be caused by very high CPU usage leading to bad network performance, and one guy recently discovered his system clock ran too fast and that caused UI3 to believe the network stream was always behind schedule.
So yeah, UI3 CPU warning: Frames aren't being processed fast enough. UI3 network warning: Frames are arriving slower than the expected rate.
Thanks for the detailed reply - it seems the choice is between a rock and a hard place, either use UI3 which you describe as having a 'terrible performance' or Activex which Fenderman calls 'old crap' and 'garbage'! Quite honestly I'd prefer to get it working again with IE/Activex - I much prefer the interface, the images are clearer, the navigation is better and despite Fenderman's opinion it has been working for us perfectly for years until the recent updates screwed it up. If anyone can tell me how to fix it I'd be very grateful, the exact symptoms are described in my first post at the top of this thread, it's clear (according to subsequent posts by other users) that I'm not the only one who suddenly lost the use with IE/Activex after the recent updates.