iPhone/iPad remote access problem

[Dave Lonsdale]

For months I have been unable to use the BI app over the Internet to my BI installation at home using 4G. It connects to the home page and the cameras button to see the list of cameras. I can then select one individual camera and the time counts. but after that nothing else - the beach ball hour glass rotates and the connection is lost. I can connect again after a coupe of minutes. Works fine over the LAN. It's possible this problem may have coincided with changing my ISP but their support centre insists their network is OK. I have a slow part fibre, part copper network, uplink 1.2Mbit/s and downlink 4.8Mbit/s. I've been at home most of the time recently and so swept this problem under the carpet but will soon be spending time away.

I tried the brilliant new UI3 over the Internet using 4G on my laptop with a USB cable connection to my iPad and using Apple's 'Personal Hotspot'. I discovered that this works perfectly and is stable with streaming profiles from 64kbit/s up to 1024kbit/s (video quality subject to bit rate limitations).

OK, if I also have TeamViewer from the laptop to the desk PC running BI and stream at 1024kbit/s at the same time then I get bp2008's message "Your network is not fast enough....Consider....." but UI3 continues flawlessly.

Can anyone please suggest how I might fix my problem when trying to use the iPhone/iPad BI app over the Internet? I am not an IT expert.

PS what is "HLS (sec)" in 'Encoder options'?
PPS the iPhone/iPad app works OK over 4G when connected to two other BI servers that I have access to, although both of these have the benefit of very high speed broadband.

 

[fenderman]

For months I have been unable to use the BI app over the Internet to my BI installation at home using 4G. It connects to the home page and the cameras button to see the list of cameras. I can then select one individual camera and the time counts. but after that nothing else - the beach ball hour glass rotates and the connection is lost. I can connect again after a coupe of minutes. Works fine over the LAN. It's possible this problem may have coincided with changing my ISP but their support centre insists their network is OK. I have a slow part fibre, part copper network, uplink 1.2Mbit/s and downlink 4.8Mbit/s. I've been at home most of the time recently and so swept this problem under the carpet but will soon be spending time away.

I tried the brilliant new UI3 over the Internet using 4G on my laptop with a USB cable connection to my iPad and using Apple's 'Personal Hotspot'. I discovered that this works perfectly and is stable with streaming profiles from 64kbit/s up to 1024kbit/s (video quality subject to bit rate limitations).

OK, if I also have TeamViewer from the laptop to the desk PC running BI and stream at 1024kbit/s at the same time then I get bp2008's message "Your network is not fast enough....Consider....." but UI3 continues flawlessly.

Can anyone please suggest how I might fix my problem when trying to use the iPhone/iPad BI app over the Internet? I am not an IT expert.

PS what is "HLS (sec)" in 'Encoder options'?
PPS the iPhone/iPad app works OK over 4G when connected to two other BI servers that I have access to, although both of these have the benefit of very high speed broadband.

have you tried reinstalling the app?

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

Many thanks for your suggestion fenderman. I've just now done this but unfortunately it hasn't fixed the problem.

A little more information - on starting the app and selecting the live camera view, after 20 seconds the camera list down the left hand column goes blank, but the group of cameras (or a single camera if selected) in the main window continues with live video indefinitely unless I try to select another camera (left it streaming for over 5 minutes). If I close the app (double pushing the home key on the iPad and swiping), I have to wait several minutes before being able to reconnect to the server, getting the message 'Unable to make connection, check server address' (WiFi immediately).

I appreciate this extra info may not help but I am anxious to try out more suggestions.

 

[fenderman]

Many thanks for your suggestion fenderman. I've just now done this but unfortunately it hasn't fixed the problem.

A little more information - on starting the app and selecting the live camera view, after 20 seconds the camera list down the left hand column goes blank, but the group of cameras (or a single camera if selected) in the main window continues with live video indefinitely unless I try to select another camera (left it streaming for over 5 minutes). If I close the app (double pushing the home key on the iPad and swiping), I have to wait several minutes before being able to reconnect to the server, getting the message 'Unable to make connection, check server address' (WiFi immediately).

I appreciate this extra info may not help but I am anxious to try out more suggestions.

if your router has a DOS attack protection option, try disabling it. This is common on asus routers.

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

Hello fenderman. I couldn't find a DOS attack protection option or similar in my router - it's Huewei provided by the ISP. I managed to get the router's ISP logon credentials and so was able to use the router I still have from my previous ISP (a different Huewei model) and then made a discovery. To save time waiting for the DDNS no-ip host name to kick in, I used the actual IP address in my iPad and discovered that by doing this it works normally over 4G. I repeated this several times - when using the no-ip host name, the app stops working after 20s every time but with the IP address always continues to function. Same result with both routers.

Remember that UI3 in the laptop over 4G works OK with the host name and I get uninterrupted although limited webview functionality with the host name using the Safari browser in the iPad. It needs somebody far more clever than me to understand why........

It's also an inconvenience, with the service package I have, my IP address is dynamic and changes very frequently.

Can anyone suggest a reason please?

 

[fenderman]

Hello fenderman. I couldn't find a DOS attack protection option or similar in my router - it's Huewei provided by the ISP. I managed to get the router's ISP logon credentials and so was able to use the router I still have from my previous ISP (a different Huewei model) and then made a discovery. To save time waiting for the DDNS no-ip host name to kick in, I used the actual IP address in my iPad and discovered that by doing this it works normally over 4G. I repeated this several times - when using the no-ip host name, the app stops working after 20s every time but with the IP address always continues to function. Same result with both routers.

Remember that UI3 in the laptop over 4G works OK with the host name and I get uninterrupted although limited webview functionality with the host name using the Safari browser in the iPad. It needs somebody far more clever than me to understand why........

It's also an inconvenience, with the service package I have, my IP address is dynamic and changes very frequently.

Can anyone suggest a reason please?

try another ddns provider or email support...

 

[.Keith.]

fenderman is correct.

I experienced identical problems. Routing through my DDNS service provider was affecting my connectivity. My thumbnails wouldn't fully load and, sometimes, I would be kicked-back to the BI login screen due to the delay. I stopped using my DDNS in the URL and now use just the IP and PORT. All runs GREAT! Just use your DDNS service to inform you of changes to your IP.

In a related issue, a friend of mine had LTE connectivity problems having similar effects as above. His LAN connectivity to Blue Iris was excellent. His WAN connectivity through his LTE cellular vendor was slow an unpredictable. His LTE connection to my BLue Iris server worked great but, the connectivity to his BI server was bad. We determined that the problem was really with his WAN. We narrowed our troubleshooting down to his cable modem / router. His AT&T Pace 5268AC cable modem / router had few settings that had to be disabled to permit proper thru-put to Blue Iris. I believe one of these settings dealt with Denial of Service (DOS) attacks and another setting pertained to "excessive packet" monitoring. After disabling a few of these settings, data thru-put was extremely good!

Hope this helps you and others!

 

[Dave Lonsdale]

I am pleased to report that Blue Iris Support has solved my problem. The no-ip DDNS host name I was using was 'Web redirect' and included the target port number. By changing it to 'DNS Host' and then adding the port separately I can connect using the iOS app successfully.

Many thanks to Blue Iris Support!