Is the new BlueIris 4 worth the upgrade at this moment?

C

CRS1

n3wb
Sep 6, 2014
6
1
Hello All,

I have been a long time Blue Iris user. I have been reading around and see that v4 has it's issues. Is it worth the upgrade to v4 at this point? Or just wait a bit longer to get everything worked out 1st? I have a dedicated i7 4770 3.4Ghz running BlueIris with 8GB of RAM. So it runs flawless. BTW, this is my home security system.

Is it safe to upgrade yet? I'm running v3.66 currently.

I want to make sure I have all the info I need before I make the jump to v4.

Thanks,
CRS1
 
I held off until the .19 release (currently .21). So far it has been stable in my config. I went with the 64-bit version as I started to get out of memory errors when more than 3 or 4 cameras were triggered at a time.
 
Just download BI4 and try it out. You can still use BI3.
 
I had a couple of errors at first, but they have been ironed out and it's working fine now. You can download it and install it as a trial and see. It installs in a totally different directory, it does not do an upgrade of BI3 so you don't lose anything by installing and trying it.
 
I currently am using 4.0.0.21 x64 version and I still have BI restarting from crashes (BI Tools takes care of it). There are a few minor UI issues that still need to be resolved but for my purposes (home security / dog monitoring) the few seconds it takes to restart BI is acceptable (although annoying). I've also noticed BI is not keeping the video clip locations within the restrictions put on them. This may be due to the crashes - I haven't bothered to hunt it down yet - I manually clean it up when it becomes an issue.

Now I was running versiion 3.66 and upgraded straight to the 4.0 x64 version (not a clean install) and that may be some of my issues - I have decided to weather out the bug fixing until making any major moves.

Unless you are running out of memory it would be wise to stick with the 3.66 version for a bit longer (since you say it's working flawlessly for you), although you can play with the trial at any time.

Besides the timeline feature (which is a very cool thing - but still needs some work), the only other major thing I've noticed is the video is visibly better when displayed by BI (even videos recorded with the 3.66 version - guessing the rendering engine is superior). Timeline playback doesn't function correctly currently if you display your camera windows on the desktop - this is the only major issue (besides the crashing) that I'm watching to be addressed.
 
Zxel said:
I currently am using 4.0.0.21 x64 version and I still have BI restarting from crashes (BI Tools takes care of it). There are a few minor UI issues that still need to be resolved but for my purposes (home security / dog monitoring) the few seconds it takes to restart BI is acceptable (although annoying). I've also noticed BI is not keeping the video clip locations within the restrictions put on them. This may be due to the crashes - I haven't bothered to hunt it down yet - I manually clean it up when it becomes an issue.

Now I was running versiion 3.66 and upgraded straight to the 4.0 x64 version (not a clean install) and that may be some of my issues - I have decided to weather out the bug fixing until making any major moves.

Unless you are running out of memory it would be wise to stick with the 3.66 version for a bit longer (since you say it's working flawlessly for you), although you can play with the trial at any time.

Besides the timeline feature (which is a very cool thing - but still needs some work), the only other major thing I've noticed is the video is visibly better when displayed by BI (even videos recorded with the 3.66 version - guessing the rendering engine is superior). Timeline playback doesn't function correctly currently if you display your camera windows on the desktop - this is the only major issue (besides the crashing) that I'm watching to be addressed.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I have no issues with anything. No memory issues at all. I think I might just stick with 3.66 for a bit longer. Thanks for your reply! :)
 
Zxel said:
I've also noticed BI is not keeping the video clip locations within the restrictions put on them.
Click to expand...

Thanks for mentioning this. I'm having this issue, too, and thought for sure it was something I was doing wrong. My "New" folder is set to keep 160GB but only keeping around 93GB before it pushes it to Storage. Storage is also only keeping a fraction of what I have set. I'll email Ken about it. Otherwise, BI 4 is working awesome for me. Sometimes I feel like the ios app seems more zippy, but that may just be in my head.
 
fbnoise said:
Thanks for mentioning this. I'm having this issue, too, and thought for sure it was something I was doing wrong. My "New" folder is set to keep 160GB but only keeping around 93GB before it pushes it to Storage. Storage is also only keeping a fraction of what I have set. I'll email Ken about it. Otherwise, BI 4 is working awesome for me. Sometimes I feel like the ios app seems more zippy, but that may just be in my head.
Click to expand...

If you have a time limit on your new/other folders, that may taking effect before the size limit. Though to be fair I have not investigated this myself so it very well could be misbehaving.
 
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bp2008 said:
If you have a time limit on your new/other folders, that may taking effect before the size limit. Though to be fair I have not investigated this myself so it very well could be misbehaving.
Click to expand...

Thanks bp. Yeah that was the first thing I looked at but I set my time limits way higher than what I have room for (like 30 days) so that the folder size rules always take precedent.
 
Zxel said:
I currently am using 4.0.0.21 x64 version and I still have BI restarting from crashes (BI Tools takes care of it). There are a few minor UI issues that still need to be resolved but for my purposes (home security / dog monitoring) the few seconds it takes to restart BI is acceptable (although annoying). I've also noticed BI is not keeping the video clip locations within the restrictions put on them. This may be due to the crashes - I haven't bothered to hunt it down yet - I manually clean it up when it becomes an issue.

Now I was running versiion 3.66 and upgraded straight to the 4.0 x64 version (not a clean install) and that may be some of my issues - I have decided to weather out the bug fixing until making any major moves.

Unless you are running out of memory it would be wise to stick with the 3.66 version for a bit longer (since you say it's working flawlessly for you), although you can play with the trial at any time.

Besides the timeline feature (which is a very cool thing - but still needs some work), the only other major thing I've noticed is the video is visibly better when displayed by BI (even videos recorded with the 3.66 version - guessing the rendering engine is superior). Timeline playback doesn't function correctly currently if you display your camera windows on the desktop - this is the only major issue (besides the crashing) that I'm watching to be addressed.
Click to expand...

It really depends. RIght now BI4 v21 64bit has been working great for me since revision 11 or 13. BI4 has been updating automatically for me and accessing all my cameras without issue. Just like BI3 did.

So far I have not noticed any storage issues. it seems to work just like BI3 did for me. I keep my new clips on my SSD for something like 28 days and up to around 30GB. And then it moves to a platter hard drive where I have it set for 200GB and 150 or 180 days before they get deleted.
 
fbnoise said:
I'm having this issue, too, and thought for sure it was something I was doing wrong. My "New" folder is set to keep 160GB but only keeping around 93GB before it pushes it to Storage. Storage is also only keeping a fraction of what I have set. I'll email Ken about it. Otherwise, BI 4 is working awesome for me. Sometimes I feel like the ios app seems more zippy, but that may just be in my head.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in what Ken said, I ended up removing all the BI v3.66 clips and that seems to have corrected the problem (maybe a permissions issue on the files? duno). So far all is well, however, I want to run it for a while before I declare it a 100% fix.
 
Zxel said:
I'd be interested in what Ken said, I ended up removing all the BI v3.66 clips and that seems to have corrected the problem (maybe a permissions issue on the files? duno). So far all is well, however, I want to run it for a while before I declare it a 100% fix.
Click to expand...

Ken asked me to share my logs. Didn't have that turned on under BI Status > Log to file, so turned that on a few days ago. The New folder inexplicably seems to have corrected itself, but my storage folder is keeping less than half of what it should and only has 2 days of footage. I need to send the log to Ken.

Edit: I just sent him a log file and some screenshots. I'll report back when I hear something.
 
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I thought I'd actually purchased v4 when I finally decided to go with BI two weeks ago... tried to get it working on the spare PC I had with XP 64bit (a unicorn of o/s versions these days) - I didn't mind that it didn't work and threw v3 on there until I could build a proper 64bit Win7 or Win8 PC. Just testing BVR file playback on BI 4 my Win7 64bit laptop today and I've found the keys I received won't work. Not sure what I've done wrong (deregister the v3 server first, maybe?), but fired off an email to check which version the key belongs to...
 
Zxel said:
Thanks, I look forward to Ken's response.
Click to expand...

Here's what he said:

"There is a chance that the database is out of sync, so the software does not know what's on the drive. You can attempt a repair by right-clicking in the Clips list and select Database/Repair."

I did that so hopefully my storage folder will grow to the set limit now, but in Options > Clips, I already have compact/repair DB each day checked on my server. Wondering if my remote BI install caused the problem so I did a manual repair there, too (it's open at most a few min a day so never gets auto compact/repair). We'll see.
 
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fbnoise said:
"There is a chance that the database is out of sync, so the software does not know what's on the drive. You can attempt a repair by right-clicking in the Clips list and select Database/Repair."
Click to expand...

I'd be really surprised if that turns out to be the problem. That was the first thing I thought and rebuilt the Db multiple times some time ago (it changed nothing). I think there is more to this and has something to do with old BI v3.x files in the directories.

Have you tried moving your old BI v3.66 clips out of the directories? When I removed mine it started working (at least it appears to - still want to run it a bit longer) correctly.
 
Zxel said:
I'd be really surprised if that turns out to be the problem. That was the first thing I thought and rebuilt the Db multiple times some time ago (it changed nothing). I think there is more to this and has something to do with old BI v3.x files in the directories.

Have you tried moving your old BI v3.66 clips out of the directories? When I removed mine it started working (at least it appears to - still want to run it a bit longer) correctly.
Click to expand...

Good idea and I had checked for that. When I look in new/stored directories, I'm only finding stuff from the past day. At this point, I'm hoping you're wrong about the DB repair not fixing. ;)
 
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fbnoise said:
Good idea and I had checked for that. When I look in new/stored directories, I'm only finding stuff from the past day. At this point, I'm hoping you're wrong about the DB repair not fixing. ;)
Click to expand...

Ok, I finally decided to put some effort into tracking this bug down and I think I now have it pegged. :D

Is your BI crashing? Mine crashes several times a day (BI Tools handles restarts) and I've found that when it does it corrupts the Db.

I noticed that I was getting move errors again in my log file (after moving out the BI v3.66 clips), so I thought about this thread, rebuilt my Db, and then restarted BI - tada! BI moved the files it failed on earlier. So BI's Db is being corrupted on crashes and then must be rebuilt after restart (ugh! - now I'm going to have to track down the crashes - and I was trying to do a wait and see on that). You can see this thread on the crash issue.

Hope that helps! :cool:
 
Hmm, I'm not having any crashes other than last night when I realized my recycle bin was full of tons of stuff I wasn't aware of (my fault), so my C: (alerts, new) was full and BI had write errors. BI doesn't do well when it's trying to write to a drive that's full. Other than that, according to my logs, no other "Restarted after unexpected shutdown" notes in the log since 1/16/2015.
 
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