Clips from some cameras play in Win 10 but are blank in IOS

[BJW]

UI3 images - Refer to post above.

[YrbkMgr]

I think I figured it out. That, or I embarrass myself. We never looked at your Status log. Regardless, it may be as simple as repairing the database in the console.

Status Log Errors

• Please right-click in the clips list and select Database -> Compact/Repair

Deletes "holes" in the database, e.g. deleting records of deleted items.

• If errors remain, right-click in the clips list and select Database -> Repair/Regenerate.

Repair/regenerate will try to synchronize the database with content on the file system.

• If errors remain, choose Database -> Delete & Regenerate.

The function will delete (start from scratch) and recreate the database by rescanning your hard drive and rediscover all your recordings in the All clips folder.
The Alerts folder will also be rescanned to regenerate the Alerts list. However, for most users, the Alerts folder is empty which means the Alerts list will be deleted. If you choose to save Hi-res JPEG files, the Alerts list can be recreated with the saved images. However, keep in mind the alert list will JUST have a snapshot of the alert. To actually playback the alert, you need to go to the corresponding Clip and scan to the time of the incident.
Since the Database is completely recreated, data that is ONLY stored in the DB may be lost, such as memos, alert images and other flags that exist only in the database.

Let us know.

[pootug]

I had a simular problem a while ago clips on 5.4.4.7 x64 played back fine on the pc but not on ui3 on my iphone, I was using Continuous + Alerts in Record settings or something other than Continuous I think it may have been Continuous + Alerts cannot remember now but changing it back to Continuous foxed it again .. just went through my old emails to Ken it was in may 2021
"After setting the record to the new "Continuous + Alerts".. the problem I still have
is on my iphone Blueiris app is I get alert/clip audio but no video just a blank screen.
The live video and audio is working ok, If I change the record setting
back to "When Triggered or Record" then all works fine again I can see video on
the iphone blue iris app" never did find out what was going on just wondering if this is anything simular to what you are experiencing.

[BJW]

Hello @YrbkMgr, None of the three database repair/regenerate functions made any difference. Each was run in succession with a reboot and test following each. But thanks for the suggestion.

Hello @pootug, Thanks for your suggestion also. All cameras are configured to record "When triggered". None are set to "Continuous…"

Other tests:
I stopped BI and via the Win file explorer I manually deleted the DB and all clips. After rebooting the PC I restarted BI and regenerated the database (even though empty) for good measure. Now, most clips do not "play" in the console. By "play" I mean the clip's static image is present but when attempting to play back a clip the elapsed time progresses as if it were playing but the image is blank (black.)

Okay, so something else I've learned. I disabled all but 4 or 5 of the 7 cameras and ran tests triggering a group of two cameras. (The results were variable thus the "4 or 5" cameras) With these 4 or 5 cameras enabled all clips play but correctly in the console but none play back in the IOS app. When additional cameras are disabled (leaving 3 or 4 enabled) all clips will playback correctly in both the console and IOS app. Even the older clips which hadn't played before.

During all of the tests above the CPU usage runs between 20 and 40% (spikes to 60% when recording clips), the GPU usage is 40-75%, and 43% of the PC's 16 GB RAM is in use. I changed the video compression for all of the enabled cameras from "Re-encode… H264" to "Direct-to-disk". While this reduced the PC's CPU and GPU usage by about 10% each the playback results were unchanged.

So, I have some sort of PC resource issue I need to resolve. Still working on it…

Edit: I do not recall experiencing this behavior until I upgraded from version 4 to version 5 a couple of months ago. BI is presently at the current version 5.5.6.1, March 13, 2022

[YrbkMgr]

I stopped BI and via the Win file explorer I manually deleted the DB and all clips. Now, most clips do not "play" in the console.

Ya don't say... imagine that. I'm sorry, I'm chuckling - I did something like that about 9 months ago and that's a bad bad move. Bad juju Tarzan. Fortunately, I'm obsessive about backups using Macrium Reflect (they have a free version). I backup everything twice a month, everything that changes daily, and I have a separate backup for the C:\bluiris folder every night at 11:00pm. So I was able to recover.

So now you have two problems.

With these 4 or 5 cameras enabled all clips play but correctly in the console but none play back in the IOS app. When additional cameras are disabled (leaving 3 or 4 enabled) all clips will playback correctly in both the console and IOS app. Even the older clips which hadn't played before.

Dude, it's a bandwidth issue. I didn't see your images before, but in reviewing this topic, I saw the camera configuration dialogs... you don't have sub streams enabled. No wonder the remote access chokes. See Re: HIKVISION camera ONVIF triggers appear to show continuous recording

[BJW]

Success!!! Thanks for your help and insight.
I was ignorant of the sub-stream benefits. When I first setup the system BI didn't offer a sub-stream profile in the "Network IP camera configuration" tab. I thought I had enough CPU so I didn't bother. Now I see you must run "Find/Inspect" to first read the ONVIF data before BI will offer the sub-stream profile.

So.. Now that my CPU usage is lower I can add more cameras… Yahoo!!!

BTW: In my earlier post I'd mentioned I'd manually deleted the clips and then nothing would play back. I should have been clearer. I meant to say the clips recorded after the older clips were deleted would not play. Also, I too am diligent in maintaining backups. My system drive is imaged to a NAS twice weekly. My data drives are backed up to both a NAS and to the cloud hourly.

[YrbkMgr]

Glad you got it sorted out. Thanks for posting the follow up!