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V5 Green Screen

edited July 2019 in SecuritySpy
Upgrading to version 5 has been the worst experience so far. To upgrade version 5 I had to upgrade my Hackintosh from 10.12 to 10.13, so I did. I'm pretty sure the problem lies in the OS update more than the app update because I tested SecSpy 4 on macOS 10.13 years ago and noticed the same increase in CPU usage and poor behavior.

I don't really know what to make of it. Security Spy on macOS 10.13.6 is just not usable. I'm probably going to downgrade my rig and keep rolling with v4 until I can't anymore.

Screenshot: https://share.getcloudapp.com/z8u5e4be

If anyone has ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks!

Comments

  • What are your PC specs?
    It is possible it is your rig.
    I have V5 running on an upgraded old 2012 macmini and it is purring at 10-15% cpu usage with 10hd cameras @15fps continuous capturing.
  • The problem stems from motion detection. I have 8-10 cameras, most of them with motion detection turned on. It's the decoding of these video streams that causes high CPU usage. The system is has a Xeon E3-1241v3, 32GB DDR3, GeForce 1030, boots from a samsung 840 pro ssd, writes video footage to a 2tb laptop hard drive. Runs around 50% cpu usage.
  • There is no known problem with SecuritySpy and macOS 10.13 per se, so there must be something going on with your system that is causing these problems. I'm surprised that you're getting higher CPU usage compared to 10.12 though - 10.13 should be quite similar in this regard.

    Your CPU usage is high, but not critically so. I do notice that you are getting green screens only on some cameras, but not others. Are the affected cameras a particular make/model, or are they connected in a different way to the other non-affected cameras?
  • The top 6 cameras are Dahua. 4 or 6MP. After staring at that screen for a while, it seems clear this only affects 3 cameras. These 3 cameras are all 4MP versions - 2 identical and 1 different. My upgrade efforts are going to cost new cams too it seems. I tried setting one of the affected cameras from H.264B to H.265: that makes gray screens. Looks just like the green screen, but gray. Also tried H.264 and H.264H to find they also make green screens. CBR, VBR makes no difference. The camera I tested new settings on is not currently doing motion detection. The problem seems to happen most if I open the SecuritySpy viewer window (cmd+0), and is not as bad if that window is not open. Triggering motion on more than 1 camera at a time also causes CPU spikes that produce green screens. I feel like I'm rambling, not sure what to make of this.
  • Just tried to update the firmware on one. It's dead now.
  • This seems to affect only the 4MP dome and eyeball cameras. The 6MP eyeballs and 4MP turret are not affected. I'll be replacing the 4MP domes shortly. Thanks!
  • Replaced both 4MP Dahua eyeballs with 6MP Dahua eyeballs. The firmware version is 2 years newer. These cameras do not have green screens. I'm going to replace the 4MP dome with that nice 4MP 30x auto tracking setup. I'll report back how that cam does.
    This is what I just upgraded to: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PMQ6LRB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 - IPC-HDW4631C-A 2.8mm
  • Good to hear the new 6 MP cameras are working well. Are you using H.265 with these?
  • No, SecuritySpy gives me an error that H.265 is not supported and to set the camera to H.264. Pops up in the log viewer the moment I switch the camera to H.265.
  • Just got my Dahua DH-SD5943U-HNI .... 30X 4MP PTZ

    Green screens. Running 1080p @ 30fps. The Mac SecuritySpy Server is running at 45-55% cpu. I turned off motion detection on this camera and it didn't help. Other cameras (all 7) are fine, all with many more pixels. I really wanted it to work. :( This is running the latest firmware (I could find) released 2019-01-19. Tried H.264/H.264B/H.264H. Anything over 20fps is basically useless (green). I'd like to be running at 60 fps, but that's entirely impossible.

    The camera interface itself, in Internet Explorer or the NACL browser on a Mac, works fine. No problems what-so-ever. Seems H265 on this cam "works" in SecuritySpy, but produces gray screens instead of green. I can't use H265 though because I have another process using the video stream that only supports H.264. The other process has no green data at all... (I'll share a link once I have it all setup externally)

    Not real sure why this thing has such problems. I'm sad. Any suggestions are welcomed.
  • It's interesting.. when I set the cam to 1080P60 it seems like SecuritySpy can record the video just fine using the CC setting. As soon as I try to view the video live from the web interface or the app itself the camera throws an error and disconnects. If I close the viewer window the camera goes back to connected at 60 fps (shown in the camera info window) and it records fine. Open the viewer window: crashes. Sticking the camera feed into other apps (VLC, OBS) on the same server doesn't have any of these problems.
  • I am also getting green screens on all cameras. I am running on 10.14.6 with a 2017 iMac 5K with 32 gigs of ram but have been having the problem since version 5.0.0. I am on 5.0.1. SecuritySpy runs fine after a reboot of my computer. After a few days all 16 of the camera windows stop updating. If I quit SecuritySpy and restart it I get all the camera windows with green screens. If I reboot the computer SecuritySpy runs fine again for several days. I notice my AMD Radeon R9 M395X GPU history shows it is running very high. After a reboot and starting SecuritySpy the GPU history stays below 50% for a long time until I have problems with camera windows hanging and green screens again.

    I have about about 6 VivotekVivotek FD8169 cameras and 10 Foscam HD 1080P cameras. I haven't had this issue before going to version 5.
  • Without rebooting I started version 4.2.5 and also got the green screens. I am going to reboot my mac when I am home tonight and let SecuritySpy version 4.2.5 run for a while and see if the problem persists. It may be an issue with MacOs 10.14.
  • Update on my iMac 5K specs: Retina 5K, 27 inch Late 2015, 4Ghz Intel Core I7, 32 GB RAM, Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4 GB

  • I'm curious if this is only a re-encoding problem. Do you get green screens in your recordings if you do not have a live-viewer window open?
  • I mentioned OBS earlier. I removed the camera from SecuritySpy, set it to 8192kbps CBR, H.264H, 1080p60 and fed it into OBS.

    I'm streaming it here:

    The auto tracking is really a pain to get right and it's constantly spinning in circles or looking at a wall a few inches away. (see the clips) And that's if it decides to track at all.

    In any case, this is running on the same computer as SecuritySpy, now at 80-85% cpu. Because it's re-encoding the high frame rate into something twitch can handle, as well as some music from pretzel rocks. The other 7 cameras in SecuritySpy are still working flawlessly, 5 of them with motion detection on; all of them 4-6MP.

    I'm now convinced the green screens (and disconnections at high frame rates) have little to do with anything but the way security spy is handling the data feed. Something buggy is happening here. If you need any more information to help debug, please let me know. Happy to provide packet captures, test beta/debug versions, or anything else needed.

    Thanks!
  • Following. After the 5.0 upgrade, I'm having the same issue on my mac once the cameras are up and running successfully for a few days, then the "H.265 is not supported and to set the camera to H.264" error pops up and they go green until I restart.
  • I installed the old SecuritySpy 4.2.11 and rebooted the computer and started it on the evening of August 7th. The video windows stopped updating overnight on August 11th. I restarted SecuritySpy and got the green video screens. I am running MacOS 10.14.6.

    I presume the problem is with MacOS 10.14.6. My previous experience with Security Spy version 4 is that it would run for months with no problems.
  • I may install SecuritySpy and run it on the previous OS using a VM to see if the problem persists.
  • Green screens are really only part of my overall problem here. The video distortions I've been getting look like missing I frames. Unfortunately I cannot run like this and will have to downgrade my OS and SecuritySpy versions. I'll report back in a week or so after I figure out how to safely accomplish that.
  • I don't have the option of downgrading at this time. Hope this is sorted soon. Just lost my cameras again after 4 days of running successfully.
  • v4 produces the same video distortions, leading me to believe this is a CPU/GPU problem or something amiss with VideoToolbox.
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