Viewlog Files Corrupt

[natederry 0]

One of my systems has experienced an issue and I'm baffled. The client called me because it appeared that the server skipped recording a day. I went there today to see what the problem was. The files are on the hard drives, but are corrupt. I ran chkdsk, and also seagate's hard drive check utility and no bad sectors were found. The most recent files are available for viewing and are not corrupt, however files older than 3 months have become corrupt. I have run the database repair utility and still no good. The corrupt files are on 2 different hard drives and both hard drives have identical file problems. It is not a hard drive problem.

[rocko_mtv 0]

shut down the geovision program and then run the database repair program in the GV folder shown below.

[natederry 0]

Database repair program was run 4 times and does not correct the problem.

[Mattb 0]

Are the video files actually corrupted, or is the database not properly indexing the files? I have a problem where the video files are on the dedicated storage disks, but not all are indexed.

 

Is the video file actually retrieved when a backup is performed? Does the video file play back with the Windows Media Player? The folder and file name will identify the camera and time on the storage hard drive. You can manually navigate to the video clip with the Windows Explorer and give it a try.

 

The issue I am experiencing impacts older recordings, usually a month or two back. When the Viewlog is used, some of the multi-view 16 camera panels are blue panels. (but everything is recorded 24x7)

 

The Viewlog program will not locate the video files, but the video files are there. The repair database utility usually repairs the problem once all the empty folders have been removed.

 

If the files are present on the hard drive but not indexed in the Viewlog, they can be manually copied to a backup and the backup database rebuilt.

 

If the video is truly a corrupted recording, maybe changing the codec would help.

 

If you problem is files missing in the index when the files are actually on a storage drive, I can offer some more suggestions. I asked, but I haven’t heard anything from Geovision yet.

 

My problem:

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19928

[natederry 0]

The files are there but are corrupt. Will not play in Viewlog, or in media player. Yes, it is older recordings too. VERY frustrating especially when the customer is standing over your shoulder looking for his evidence.

[Mattb 0]

It sounds unusual, particularly that the older files seem to have been affected. Was there a Geovision update around the time corrupt files appear? I had issues with the Geo-H.264_V2 - playback on workstations that were members of a domain failed – produced a blue panel.

 

I don’t have any suggestion other than try changing the codec, and checking to see if any unusual codec-pack or DVD playback software has been installed A clean install of both Windows and GeoVision MAY solve the problem, although time-consuming.

 

Swapping the server out with a working demo machine may be the easiest way to maintain customer relations and determine the cause of the problem at your leisure. If there is evidence on the storage drives, move them to the other machine and rebuild the database again.

 

Unless the configuration is really complex, I wouldn’t use the FBR for a swap-out or O/S re-install.

 

Other thoughts:

 

I’m sure you can view the real-time images and they appear OK.

 

Are the corrupt video files a comparable size to a valid file? If they are, have you tried taking just the .AVI files to another GeoVision DVR for playback? What do the corrupt files look like when played back?

 

I have found digital recorders are more sensitive to poor video quality. I use a meter check luminance color-burst and proper termination. There isn’t a T-tap to split signal off to a monitor?

 

Another guess would be conflicting codecs installed if the computer has internet access and a used was downloading movies of some type. There may be a codec pack in the Control Panel add-remove programs if a user brought something from home too. I had problems when a DVD

 

I keep a functional operating system image for each server model for a fast restore. A public domain program, G4U, is available if Norton or Acronis isn’t an option. Keeping an O/S disk image DVD in each client’s computer to restore the system to sales-day condition is a thought.

 

Let us know if you discover anything. GeoVision sometimes is slow responding to problems, but will help once you get a contact name.

[natederry 0]

Matt,

There was an update to 8.3.1, but the corruption appeared about two months later. The live images appear on the screen just fine. This has happened to two machines so far, both running 8.3.1.

 

Interesting that you said that about Geovision support, because I have contacted them many times in the past, and they have been very helpful in answering design, and configuration questions, BUT - when it came to this issue, I never heard back from them. Two emails about the problems (one for each machine that had the issue - the second email sounded a bit more urgent I am sure). This has left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. Both machines are installed in pretty upstanding businesses and each install was sold for over $15k - so needless to say - I wanted an answer to what might have caused this problem. (And so did my customers!)

 

Anyway,

I have already considered Imaging all of my client's PC's just in case something crashed or went crazy - and I'm going to implement this strategy soon - just need to get to it. I have over 30 systems out there - and that's a lot of imaging.

 

I do however keep 2 complete 1480 systems on the shelf for when someone's system goes down. I can just show up and swap out systems and video drives, do a FBR and in less than 2 hours they are back up and running. Unfortunate that this is a necessary step to keep your business going - but most of the issues that create the need for this are Windows related and not Geovision.

 

I spent about 5 hours the first time that the corrupt video files appeared - just trying to get the footage repaired. I did a chkdsk - found no errors. I did a seatools repair - found no errors. Tried the database restore, looked like it saw all of the files, but the player wouldn't play them, and sometimes crashed when I clicked on the file. Other times, it would come up with a ? next to the time of day (of the file) and not play the file.

 

VERY DISSAPOINTING that I can't get a response from GEO, on how or why this would happen. I'm supprised that I didn't loose $30k worth of clients because of this. How embarrasing! At least the footage that was attempted to play was not for a personal injury, or I probably would have been sued, because once again - one of these was a brand new system with less than 10 days of footage on it.

[cctv_down_under 0]

This corruption is common - and is why the database recovery tool was made -

 

I doubt your running your system on a UPS that shuts down the DVR - this is CRITICAL - the video is first stored in memory before a closed file is created and if not shut down correcty it dumps this invomplete file onto the HDD - hence a corrupted video.

 

The issue then becomes that the file index says - ok write to HDD, but HDD syas "cant write there" ..so OS syas..ok then write to next block and HDD says "cant write there" oever and over again until it has skipped that part of the HDD.

 

Its not really an issue of a bad sector - more an area that the software can not recognise the size of the incomplete file.....for example sometimes when you download a bit torrent you get parts of a file, but until the file is complete it cant be played.

 

The fix is simple - you will usually see that ONLY 1 x file is in each corrupt folder - so go to cam1 folder then open it - then change your view to "thumbnail view" - at this point you should know which folders are corrupt anyhow becasue they will be massively out fo file sequence ie all folders will be named as dates and some will be out of sequence - a long time ago - by switching to thumbnail view you are getting an auto preview of what is in the folder - however if the file in the folder is not able to be auto previewed then it is normally corrupted and you can simply remove these folders and runt he database repair tool.

 

To avoid this buy a UPS that has the ability to shutdown windows and the Geo program - TBH you only need a basic script to stop geo then most UPS mobs have the ability to shut down any windows box.

 

This will stop the ram dumping files to your HDD that are corrupted.

 

 

Hope this helps

 

Aussie Lad!

[rory 0]

The files are there but are corrupt. Will not play in Viewlog, or in media player. Yes, it is older recordings too. VERY frustrating especially when the customer is standing over your shoulder looking for his evidence.

 

Can you upload one of the files so I can take a look at it?

If the actual file is coming back as corrupt then Geo DB repair wont do anything for it.

Send me a file and I will see if I can get anything from it.

[rory 0]

To avoid this buy a UPS that has the ability to shutdown windows and the Geo program - TBH you only need a basic script to stop geo then most UPS mobs have the ability to shut down any windows box.

 

This will stop the ram dumping files to your HDD that are corrupted.

 

 

Hope this helps

 

Aussie Lad!

 

I stopped using UPS here alltogether, too many issues with them, even some of the best. Basically too many power outages, they just cant handle it LOL. Occasionally they just wont come back up, and thats enough to make it a problem. I do use AVRs though, without them the DVRs, specifically the PSU and hard drive, wont last a week here.

[natederry 0]

Aussie,

All of my systems are on a ups with an extended runtime battery - usually good for about 1.5 hours. Most power outages are much shorter than that here. And, like you said - if this was the case, it would only be one file that was corrupt. This was 3 months worth of corrupt files that were lost. I no longer have the files because I formatted the video drives and started over. There are 3 video storage drives in the one pc, and two of them had this problem. The third drive (1.5tb) was added later, and didn't have the older files on it - hence, it wasn't affected.

[cctv_down_under 0]

Only the index needs to get screwed to affect other files......are you sure your UPS shuts down the PC via software...unlikely this is the issue ...as what you state makes sense

[Mattb 0]

Nate,

 

Pity the drives were formatted. Did you save any of the corrupt video files?

 

Big test: was stored video that was viewable previously now corrupt? Is there a video backup on a CD/DVD that was corrupt on the server? That would conclusively imply a hardware issue. If there isn’t a baseline backup for comparison, I would be inclined to believe somehow the video files were not being properly encoded, or not being decoded correctly.

 

How frequently are evidence CDs created, and does the client keep an archive of backups? Was there a successful backup from the corrupt video era?

 

Naturally, you could try copying some other files to the drive to see if Word documents (or something else) become corrupt over time.

 

If you are using Vista, have the automatic Disk Defragmenter disabled. Geovision has indicated it isn’t useful.

 

Did you try exporting some sample corrupt video files only for playback on a different machine with the GeoVision codecs already installed?

 

Were the corrupted files the size you would expect for a normal file?

 

Somewhere in a GeoVision forum the advice was given to move the card to a different slot, but I haven’t ever had the need.

 

I always enlarge the unused space to 2.5 or 3 gigabytes on the storage drives.

 

You could toggle whatever state the PCI-IDE bus-mastering BIOS state is in. I never overclock or push any components.

 

If you deploy a new machine, swapping the video storage hard drives, I would suggest manually configuring the GeoVision software and not using the FBR. I only use FBR on identical hardware platforms, and a FBR that originated from a no-problem install.

 

I never make dynamic drives in Windows, and don’t RAID. I tried hardware SCSI raid early in the game, back in 2006, and didn’t see any performance change.

 

One other thing, I have stopped using the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 series drives and have been replacing failed drives with WD RE3 WD1002FBYS. I haven’t had a WD drive fail, but have lost some Seagate Barracudas. Probably a personal choice though.

 

As for the imaging, Norton Ghost 2K3 will let you create a self-booting DVD that will bare-metal install in an hour or less. Acronis is faster, but my organization’s IT department is married to Symantec. I keep a Windows only DVD (after users are created, services disabled, etc) and Windows with Geovision DVD. The FBR is saved in a separate archive, and updated as needed, with parent and grand-parent FBRs available.

 

 

I wish I could offer more insight. As mentioned, I have had issues the GeoVision was able to resolve, some times here in the US and sometimes in Taiwan. There is typically a bit of communication problems, and they often have difficulty addressing more than one issue in a single trouble ticket. I would send succinct descriptions and images to GeoVision if possible. They usually want to connect to your server and view the configuration.

 

Good luck, & Keep us posted if you find the cause.

[rory 0]

Anyway,

I have already considered Imaging all of my client's PC's just in case something crashed or went crazy - and I'm going to implement this strategy soon - just need to get to it. I have over 30 systems out there - and that's a lot of imaging.

I use a software called drivesnapshot. its a trial backup which expires every 3 months or something like that, but the restore always works. See some info about it here, used in USB Disk Tools I posted online: http://www.bahamassecurity.com/software/utilities/usbdisktools.asp . I also have a much simpler method of this for DVD if interested, using the same software, just not posted online. The idea is to setup a clean install of your system and get it working 100%, then image it. If there is a failure you can restore that image in 5-10 minutes. It actually works very well.