After updating Milestone from 2020 R2 to 2020 R3 (including the SDK), I am noticing strange behaviour when trying to export in MKV format on the same machine as the server is installed.
Using the Export sample or my own application, when doing an MKV export on my machine (connected to the 2020 R3 server) it all works as expected, quick and small file size for 5 minutes of export (180MB). However if I move the compiled application to the server that has been updated to Milestone 2020 R3 and run the same export, it takes many times longer and the filesize is 3GB vs 180MB when exported using the same application on my own machine. This is more the export time and file size I would expect out of doing an AVI export.
Milestone format and AVI format exports seem to be working fine, so any help would be appreciated.
I am using the updated 2020 R3 SDK for both the ExportSample and our own application, both which work fine when ran on my machine, connecting remotely to the 2020 R3 server, but not when the applications are run on the same machine as the 2020 R3 server.
I tried to reproduce the issue that you mentioned but failed so far.
If the data on the Recording server is corrupted or broken, then it would take long time to export, the resulting export might not contain bad pictures when you see the export video (but also it might(?)).
When you export MKV file -
Are there certain periods of time when the export works normal time? On the other hand, are there certain periods of time to give you this error?
Our speculation is that if there has been a crash or some other form of abnormal incident, you might have data that is difficult to export. So maybe exporting 5 minutes from a day where there was a power out incident might give the issue, but an export of 5 minutes recorded an hour ago is exporting with the speed and size expected.
Can you please test this? Please test and tell us in detail what you have tried, what fails and what works as expected.
Besides the question if the issue pertains to a certain period it would also be interesting if you see the issue on one camera, on multiple cameras or on all cameras. Please let us know.
Thanks for the response. Here is what I have done/found.
There does not seem to be any specific time period that exports normally. I have exported 5 seconds of recordings that was recorded in the last 5 minutes, and 5 seconds from around 5 days ago and in both cases the export was around 55-60MB. I performed the same exact same export (same camera, date/times) on our 2020 R2 test server and the file sizes were around 10-15MB each. This was the same on the 2 different cameras I had available to test with, but in all cases the MKV export appears to play fine in VLC.
I have attached an example of the same 2020 R2 and 2020 R3 MKV export in case that will help.
I am in the middle of installing a copy of 2020 R3 in a fresh Windows install so I can check whether it was a problem during the 2020 R2 → 2020 R3 upgrade that is causing the export issues.
If there is any more information that would help, let me know.
I just finished trying similar exports on the fresh 2020 R3 install and having the same problems. A 5 second MKV export was ~60MB. 2:15 MKV Export was ~1.3GB
The one thing that is known to always trigger transcoding of the media and thus resulting in long time for exporting and big exports is privacy masking. Please as a start double check whether privacy masking has been introduced, knowingly or not, to the cameras where you see this export issue.
I have double checked on both of the 2020 R3 instances (upgraded and fresh install), and on both privacy masks are disabled in the management client, and, at least on the fresh install, have never been enabled.