Unreliable/Missing Audio Streaming in XProtect Essential 2016

MIP
1

After I upgraded to XProtect 2016, the audio won’t stream from most of the cameras. I didn’t have this problem with XProtect 8 or 2014.

The 9 cameras are a mix of Panasonic i-Pro WV-SC385, WV-SC386, WV-SC387, and WV-SW396. Audio streaming works fine from the Panasonic camera’s own web page.

When the XProtect 64 bit Client starts, I get audio on up to 3 of the cameras but missing audio from the rest. Then the next time I reboot the entire system, I might regain audio from different cameras but some of the ones that used to have audio become silent.

I tried device packs 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4, and this makes no difference.

The network performance is good - I’m using the client on the same server (localhost), and I get good video recording/playback performance. So it doesn’t have anything to do with network throughput or workstation performance. This happened on Windows 7 x64 and the audio problem continued after upgrading to Windows 10.

I deleted all hardware devices and re-added them, deleted the entire database. Also tried disabling the firewall, virus scan, etc. makes no difference. I even disabled TCP and UDP offloading in the network adapter (as suggested in a Milestone KB article), because I ran out of things to try.

The Panasonic cameras are set to the default G.726 codec (when I try the G.711 option it makes a screechy noise in XProtect).

I’ve exhausted all the things to try, and at this point I think there is a bug in Milestone Xprotect 2016 or the more recent device packs.

Another clue that it is a bug is that this is similar to Milestone Article # 000001784 “Microphone audio does not stream or record after upgrade to XProtect 2013” for which Milestone created a Hotfix. Except this time it is XProtect 2016.

2

Thank you for reporting your issue. Please create a support ticket so that we can look further into the issue. At this point we can not verify that it is a bug, but you can refer to bug 41037 (old and already solved) and the mentioned article. Moreover please provide us with the firmware version of the cameras so that we understand your environment better.

3

How can I create a support ticket so that I can give you more info on the environment? In my support portal it says to contact the reseller, probably because you only allow upgrade licenses to open tickets?

It is interesting, I think this bug might be independent of the specific camera firmware because sometimes the audio works on certain cameras, depending on which cameras got lucky during XProtect startup.

The firmware on the cameras is the latest available from Panasonic (it is important for us to use the latest firmware, since Panasonic fixed some important issues). The versions are:

WV-SC385 - Application 2.30 - Driver 1.60

WV-SC386 - Application 2.30 - Driver 1.63

WV-SW397 - Application 1.90 - Driver 1.07

4

Dan,

if you are not a Milestone Partner (reseller) yourself, you ought to contact the Milestone Partner who has sold you the installation. They are supposed to help you with simple issues, and create a support case with Milestone Technical Support for more complex issues.

Regards,

Torsten

5

I submitted the support ticket through the Milestone Partner but I am not getting communication from Milestone (the Partner hasn’t heard either after submitting InfoCollect). I miss the days when I used to be able to communicate with Milestone tech support directly to report bugs (I don’t need newbie support, just want to be able to properly report bugs). I don’t like this new middle-man support system. How can I check that Milestone software developers are aware of this audio bug?

6

Dan, in general this “man-in-the-middle” system works quite well. The Milestone Partners usually gather knowledge over time which allows them to handle smaller issues themselves, and in case of trickier problems, they contact Milestone Technical Support.

How to check the progress: You partner has access to Milestone’s Support Portal where he can see all his cases. Depending on the severity of the problem (and the workload), you should allow some days before you can expect a solution.

Should the issue really be caused by a bug, an internal bug report will be made by Support and handled by R&D. It goes without saying that this will take longer time.

Actually, I have found your case. It has the cas enumber MSC190763, and I can see that your partner has issues uploading the requested log files. So, for now Milestone cannot even analyze the issue.

I keep my fingers crossed that the upload will succeed soon.

Torsten

7

Why can’t we get tech support from you? We’re in the process of replacing our entire system, granted it’s only 60 cameras but if we can’t get support why would we buy your product.