Netbotz not always sending a proper attachment

[DCIM_Support]

We have all our Netbotz set to e-mail us with attached .avi files from the camera pods when a motion alert is triggered. This morning we had a large number of alerts from a couple of cameras and I noticed that not all of the alerts were being sent with attachments, and some of the attachments were .avi files with 181 bytes that were actually text files with the message "Output file write error --- out of disk space?"

The confusing thing is that every few minutes a proper attachment was sent, so even if the Netbotz space was full, it appears to have been deleting old files to make space for the new ones. 

Any assistance would be appreciated.

(CID:105462561)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Dominic,

The message alone doesn't really tell the full tale of what happened. There could indeed be an issue with disk space and the amount of data the NetBotz appliance is trying to both store and send out. The NetBotz appliance (both version 2 and version 3) will store up to 24 hours of information by default but based on how much new data it receives, it could delete some data that is less than 24 hours old in lieu of new data. That being said, I don't know that I have ever seen the appliance actually send that message in place of an actual image. Is it at all possible that this message was sent from the e-mail server? Is the NetBotz appliance set up to use external storage and perhaps it was unable to reach that storage?

If you have 4 cameras connected to a NetBotz appliance, if you're running a high frame rate, high resolution, and you are monitoring an active environment, you are much more likely to run into issues with the amount of resources used than if you are running at lower configurations and monitoring an environment off hours. If this is happening on a regular basis, I would definitely suggest changing your capture parameters to lower resolutions and / or frame rates. NetBotz are designed for environments where there should really be no motion and the motion alert is the exception.

Steve

(CID:105462564)

[DCIM_Support]

Thanks for the reply. The Netbotz don't have external storage. A light was flashing in the data center, causing the Netbotz to send us an alert every minute or so.

If I Google the exact error message (together with a file of 0 bytes) I get a bunch of references to libjpeg errors - I don't know if that has any relevance to how the Netbotz operate. I can see all the clips in Data Center Expert, so it appears the camera is recording everything, but the appliance is unable to attach the .avi file to the e-mail.

(CID:105462571)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Dominic, You mentioned also that the attachments did come in on later e-mails. Since it's sending via e-mail and sending to (1? 2?) DCE server, it's doing 2x the work as well. It's sending the image via e-mail and sending it as an alert to DCE. I can check with engineering to see if they'e seen this before but I have not. I've asked around as well. What bot and what fw are you running? How many camera? How many other sensors and how many sensors were alerting total? How many e-mail addresses is the appliance sending to? Again, can you replicate this or was it a one time thing? Steve.

(CID:105462600)

[DCIM_Support]

Steve, It's a Netbotz 355 wall appliance running v4_5_0_20150518_1808. There's only one DCE server, the camera is built-in, and that was the only sensor that was alerting at the time. We have two alert profiles that run concurrently, one to send to e-mail and text (seven addresses in total), and the other to send the alert to our FTP server. Going back through the history, today was the first time we received 0 byte files from this Netbotz. That said, the Netbotz used to only send images but since last Friday it's been configured to send avi files.

(CID:105462607)

[DCIM_Support]

Hi Dominic, So not too many alerts but you are sending images to 9 different destinations. DCE did get the alert you said. Did the FTP server also get the alert? Did all 7 e-mail recipients all receive this same message.... text files with the message "Output file write error --- out of disk space?" You mentioned that some got through but I wasn't clear if some alerts sent properly and other alerts did not or if some addresses were sent to properly and others were not. If the latter, is there anything different about the destinations? What is your frame rate? What is your resolution? How many images are being sent per alert? Can you replicate this? Steve

(CID:105462616)

[DCIM_Support]

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