Article number: 000001659

Article type: Troubleshooting

Article audience: Advanced

Category type: Usage

Product: XProtect Corporate, XProtect Enterprise 7.0, XProtect Enterprise 8.0, XProtect Professional 7.0, XProtect Professional 8.1, XProtect Express, XProtect Essential, XProtect Professional 8.0

Type: Software issue

Version: 2

First published: 04/07/2015

Last modified: 05/11/2015


What to look for if the Milestone XProtect Recording Server service terminates unexpectedly or crashes

Summary

The Milestone XProtect Recording Server service has stopped unexpectedly (crashed).

Symptoms

The Milestone XProtect Recording Server service has stopped unexpectedly (crashed).

Cause

Troubleshooting steps

Resolution

If the Milestone XProtect Recording Server service has stopped unexpectedly (crashed), use these troubleshooting protocols to resolve the issue:

 

·      The large majority of crashes in XProtect® software are the direct result of the Recording Server process running out of available virtual memory.
 

·      Crashes may also result from an exception error (software code unable to execute due to an unforeseen circumstance). 
 

·      If the process has crashed because it has run out of virtual memory, the software will likely not create a memory dump as it has no more computing resources to do so. In this case, you must focus your efforts on determining how much virtual memory the process was using and then provide more virtual memory for use.
 

·      If you are running a XProtect® Corporate installation, the recording server will keep a log titled Performance.log which monitors virtual memory usage. This value is logged every 10 minutes while the recording server is operational. This log file is located in the logs directory:

Windows 7/Server 2008: C:\ProgramData\Milestone\XProtect Corporate Recording Server\Logs.
Windows XP/Server 2003: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Milestone\XProtect Corporate Recording Server\Logs.
 

·      If you need to monitor virtual memory usage for a product other than XProtect Corporate, the best option is to use Windows Performance Monitor to monitor virtual bytes in use by a running process. You can do this by opening Windows Performance Monitor and then creating a counter to monitor Processes | Virtual Bytes | [select XProtect process to monitor].
 

·      32-bit Windows operating systems (OS) supply programs with 2 GB of virtual memory by default or up to 3 GB with the /3GB switch enabled. 64-bit Windows operating systems supply programs with 4 GB of virtual memory by default. Note that virtual memory is related to system RAM in nature but these are different resources, and should not be confused with each other (example: increasing system RAM will not increase the amount of virtual memory available to the software).


·     Virtual memory consumption by XProtect® software is determined by many factors. A general rule of thumb is that virtual memory consumption will increase as more cameras are added to the software. Virtual memory consumption will also increase as image size and frame rate counts increase.


·      Most efforts to resolve exceeding virtual memory errors is done by either providing more virtual memory to the software, or reducing the amount of virtual memory that the software consumes.

Supply more virtual memory:

• If you are using a 32-bit OS, try and apply the /3GB switch (instructions of how to do this is included in the relevant product’s        Administrator’s Manual)
• Consider moving to a 64-bit OS.

Reducing virtual memory usage:
• If you are using XProtect Corporate, consider dividing the camera load into two or more Recording Server instances.
• If you are using XProtect Corporate and you are recording 24/7, consider disabling motion detection.
• On any version of the XProtect software, consider reducing resolution and/or frame rate and bit rate.
• On any version of the XProtect software, consider reducing the total number of cameras added to the recording server.
 

·      If the crash occurs from an exception error, the software will generally try to create a dump file (complete export of the contents of system RAM; used for debugging). If available, these dump files should be provided to Milestone Support for further review.

The locations for memory dumps are as follows:

XProtect Corporate: 
• Windows 7 / Server 2008: C:\ProgramData\Milestone\XProtect Corporate Recording Server
• Windows XP / Server 2003: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Milestone\XProtect Corporate Recording Server

XProtect Enterprise:
• Windows 7 / Server 2008: C:\ProgramData\Milestone\Milestone Surveillance
• Windows XP / Server 2003: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Milestone\Milestone Surveillance