Multiplex Freezes

Marty

Ben, before the recent updates, I would view 9 cameras in a grid using an Apple TV to a television. If the television powered off or I went to another app, and came back to the SecuritySpy iOS app, the multiplex view would pick right back up with live video. Now it is always frozen on the last set of live images. I have to exit multiplex and reenter to get live video again. This would normally be no problem but sometimes I have the Apple TV come on remotely for others to view cameras and it would just power up with SecuritySpy showing live multiplex cameras. Now there has to be actual manual intervention. This also occurs on the iPhone and iPad. It was just convenient to power up the Apple TV and live images would just start.

A second observation. In multiplex I see "Highlight Activity." I can't see what it is doing. I'm hoping there is supposed to be a red box or something. I do have actions enabled for the cameras. It would be nice to have in the iOS app some visual activity that would catch my eye.

Thanks again for such great software and the iOS app. It truly is my most used app on the Mac.

Marty

Ben

Hi Marty, thanks for letting us know, I can indeed reproduce this problem. When backgrounding and foregrounding the app, the streams aren't correctly re-established. We'll get this fixed for the next update. In terms of the activity highlighting, our documentation hasn't caught up with the new features yet, but here's how that works:

• You'll need the latest 6.17 SecuritySpy version installed on your Mac
• Start multiplex with highlighting enabled
• When there is motion in a camera, that camera is shown full-screen with an eye icon to indicate activity
• After motion ends, it reverts to the multi-camera view.

Please test this and provide your feedback!

Marty

Ben, you're welcome on letting you know. Thanks so much for your very quick response and I'm glad you were able to reproduce the "frozen" streams. As history has shown, I know you and your team will have it resolved very quickly. That's one of the things I love about SecuritySpy. It's an absolutely world class application with equally world class support.

Thanks for the clarification on highlighting activity. I look forward to using it.

Marty

Ben

Hi Marty, thanks for your kind words about our software and support - this is great to hear!

We've identified the problem, should be an easy fix. It will probably be until January that we'll release the next update, but let me know if you would like this sooner, and I'll send you a beta testing link when this becomes available in a week or so.

Marty

I'm very glad you have identified the problem. Thanks for the offer of the beta, but I'll wait until it's available publicly. It's no problem at all to wait until January.

Thanks again for checking on this.

Marty

boomlikethat

Are there any updates on this? I have been experiencing the same thing on my Apple TV, even though it has a direct Ethernet connection.

Ben

Hi @boomlikethat this will be addressed in a near-future app update. It's not a fault with your network. Until then, after backgrounding/foregrounding the app, you'll need to exit and re-enter multiplex mode to get it running again.

boomlikethat

https://bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/comment/18090#Comment_18090

Hey Ben,

Yeah, that's been my "workaround" to get it going again. Thanks!

Ben

Update: the new 1.8.8 version of the app is low live in the App Store, with a fix for this multiplex issue for both iOS and tvOS.

boomlikethat

Thanks, Ben!

cstout

The red border feature is everything I hoped it would be. Excellent work!

Is there a setting/preference for when you activate a single camera in multiplex for how that camera displays? Right now it appears to be “stretch to fit” which looks pretty wild on an iPhone in vertical orientation. Any way to make that “scale to fit”?

Thanks so much for this update! I so frequently used zooming while in multiplex, it’s great to have that back.

Marty

Thanks so very much for the work on it. The iOS and TvOS app is working perfectly and the red borders along with keeping the camera layout after fullscreen really enhances the app. I use multiplex constantly and this has really improved it so very much.

Thanks again.

Marty

photonclock

Hi Ben, this update looks good. The freezing is fixed. But I do have an additional request regarding the iOS/iPadOS behaviors:

On my iPad Pro as an example, with the Apple Keyboard attached, a click on the full-screened multiplex screen to invoke the dropdown menu at the top (X multiplex cycle) doesn't work about 80% of the time, but in the Cameras view while fullscreen, it works fine every time. And it's not just clicking with the trackpad, it's the same behavior when touching the screen with my finger. I have to tap the screen repeatedly to invoke the menu.

Likewise, on the multiplex configuration page, clicking "Start multiplex" is a guessing game. It doesn't work more than half the time, and I have to sort of stab at the screen all around the text to find the spot that will react.

Would you be able to address these minor UI issues?

Ben

@cstout - great that this update is working well for you! Yes, there are some different display options to choose from (Crop/Stretch/Balanced) in the app settings. There's a link to the settings from the Servers screen in the app.

@photonclock - a couple of users now have reported UI responsiveness issues in Multiplex, so this does seem to be a problem, albeit rare. We are as yet unable to reproduce or identify the issue. We'll take another look.

cstout

@Ben would it be a huge pain to add a "Fit" option? Crop and Balanced on an iPhone cut off too much and Stretch is so distorted on the skinny, long screen that it's a bit confusing to interpret. Being able to see it in the smaller "fit" view just like viewing the individual camera in regular viewing (and using the wonderfully restored pinch/zoom) would be great to have back.

Ben

I understand - a "fit" option is on our feature roadmap.

boomlikethat

To add to the thread: the Apple TV update was working well at first. However, I’m now occasionally seeing red triangles instead of green dots. Switching back to the previous multiplex view (like the earlier workaround) seems to fix the issue temporarily, but it eventually returns.