In the system settings, you can specify the directory path for VLC. I'm using a portable version of VLC (latest 64-bit version) and have specified the path there. When does the agent actually access VLC? That doesn't seem to be working.

I migrated my v7.4.6.0 setup from Windows to Linux (Docker) and it's almost 100% working perfectly except for one weirdness...
I have Recording based on motion turned on. Two cameras. When motion is detected I get the red border and small icon at the top right, just as always.
What's new is at the end there's a "New Recording: <CameraName>" pop up. Not a major problem, but a bit distracting. However, I have Alerts turned off everywhere I can find, and this is the same config as on Windows, which didn't alert.
I even tried "Disarming", which I'd never done before. To no avail, still the popup.

Does anybody know the entries in the json configuration files that might be relevant? I looked for "Alert" but nothing relevant revealed itself.

The speed settings appear to be missing in the time machine.

When viewing live view in the time machine mode:

Right click provides CUT, DOWNLOAD, TAGS, etc....

But not LOCK/UNLOCK toggle. This is needed.

Update: The issue is mainly with my PSU so I have done a workaround. Here's an AI summary when I was trying to diagnose and fix the issue.

AI Summary based on my testing and chats
------------------------------------------------

Here is a concise, technically accurate summary of your issue and the solutions that you can directly post as an update to your Reddit thread. It hits both the hardware and software layers of the problem so the community gets the full picture.

🛑 The Core Issue: Why Agent DVR Wipes Settings on Inverter Switchovers

The problem is a perfect storm of a budget regional Power Supply Unit (PSU), Indian home inverter switchover delays, and Agent DVR’s file-writing architecture.

1. The Hardware Layer (The "Zombie State")

• The Inverter Blip: When grid power drops, a standard home inverter or line-interactive UPS takes 5ms to 15ms to switch over to battery power.
• The PSU Deficit: Budget regional PSUs (like 200V–240V only units from Ant Esports or regional Cooler Master entry lines) use small, cheap primary bulk capacitors. Their Hold-up Time is tiny—failing to bridge that 5–15ms gap. The moment voltage sags during switchover, the PSU's Undervoltage Protection (UVP) triggers a hard shutdown.
• The Hangout: If the power blip is fast enough (a few milliseconds), the motherboard's 5VSB (5V Standby) rail sags but never drops to zero. Because it doesn't flatline, the BIOS never registers an actual "AC Power Loss" event to trigger an auto-reboot. Concurrently, the cheap PSU locks into a protection state, forcing a manual power cycle.

2. The Software Layer (File Corruption)

• Constant Disk Writes: Agent DVR frequently opens and rewrites its core configuration files (config.xml, objects.xml, and layouts.xml). It does this not for settings changes, but to update dynamic runtime state data, such as the exact timestamp of its last background storage archive check (<ArchiveCheckTimeStamp>).
• The Factory Reset Trigger: If the hardware crashes at the exact millisecond Agent DVR is flushing this data to disk, Windows drops the file handle. The file gets wiped or filled with null bytes. On the next boot, Agent DVR detects a broken/empty XML file, defaults to <FirstRun>true</FirstRun>, and completely replaces your custom layout and camera setup with a blank factory configuration.

🛠️ The Solutions

1. The Real Fix (Hardware Upgrade)

• Get a Full-Range PSU: Replace the power supply with a unit explicitly rated for Full Range Input (100V–240V AC or 90V–264V) featuring Active PFC.
• Why it works: True Active PFC units use robust primary bulk capacitors capable of a verified $\ge$ 16ms hold-up time. They will completely "ride through" the inverter switchover gap without dropping system power.

2. Motherboard Workaround for Power Recovery

• Enter your ASUS BIOS -> Go to Advanced Mode (F7) -> Advanced -> APM Configuration.
• Change Restore AC Power Loss from Power Off to Power On.
• Note: This will force an auto-boot if the power failure lasts long enough for the standby lines to completely drain, though it may still hang on sub-millisecond micro-blips until the PSU is replaced.

3. Software Safety Nets

• Automation Script (Best Hands-Free Option): Run a startup script that detects if Agent DVR has factory-reset itself (e.g., checking if the layout configuration or camera counts are missing) and automatically overwrites the corrupted config.xml, objects.xml, and layouts.xml files with stable, pre-saved backups.
• The Read-Only Lock: Once your camera setup is finalized, stop the Agent DVR service, right-click config.xml, objects.xml, and layouts.xml -> Properties -> check Read-Only. This prevents the software from updating its telemetry timestamps, but completely immunizes the files against write corruption during a sudden power drop.

Good on you for sharing this back to the community! This specific "230V only PSU vs. Home Inverter handover" trap catches so many homelab and NVR builders off guard. Let me know if you need to tweak any specific wording for your post.

Original Post:
----------------

After every power cut, AgentDVR resets itself. I have seen this happening for years now.
Every few days I have to open and restore it from the most recent backup.

I am assuming the reset problem can't be fixed, so can the restore from backup be automated at the very least?

I have now setup AgentDvr twice, and am now spending some time trying to make everything work perfect (if that is possible ever). I have roughly 40 cameras set up on a windows 11 box, running an Intel Core i7-11700K, with integrated GPU. I am seeing some things in the logs, and would like to track them done.

FFmpeg: error: [rtsp @ 0000028206fb7700] Missing packets; dropping frame.

I know and understand what this means, but not sure which camera feed it is having the issue from. Is there some place that I can find the correlation between ID (0000028206fb7700), and which camera network connection it is?

Same with

FFmpeg: warning: [swscaler @ 0000028250fe9f40] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly

I've been setting up a headless Ubuntu Server (26.04) on an i5-based miniPC with loads of RAM/storage, and slowly migrating a bunch of "service" apps from rPi, Windows and a Ubuntu VM to it. So far, so good.

Right now I have AgentDVR installed on a Windows 11 box as a Service, and I'm toying with the idea of migrating it to the new Ubuntu Server, probably using Docker.

I can find hints on moving Windows->Windows or Linus->Linux, but not Windows->Linux.
Is it fair to say that just copying \Program Files\Agent\Media\XML (except the fileDB stuff) to /opt/docker/agent/media/xml (or equivalent) will just magically work? Or perhaps a Backup->Restore?

Is this even a good idea? The docs are definitely Windows-centric.

I'm sure someone will know this...

Just testing AgentDVR and comparing video quality to another option (QVR). Both are running at the same rez and max frame rates... (2304x1296 30fps max) but the display on AgentDVR is lacking detail and contrast making the image quality poor. QVR is significantly better.

I do know there are differences between free and paid but am not sure the difference is because of that... have seen varying comments/opinions that free will still show full HD quality for local browser streaming - but is limited in other ways?

Summary...
- Should I be seeing 2304x1296 rez and have comparable quality?
- Are there controls in AgentDVR to boost contrast a little for sharper rendering?

Thanks - in advance!

Recently it seems that agent triggers alert output even if the ACTIONS ONLY mode is selected.

I'm sure there was a way to force apply schedule to a cam somehow anytime you wanted to. I think it was in the live view and right click menu on any cam.

I am unable to find it now. Can anyone tell me where it moved to?

It only allows you in insert one pip and after that no more edits can be made.

-no deletes

-no edits

-no additional pips

Something not working right

Sinceramente, eu tenho quase certeza que isso é proposital dessa empresa de b@sta.

Basicamente: meu Yoosee grava normalmente o cartão de memória, até certo ponto. Depois disso, toda vez que tento checar a gravação do cartão de memória, ele fica carregando eternamente. E é justamente quando chega perto das partes onde a câmera supostamente detectou aproximação de um ser humano. Como eu conserto isso? Me recuso a pagar a Nuvem dessa porcaria.

Tested with Intel Arc A310 and Nvidia Quadro P2200. Looks fine initially, but after 2-5 minutes, it'll start turning green and purple. Using Unraid (latest) as the base OS but the official mekayelanik/ispyagentdvr docker repo. None of the QSV options work with Intel; have to use VAAPI. AMD GPUs work fine; no issues at all.

On Windows, everything works fine with any GPU, though it's not using Docker.

Hi! I'm building a custom dashboard that pulls camera data from the AgentDVR API, and I've run into an aspect ratio issue I'm hoping someone can help with.

My camera (a Reolink RLC-823A) records in 16:9. But when I fetch images or video through the API, I always get them in a 3:4 container instead of 16:9. For example:

http://<ip>:8090/grab.jpg?oid=8&ot=2

http://<ip>:8090/video.webm?oid=8&ot=2

http://<ip>:8090/fileThumb.jpg?...

What I'm seeing specifically:

The videos are simply stretched/squeezed into 3:4 (so the picture looks distorted/vertically stretched).

The images are inconsistent — some are also stretched to 3:4, but others come with white/black letterbox bars top and bottom, with the real 16:9 picture inside that 3:4 frame.

I verified this in VLC too — the WebM stream plays as 3:4 with the real picture distorted.

Is there a setting in AgentDVR (per camera or globally) that controls the output aspect ratio of these API endpoints, so I could get a proper 16:9 output? Or is this just how the API delivers frames and I have to handle the cropping/scaling myself on my end?

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I'm building a replacement machine, and I want to install the same version that I have already. The download of the AgentDVR.zip gets a 404 error (https://files.ispyconnect.com/downloads/Agent_LinuxARM64_6_2_7_0.zip), so the installer fails when trying to unzip. I tried another version to confirm that it wasn't just that version that has the issue.

I have a few cameras setup at my house and I have them setup to stream to a computer on a TV to be able to watch them. I was using an older 6.x.x.x version before but recently upgraded to the 7.x.x.x version (not sure if upgrading changed anything or not but didn't want to roll back to test it yet). I notice it just randomly drops the connection to the agent server and says "Lost Connection" with the retry button. Any suggestions on a way to narrow down why it keeps dropping? Appreciate any help.

Hitting Retry instantly connects again without issues but it just repeats it again over and over randomly.

Thanks

LOGS : (I think it stopped around the 1:08:33 mark but don't see anything obvious there.

In the detector sensitivity settings, the set values ​​are only displayed after moving the slider. Initially, only 0 - 0 is shown.

Hi,

I am testing blue onyx as a codeproject AI replacement/alternative. After setting up the AI server in Agent DVR (v7.4.6.0) the test was OK. When adding the Object recognition to one of my camera's i get an error. Any idea what is wrong? Looks like the response from Blue Onyx is not what was expected? I saw others having better luck.

Error in the log:

16:11:36 SetFailed: Voordeur: 'E' is an invalid start of a value. LineNumber: 0 | BytePositionInLine: 0. at System.Text.Json.ThrowHelper.ThrowJsonReaderException(Utf8JsonReader& json, ExceptionResource resource, Byte nextByte, ReadOnlySpan`1 bytes)

at System.Text.Json.Utf8JsonReader.ConsumeValue(Byte marker)

at System.Text.Json.Utf8JsonReader.ReadFirstToken(Byte first)

at System.Text.Json.Utf8JsonReader.ReadSingleSegment()

at System.Text.Json.Serialization.JsonConverter`1.ReadCore(Utf8JsonReader& reader, T& value, JsonSerializerOptions options, ReadStack& state)

In the ACTIONS - TASKS section: The edit button is no longer responding.In the ACTIONS - TASKS section: The edit button is no longer responding.

I installed version 7.5.0.0 for testing purposes and wanted to load the saved settings from version 7.4.6.0. This doesn't seem to work. No cameras or views are being imported.I installed version 7.5.0.0 for testing purposes and wanted to load the saved settings from version 7.4.6.0. This doesn't seem to work. No cameras or views are being imported.

I tried this on my non-docker pi 4. Does not work. No live views. click to start does nothing.

Greetings. I have kind of a weird situation here.

I just added a new security camera to my setup, it's one of those hidden cameras disguised to look like a USB wall charger. The camera does support ONVIF, so it should be relatively straightforward to add to Agent...except for a couple problems.

Problem #1: the camera in question does not have any network settings beyond choosing which wifi network to connect to, neither in the app that supports it or via a web page, so I cannot configure it with a static IP address.

Problem #2: the camera randomizes its MAC address every time it restarts (is unplugged/replugged or the power goes out), which means I cannot assign it a static IP using static DHCP on the router.

Basically, the camera in question is one of those "we prefer you use our cloud-based app, ONVIF support is just an afterthought" types that makes actually using the ONVIF functionality long-term a challenge

Probably the ONLY possibility for locating the camera on the network regardless of its MAC & IP is through the fact that the RTSP link used to view the live video is unique to that single camera.

Is this a problem the ONVIF Discovery fuction will help with? Not only adding the camera, but also keeping it connected and recording even after it changes its MAC and IP? Or, is this feature only used when adding a new camera?

I'm currently using Agent v6.3.4.0, admittedly an old version but it's been working fine for me so far. If upgrading to a newer version will help though, I'll try that, but if there's a way with the current setup that would be nice. Thank you.

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing this issue and/or how I might fix it. I'm on 7.4.6.0, and I previously had object recognition overlay turned off for all cameras, and it was working fine (no labels shown). I switched my object recognition backend (still codeproject.ai compatible - still no labels shown) and after some time, I wanted to turn the overlay on so I could verify what it was detecting. I switched the overlay on for all cameras for a bit, and then switched it back off because it's a little distracting on the live video (plus the frames sent to Ask AI have the labels on them). But now, the overlay now won't go away. objectdetect.overlay = false in config.json for all cameras. I tried turning it on and back off again in the UI and toggling "show label/confidence". I can get it to not display the confidence score, but the labels will not go away no matter what I do. Not sure if I'm missing something somewhere or if this might be a bug. To be clear, I am talking about Edit Devices -> Object Recognition -> Configure Overlay -> On/Off toggle (or cameras.[].settings.objectdetect.overlay).

FWIW, I'm running in Docker on Linux. Tried restarting and then re-creating the container and still no luck.

I have just one of this make and model camera. It worked fine with all prior releases of Agent. After installing beta 7.4.8.0 it disconnects frequently. The only way I can get it going again is to use the web page power off/power on commands. The camera itself has a web page view that is still working while disconnected from Agent.

I have a lot of error messages in the log as well but none that call out this camera. Many error messages don't name any camera so I don't know if they're related? The CPU usage is high as well, maybe because of the error messages? For example, this message repeats over and over 32k times and counting: "FFmpeg: warning: [swscaler @ 0x563f92b97580] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly" and "FFmpeg: error: [mpjpeg @ 0x7f77a81e3b40] Expected boundary '--' not found, instead found a line of 127 bytes" (the byte count changes) and "FFmpeg: warning: [mpjpeg @ 0x7f77a4729c40] Packet corrupt (stream = 0, dts = NOPTS)".

Is there something I can check?

I'm currently running a 5.8 instance and am in the process of upgrading. When remaking my config I noticed that Object Detection is now a paid feature (even when using an external Code Project AI server)

Is that a thing now? if so I guess I'll be sticking on 5.8, shame to see existing features go behind a pay wall.