Title: CompleteView v7.2 Recording Server Upgrade Information
Date: 1/25/2023
Description:Upgrading a CompleteView Recording Server to version 7.2 involves reindexing existing stored video and events. The reindexing process may temporarily impact stored video and event retrieval as well as Recording Server configuration updates.
Issue Summary:
One of the key features in CompleteView v7.2 is the ability to reorder and/or delete cameras associated within a Recording Server. After reordering or deleting cameras in previous versions of CompleteView, users would get erroneous results when searching for previously recorded video. The fix introduced in CompleteView v7.2 to correct this requires a reindexing of all recorded video and all stored events. This reindexing is necessary to ensure that the system is immune to the effects of reordering or deleting cameras. During the v7.2 upgrade, each Recording Server necessarily goes through the reindexing process.
The reindexing process can take a substantial amount of time depending on the amount of recorded video and events. To minimize downtime, each Recording Server will receive an initial v7.2 upgrade and will be online and operational within minutes, recording video as usual. Also, immediately after the v7.2 upgrade, the previous 24 hours of video and event information will be available for users to search and view.
For older content, the reindexing process continues to run in the background until completion, starting with newer content and working towards older content. This background process can potentially take many hours. There is no hard limit or timeout to the reindexing process; it will continue to proceed until all contents are reindexed. The exact amount of time required by a given Recording Server to complete the reindexing process can vary based on the following:
- The number of cameras configured on the Recording Server. A larger number of cameras will result in a longer reindexing process.
- Quantity of video that must be reindexed. This is driven by the retention policy. Longer retention policies will result in a longer reindexing process.
• Quantity of events that must be reindexed. This is driven by configuration, such as motion detection settings associated with each of the cameras configured on the Recording Server.
Please note that video and events that have not yet been reindexed will not appear in search results. This can mean that shortly after a v7.2 upgrade to a Recording Server, results may be completely missing, partially returned, or fully returned, depending on what content has been reindexed and depending on the search parameters. The only solution is to wait for the reindexing process to complete before performing a search, at least for the dates/times of interest.
There is no clear visual indicator to administrators or operators that the reindexing process is in progress, or whether the process is completed or not. A manual check to assess the progress of the reindexing process can be performed by searching the Events panel of the Dashboard Module for the specific Recording Server. The Recording Server will log “GUID Migration” events described as “starting…,” “…successfully completed,” and the “…daily camera database file…” that is being migrated, among other related events.
During the reindexing, no Recording Server changes will be possible. If changes are attempted, two notifications will be provided to the administrator; the first notification will indicate that the change was successfully pushed to the Management Server, and the second notification will indicate that the change was not successfully deployed to the Recording Server. Any changes will be queued on the Management Server which will periodically attempt to push the changes to the Recording Server and will remain there until they are successfully pushed. The retry attempts have no hard limit or timeout.
Additionally, given that the reindexing process is computationally expensive, operators may potentially receive an “insufficient resources” message when attempting to request video from the Recording Server. This is a precaution meant to ensure that the Recording Server has the necessary resources to continue recording video and storing events.
Note: The v7.2 upgrade will fail to proceed on a Recording Server if there is insufficient disk space to properly back up the pre-existing database and configuration. While the Recording Server installer will check for adequate space on the installation drive, it is best practice to ensure that at least 3x times the size of the largest daily database file (e.g. cv_data_XXXXXXXX.sdf) is available on that drive for the upgrade and reindexing process to use.
It is possible to abort and revert the v7.2 upgrade on a Recording Server. This process is not instantaneous, and requires manual intervention. To revert the upgrade and the reindexing, follow the CompleteView Rollback Instructions utilizing the Folders Utility available at: https://support.salientsys.com/knowledgebase/support-tools/
Affected Products:
CompleteView version 7.2
Unaffected Products:
CompleteView versions prior to 7.2
Pending Resolution:
N/A
Recommendations:
Understand the potential temporary impacts of upgrading a Recording Server to version 7.2. Follow the recommendations given in the CompleteView Migration Guide, available at https://support.salientsys.com/download/migration-guide/ .
Learn more by clicking the link below or downloading.
