Mask showing in camera feed

[Talywain]

I updated my BI on the 8th and had a few glitches (with one camera) that I tracked down to some odd settings which I suspect got changed during the upgrade. It’s back to normal except one new thing (to me). At night when everything is monochrome the mask fades in and out, superimposed on the main image (both monitor and web) in blue. How do I turn that off?
Thanks.

[YrbkMgr]

The image you posted is not showing a mask. It is showing motion. If you don't want that to appear, that's changed in the Trigger tab. Motion Sensor -> configure -> Highlight. Choose the option that suits you. I have Show Object Rectangles only, but it's a personal preference. I have both, highlight and motion enabled when I'm testing.

[Talywain]

Thanks.
I had selected Show Object Rectangles only (my default choice) but you are correct in that it had changed to highlight motion. After putting up the Christmas lights I attempted to change the shape of the zone for another camera. It looked fine whilst editing but when I returned to check, the zone was nothing like what I had tried to do, so I guess a reinstall is in order. Normally I would save the camera settings and re-import but with it behaving as it is I wonder if that would just re-import the problems.

[YrbkMgr]

so I guess a reinstall is in order

You're doing what I did before I got tired of "guess and check". I wouldn't say that the nuclear option is warranted, but you're free to do as you like. I'll share a couple of general ideas about the nuclear option.

Review how BI manages backups every time you launch - p 215 of the help file.

If you select the Auto export option, you may select a folder location for these files. The software maintains a rolling set of three files, always from three different days. These are updated only when the software service is restarted. Restarting the software multiple times on a single day results only in the replacement of just one of the backup files.

Armed with that information, if I have to nuke, I'll first manually export and name the file something like "Before reverting - 2021.12.15.REG". Then I import a backup.reg that I was satisfied with before putting my finger in the pudding, so to speak. The software closes, and I make sure the service is stopped (%windir%\system32\services.msc). I reboot, let the services launch, then I launch the console. I'm not saying this is the best way to do it, I'm saying this is how I recover from farking around with settings.

It looked fine whilst editing but when I returned to check, the zone was nothing like what I had tried to do

Sounds like you should stop here and get a refresher on these features. Check out HomeTech Video on YT - Blue Iris: Zones and Hotspots
If you have questions you can get help here, but bone up on that stuff so that you don't have to nuke things - that's my recommendation anyway.

[Talywain]

I had a look at the backup option you suggested but I feel that importing the old reg data to a clean install could add too many unknowns and could copy across the problems I am having. Which makes me think, I set up the current machine about 6 months ago from my very old Win7 server, perhaps importing the reg info from that machine to my Win10 machine may have been my first mistake. Spent yesterday noting down as much as I can think of in readiness to install BI onto a ‘fresh’ machine. Today I found a new blob in ZoneA and my other camera is now showing motion instead of object rectangles which is annoying but the sensitivity is a lot higher than it used to be and at least for now the zone masks are more or less working, so am tempted to leave it alone for now. The real test will be if I can get the serial external trigger to work. If that still doesn’t work then I will do a clean install and contact support (again).

[YrbkMgr]

Let me clarify what I meant about the backup.reg. It's a way of reverting BI back to a configuration that you know worked. See p215 of the help file for details.

Here's a hypothetical use case. I changed the camera layout using the new layout feature. I didn't get the expected results, I don't know how to change it back. I can use the Import function to restore all settings in BI before I had started putting my finger in the pudding, so to speak.

Importing the REG backup will restore all camera and program settings. I have never used the nuclear option (re-install BI) - I've invested too much time in my tweaks and settings. This is an example of the Export folder in BI showing the automatic and manual REG files I use.

2021-12-18_123438.JPG (82.52 KiB) Viewed 5049 times

Let's start with this... I'm no expert with BI. That said, it is entirely unclear to me what problem you are trying to solve. In order for me (and likely others) to help, you might consider detailing the issue a little more. My suggestion is to describe the behavior you want first, not what you think is wrong - expected behavior/observed behavior. Then post some images of the motion sensor configuration, zones, object detection settings, etc. So... what you want, and what you have. That would avoid confusion - remember, no one can see what you see.

That's just my friendly advice. I've been using BI since v3 and only really started diving into it last July when I upgraded to v5, so I have an appreciation for the confusion in describing what's happening - I'm not saying you're confused, I'm just suggesting a common starting point.