UI3 Fail Getting Camera List, Busy Loading Timeline Loop.. Repeats.

[jbdigits]

Hey guys long time lurker never posted. Great work overall. Tons of help over the years.

So a bit of back story. I have a dedicated 8th Gen Windows 11 machine that does nothing but Blue Iris. I have had Blue Iris up and running for years without issue behind an Apache reverse proxy pointing to custom domain. All worked perfectly, for a few years. Then maybe around the first of the year 2026 it quit working after an update as I try to get the latest and greatest whenever possible, Windows 11 too. It would just return a White page with a proxy error. No big deal, I thought, it will sort itself out with future updates etc.. So I have just been bypassing the reverse proxy and viewing with the BI.lan.address:81. Updating every time I noticed a new version available with "Bug Fixes". Worked fine until last week. So I snooped around this forum quite a bit and found some people saying to downgrade to earlier version (6.0.1.20?), possibly caused by a Windows Update 2026-03 Security, possible switch network to private, reinstall vc-redist64, etc, etc.. Im very tech savvy and normally can work thru these sorts of things, but here I have no idea. I also tried grabbing the latest UI3 from github to no avail.

So all of that was futile, I never have been able to get it working as it did flawlessly for years. So I exported my settings and reinstalled Windows 11 figuring there was some hiccup or corruption I wasnt able to get past. Now I cant get out of demo mode, they key I saved is apparently the maintenance key, and UI3 gets stuck as the title says, on all local machines, phones, etc.. UI3 will not display video it lists "OK" on all steps until it tries loading camera lists and fails, then repeats every few seconds. I can view the cameras from the Local Console, and from the Android Blue Iris App, but not UI3 or web browser from any machine in the house on LAN. Now the reverse proxy does the same thing, instead of just a white screen saying Proxy Error, it does the same thing as the LAN address. So possibly the reverse proxy issue might be fixed.. if I can get past the camera group loading issue.

Does anyone have any ideas? I dont know what else I can provide to help. Just know that its nothing basic, ive rebooted and reinstalled every version I have access to, checked firewall rules, so then I reinstalled a fresh copy of Windows 11 latest and greatest, did all updates and then reinstalled Blue Iris 6.0.1.20 and imported my saved settings reg file, now im stuck in demo/evaluation mode, but the cameras are all visible on the local console and appear to be doing what they are supposed to apart from that.

I cant for the life of me find an email with my original Blue Iris 5 key, I emailed support detailing all of these issues, but haven't gotten a response. Is there an easier way to get my original key? Is it stored somewhere in the Blue Iris reg file i exported? I figures for sure the license info would have exported.. But my first time ever exporting or messing with this machine since it was setup. I need to get my cams back up and working if anyone can shed any light on this id appreciate it.

 

[jbdigits]

In case anyone else should come across this, ill post an update. So somewhere along the way, my cameras lost their membership to the groups I had set up. So thats why the UI3 errors, its trying to load groups, but there weren't any.. No cameras had any groups listed. All my users had groups to access, but those groups did not exist any longer. Very strange but somewhere along the way in my updating and downgrading etc, Blue Iris lost its groups. So I recreated the groups added cameras and now I am getting somewhere. Head scratcher..

So then I can still not get any cameras to load, so I deleted and recreated my users, added my re newly created groups and voila.. Everything is working again. Now to just get out of Demo/Evaluation Mode...

 

[bp2008]

Try BiUpdateHelper which has a button you can click to read the license key from the registry (after you've imported from your .reg file).

If attempting to reactivate has wiped your registration key out of the registry, you'll need to reimport from your .reg backup. (then use BiUpdateHelper again to read it). Restoring the backup alone is not good enough as Blue Iris will require you to re-enter the license key to reactivate.

Is your .reg file plain text or did you export it via Blue Iris so it is a binary mess? If it is plain text, search it for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Perspective Software\Blue Iris\Registration. That is the section with the license key in it, but they swapped some of the sections of the license key around. If you create a new .reg file with just the registration section in it, and import that without wiping out any of your other settings. Or you can import the .reg file in a windows sandbox or on another windows machine where you won't be stomping over your newer BI settings.

If the reg file is the binary mess, you'll have to import the whole thing through the Blue Iris app.

As for your proxy server issues, I have no idea what could be (or was) wrong there. It is fairly straightforward to have a reverse proxy access Blue Iris so I have to assume you had a problem specific to your apache configuration or the machine or network you ran apache on.

 

[jbdigits]

I have all the proxy issues and such figured out, its definitely quit working sometime after the 6.0.20.1 update. I appreciate your time, thanks for offering these suggestions. As stated I changed nothing besides Windows 11 Updates, and Blue Iris Updates. Worked great for years, I only touch the machine every few months to check on things. Its just happily sitting there doing its thing.

I did an export of the settings before I reinstalled Windows, after importing it it still cant find the key with BIUpdateHelper. It returns not activated. Yes the reg file is gobbledygook. I also had a reg file from a ways back in the cloud that also is the same.. I tried reimporting that file, and I had to go through all the process of removing users, and recreating and adding cams back to my groups. Still the same story, its gobbledygook and BIUpdateHelper still does the same when I click on Reg Info it reports not active. I looked in the registry just to see what was in there, there was a key, but its the maintenance key I just purchased.

So I guess im waiting for support to email me.. I tried searching thru emails, but my initial key was purchased via this forum, and that email is long gone. However I have the maintenance key, but of course it wont work. I assumed that was the one I needed since i just purchased it in December when V6 launched.

 

[jbdigits]

I picked up a great pointer here, in future I will also just export the entire Windows Registry along with the BI integrated exporter reg file, being its this machines only use. Thanks again, great work on UI3 been using it quite some time...

 

[jbdigits]

So I found my serial in my ipcamtalk Store Account since I purchased my V5 key here, and guess what, it worked. Thank you guys for your help. Im back in action, no more evaluation mode.