Video Stream QGC Networking Issue

Blue Robotics Software
1

I struggled for a long time getting a video stream in QGC but finally got it working… but I had to change networking to make it work and I want to figure out why and what was wrong with default…

BlueOS on Pi4. Latest 1.4.3 version. (tried others including betas, same experience)

QGC running on Windows 11 with 2 network adapters in use. One to internet one to BlueOS.

With all default settings, BlueOS at 192.168.2.2, BlueOS video stream set to udp://192.168.2.1:5600 and Windows at 192.168.2.1 QGC communicates but fails to get a video link.

If I change BlueOS settings to set Mavlink endpoint to 192.168.2.100 and video stream to udp://192.168.0.100 and Windows IP to 192.168.2.100 both Mavlink and video stream work.

So I have a working solution, but I have to understand why the default failed.

I looked at the post at QGC no video stream (windows) - #9 by enorton62 where @williangalvani showed a great way of looking at QGC using Resource monitor.

With Windows set at 192.168.2.100 I see

QGroundControl.exe 18204 192.168.2.100 5600 UDP Allowed, not restricted
QGroundControl.exe 18204 IPv4 unspecified 14550 UDP Allowed, not restricted

With Windows at 192.168.2.1 I do NOT see the 5600 UDP port in resource monitor… (not shown as restricted, just not there…)

So I am confused why qgroundcontrol.exe doesn’t seem to be listening when my IP address is set to 192.168.2.1 on Windows.

In Windows firewall qgroundcontrol is allowed on private and public networks.

Windows is set to 192.168.2.xxx subnet mask 255.255.255.0

Has anyone got any suggestions on this??? Sure I am working, but something isn’t right…

2

Followup… this has to be a Windows networking issue. I installed QGC on a laptop, plugged in the same USB ethernet adapter I was using on the other system (Desktop), both running Windows 11, and the laptop at 192.168.2.1 works fine with mavlink and video stream.

3

And a further followup and solved…

I tried uninstalling QGC and Windows told me it couldn’t find the installer so I reinstalled and then uninstalled and then installed fresh from the latest. Still no change.

Then I went into QGC, Application Settings, General and switched on the Clear All Settings on Next Start, exited settings and exited QGC and relaunched Qgroundcontrol and presto… it asked me the usual new install questions, connected to BlueOS and showed a live video stream. Something was borked with QGC somewhere.

4

Hi @tjones99 -

Welcome to the forums!

I’m glad you got your issue figured out - the Blue Robotics hasn’t used QGC much in recent years - we’ve been focused on developing Cockpit, and updating our documentation to cover it! This alternative GCS is open source like QGC, but built from the ground up to allow for considerably more customization! It may be worth trying especially if you plan to use multiple video streams!

5

Wasn’t planning on multiple streams and played with cockpit lite but thanks I will look at cockpit and see if that works better.

I’m still building so ways to go yet.