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Metadata Viewer

Subscribe to any metadata channel from within the Management Client and inspect the live ONVIF event stream. Each NotificationMessage is parsed into a table row, and clicking a row shows the full pretty-printed, syntax-highlighted XML in a preview pane below.

Useful for verifying analytics pipelines, debugging ONVIF event schemas during camera integration, and confirming that a camera is actually emitting the data you expect before wiring it into rules or alarms.

Quick Start

  1. Open the Management Client
  2. Navigate to the Metadata Viewer node in the sidebar
  3. Right-click and Create New to add a viewer
  4. Give it a name, click the channel button, and pick a metadata channel
  5. Save, then click Start
  6. Newest packets appear on top. Click any row to see its XML formatted below
  7. High-rate bounding-box frames are hidden by default; use the filters to narrow the stream or right-click a row to exclude its topic
  8. Click Stop when finished, or Clear to empty the table

Columns

Column Description
Seq# Per-viewer sequence number assigned on arrival
Capture Time (UTC) From the ONVIF tt:Message/@UtcTime. A trailing * means the attribute was missing on the wire and the column shows the receive time instead
Event Topic Tree The wsnt:Topic value, e.g. tnsaxis:CameraApplicationPlatform/ALPV.Update
Data Compact XML of the NotificationMessage. Click the row to see the full payload highlighted in the preview pane
Info Name=Value pairs extracted from tt:SimpleItem entries. Items found under tt:Source are shown in square brackets, e.g. [channel=1]

Filter

Several filters work together to cut the live stream down to what you care about. They all apply to the displayed rows only; nothing is removed from the in-memory buffer, so toggling a filter re-renders instantly and never needs a restart.

Text filter

Type a substring into the filter bar and press Apply (or Enter). Matches are case-insensitive across Topic, Data, and Info. Clear empties the text filter and removes any topic include/exclude rules added by right-click (see below), restoring all rows. The two checkboxes are left as they are.

Hide noisy packets

Two checkboxes, both on by default, suppress the packets that usually dominate an analytics channel:

  • Hide bounding-box / analytics frames hides tt:VideoAnalytics / tt:Frame packets carrying bounding boxes. These are the high-rate object-tracking frames that don't map to a NotificationMessage and otherwise flood the table.
  • Hide non-event packets hides any other packet that did not parse into an ONVIF event.

Uncheck either box to see those packets again. Because they stay in the buffer, they reappear immediately without restreaming.

Topic include / exclude (right-click)

Right-click a row to filter by its Event Topic Tree, similar to Wireshark's "Apply as Filter":

  • Exclude topic: ... hides every row whose topic exactly matches the clicked row's topic. Excludes accumulate, so you can hide several topics one at a time.
  • Show only topic: ... locks the table to that single topic. While a show-only lock is active it overrides the exclude list.
  • Clear topic filters removes all topic rules.

These actions only apply to rows that have a topic; on bounding-box / non-event rows (which have an empty topic) the items are disabled, since those are governed by the checkboxes above. The active topic rules are shown on their own line above the table, e.g. Excluded topics (2): ... or Show only topic: ....

Notes

  • The table keeps the most recent 5000 rows; oldest are trimmed as new packets arrive. Filters apply to the display only, so hidden rows still count against the 5000-row buffer.
  • Payloads that are not ONVIF NotificationMessage events (or fail to parse) are still captured: a single row is emitted with the raw XML in the Data column so nothing is silently dropped. These rows are hidden by default by the Hide bounding-box / analytics frames and Hide non-event packets checkboxes; uncheck them to inspect the raw payloads.
  • All filter state (text, checkboxes, topic rules) is session-only and resets when the panel is reopened. It is not saved with the viewer's configuration.
  • The viewer runs in the Management Client only; there is no Event Server component and no Rules integration. Stopping the Management Client ends the subscription.
  • Diagnostic messages (subscribe details, heartbeats, status flags, errors) go to %ProgramData%\Milestone\XProtect Management Client\Logs\MIPtrace.log. Search the log for MetadataViewer.

Troubleshooting

Problem Fix
Start button stays disabled after picking a channel The selected item is not a valid metadata source. Pick a different channel.
Status shows streaming (waiting for first packet...) indefinitely The camera isn't emitting metadata right now. Confirm the channel is enabled on the device and that analytics / events are actually running.
Capture Time shows * marker The camera's metadata XML did not include tt:Message/@UtcTime; the plugin falls back to the receive time. Per ONVIF this attribute is mandatory, so the device is non-compliant.
No rows appear even under load Check MIPtrace.log for MetadataViewer entries. Look for LiveSource ErrorEvent or a missing Init() OK line.