Running Detection

Subscribe a camera, run EyePop inference, and see bounding boxes

With the EyePop runtime registered and the API key set, you can run detection by subscribing a camera to EyePop's metadata topic in XProtect Server.

Subscribe a camera

1. In the Management Client, open a camera and enable the EyePop metadata topic on its Processing Server / analytics configuration (the topic named objects by default).

2. Enabling the topic makes XProtect auto-create an analytics camera for it via its VPS driver. Restart Smart Client before checking for bounding boxes — XProtect doesn't pick up the newly created analytics camera until it restarts.

Watch camera status

Open the management page's Cameras tab. A subscribed camera appears automatically, with a status badge:

Status	Meaning
running	Actively processing and publishing detections.
connecting / starting	Coming up.
paused (offline)	Subscribed, but the camera itself is reporting offline in XProtect.
error	Hover the badge for the reason — commonly a bad or expired API key, or an RTSP source that isn't available yet.

What comes back

Bounding boxes — On Smart Client you will see a bounding box with class label for any detected people & objects.

Default behavior

No configuration is required for basic detection. Every camera that isn't explicitly assigned a workflow uses the built-in default workflow, which detects common objects with EyePop's eyepop.common-objects ability. To change what a camera detects, see Workflows.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
Camera enabled, but no bounding boxes in Smart Client	Restart Smart Client — it doesn't pick up a newly auto-created analytics camera until restarted.
Camera stuck on error	Hover the status badge for the reason; most commonly an unset or invalid EyePop API key, or the camera's RTSP source not yet available.
An .env change doesn't take effect	docker compose restart reuses the baked-in environment. Recreate with docker compose up -d --force-recreate after editing .env.

Next steps

• Workflows — control what each camera detects

• Configuration — .env, configMaps, and the EyePop API key