RPi Cam Web Interface

[btidey]

Yesterday i had a problem wit RPI Cam Web Interface, and i was not able to solve.
The only way to have it al function again was to make a new image, and install eveything from beginning.

This is what i did.
In the camera settings i have set the iso value on "800" (was "0")
and i have set the "sports" setting (was night)

My screen starts flickering, and had no image preview. i was not able to turn back the settings.
on other browser i could not connect to RPI cam web interface.
rebooted the Pi, but it was all the same.
then tried with putty to change manually the config files, but i noticed that the iso setting was "0"
but stil not able to start RPIwebcam.

on that moment the only solution for me was to re-install everything again.

If anything like this happens again then and you can login OK then I'd suggest doing a sudo mv /var/www/uconfig /var/www/uconfig1 followed by a restart. This removes all user config changes on the camera side. I believe it is possible to make changes to say the resolution changes that will cause the raspimjpeg to crash.

If removing the uconfig fixes a problem like this I'd be interested to see the offending uconfig file.

[piecam]

test

[piecam]

HI Robert,

Just noticed that 2 out of 5 pis seemed stuck again. Web feed frozed at timestamp of yesterday's eventing 6:00 clock. there's a unconverted h264 file in the folder still.

Any info you may need that help fix this problem?

thanks
peng

I am not sure why you are having difficulties unless it is associated with errors accessing your external storage. I have made the code more tolerant to file errors during saving data but there still may be issues in that area.

2 suggestions.

1) Set 1 of the Pi's to use the standard internal set up and see if that remains stable.

2) Start the software in debugF mode. Just run the installer script with debugF instead of start. This will cause raspimjpeg to log its activity and errors to a file called raspiDebug.txt in the www folder.

HI Robert,
This happened in day time when my network (NAS) is fully up and accessible. Anyway, I will try to use defugF mode to see whether I can duplicate this. Then, I will try internal storage.
thanks

[boomlikethat]

Hi Robert,

I'm having (literally) no success changing the filenames created with RPi Cam. I would like my generated files to look like this (using video for an example):

%v_%Y/%M/%D_%h:%m:%s.mp4

I can make it work on the annotation, but not on the actual filename created. I've tried setting it in the web interface, as well as in the raspimjpeg settings file (using nano /etc/raspimjpeg).

Also, is there a way to permanently change the preview size without it jumping back to 96 after selecting a preview to watch? My apologies if this is covered in the manual, I'm just not seeing it.

Also, I occasionally am having an issue d/l zip files. If I select a good number of videos (10 or more), my Pi hangs up. FYI, I'm using both a B+ and a B for surveillance deployment.

I'm clearly missing something here. Thanks in advance for the great work and for all your help.

[btidey]

Hi Robert,

I'm having (literally) no success changing the filenames created with RPi Cam. I would like my generated files to look like this (using video for an example):

%v_%Y/%M/%D_%h:%m:%s.mp4

I can make it work on the annotation, but not on the actual filename created. I've tried setting it in the web interface, as well as in the raspimjpeg settings file (using nano /etc/raspimjpeg).

Also, is there a way to permanently change the preview size without it jumping back to 96 after selecting a preview to watch? My apologies if this is covered in the manual, I'm just not seeing it.

Also, I occasionally am having an issue d/l zip files. If I select a good number of videos (10 or more), my Pi hangs up. FYI, I'm using both a B+ and a B for surveillance deployment.

I'm clearly missing something here. Thanks in advance for the great work and for all your help.

It looks to me like the camera capture does not like ":" characters in the filename. These are allowed in a Unix file system but not in Windows so it is possible they are not allowed because of that. This is not a RPi Cam Web issue; this is generating the correct filename but it is not being accepted when a capture request is sent to the camera system with ':' in the filename.

I took your string and just changed it to

video_path /var/www/media/%v_%Y/%M/%D_%h%m%s.mp4

and then it worked fine. You could put other characters between %h%m%s if you wanted like - or _

I'm not sure how you were trying to edit this from the web interface as there is no place to change the basic paths from there. You can put them in uconfig instead of /etc/raspimjpeg and if you stop and start the camera from the web then they will be used.

Although it works I'd not put %v (or %t,%i) in subfolder paths. These are an incrementing index and therefore in your example you would end up with 1 top level folder per capture.

If you mean the two size buttons in the download / preview page; these are preserved as cookies (i.e. on the browser) so that they can be set differently for different browsers. You do need to allow cookies in any browser where you want this to work.

Are you sure the system is hanging up when you zip a number of videos? The zipping is being done on the Pi in-line with the web page refresh so that the refresh will appear to stop until the zip completes and then you see the zip download start. Depending on the number and size of the videos that could be taking tens of seconds. It may be possible in the future to kick off the zip in the background but that is quite a bit more complicated to do.

[boomlikethat]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your quick response.

It looks to me like the camera capture does not like ":" characters in the filename. These are allowed in a Unix file system but not in Windows so it is possible they are not allowed because of that. This is not a RPi Cam Web issue; this is generating the correct filename but it is not being accepted when a capture request is sent to the camera system with ':' in the filename.

I guess I made an erroneous assumption I could use ":", as it had worked in the annotation, but I do understand how OS's dislikes certain characters. But I would like to have time separators, so a - or _ should be ok.

I took your string and just changed it to

video_path /var/www/media/%v_%Y/%M/%D_%h%m%s.mp4

and then it worked fine. You could put other characters between %h%m%s if you wanted like - or _

I'm not sure how you were trying to edit this from the web interface as there is no place to change the basic paths from there. You can put them in uconfig instead of /etc/raspimjpeg and if you stop and start the camera from the web then they will be used.

I will try that as well, but did you make your test change in raspimjpeg?

Although it works I'd not put %v (or %t,%i) in subfolder paths. These are an incrementing index and therefore in your example you would end up with 1 top level folder per capture.

I wouldn't want to put anything in subpaths anyhow. I just cut and pasted the line from raspimjpeg, and showed what filename I'd like to have.

If you mean the two size buttons in the download / preview page; these are preserved as cookies (i.e. on the browser) so that they can be set differently for different browsers. You do need to allow cookies in any browser where you want this to work.

Good to know. I'll check that. But what I have experienced is that I'll adjust the size buttons, select "Update Sizes" so I can quickly glance at the previews, and if I select a thumbnail to view the video, the thumbnails go back to the 96. If I'm hearing you, if cookies are activated, that part of the issue will go away? FYI, I am (now) using Chrome when utilizing the interface.

Are you sure the system is hanging up when you zip a number of videos? The zipping is being done on the Pi in-line with the web page refresh so that the refresh will appear to stop until the zip completes and then you see the zip download start. Depending on the number and size of the videos that could be taking tens of seconds. It may be possible in the future to kick off the zip in the background but that is quite a bit more complicated to do.

What I have experienced is, after a while waiting, is a blank screen. Not sure how long I should be waiting, but some of those files are pretty big, so perhaps I should exhibit some patience

On my end, I wouldn't want you to go changing the zipping in the background, once I get what I need, I can FTP into the www/var/media folder and grab what I need.

[Hix]

I've had a few days of stable use now, however this morning something happened to both nestboxes. Motion seems to have stopped working. I've run an update on both Pis and they both reported tey were up-to-date v4.4.2R is on both.
The settings are as they were when things were working but motion doesn't trigger record anymore.
Has anyone else experienced this? I was actually watching birds in the box at lunchtime and no record was triggered, they were there for >45 seconds
I could understand if I had changed something but everything was as I left it when it was working.

[Dittie]

Yesterday i had a problem wit RPI Cam Web Interface, and i was not able to solve.
The only way to have it al function again was to make a new image, and install eveything from beginning.

This is what i did.
In the camera settings i have set the iso value on "800" (was "0")
and i have set the "sports" setting (was night)

My screen starts flickering, and had no image preview. i was not able to turn back the settings.
on other browser i could not connect to RPI cam web interface.
rebooted the Pi, but it was all the same.
then tried with putty to change manually the config files, but i noticed that the iso setting was "0"
but stil not able to start RPIwebcam.

on that moment the only solution for me was to re-install everything again.

I set it to sport once and it started complaining about not knowing the "sport" setting. It would not start anymore. But once I opened the webgui it gave me a clear indication error message about now knowing "sport". Took me a while to figure out how to disable but I got it running again.

[Dittie]

Hi Jarrah,

Thanks for your reply. This documentation does not seem to mention anything about setting the standard /var/www/media folder to /var/www/media/usb (which is where I mounted my usb disk).

The docs are basically saying you can set up a mount point to reference the /var/www/media folder without having to create a separate usb subfolder. That should work with the standard set up without having to change anything on the RPi Cam side.

If you do want to physically use a subfolder for other reasons then you just need to change one or more of the path definitions in /etc/raspimjpeg

e.g.
image_path /var/www/media/usb/im_%i_%Y%M%D_%h%m%s.jpg
lapse_path /var/www/media/usb/tl_%i_%t_%Y%M%D_%h%m%s.jpg
video_path /var/www/media/usb/vi_%v_%Y%M%D_%h%m%s.mp4

These control where the real captures are stored. The thumbnails always go into the media folder directly.

It is possible to move the thumbnail folder by using the media_path but you then also have to edit config_php so the web side knows where stuff is so I don't recommend doing that without good reason.

Thanks a lot for you continued support, got it working! How about using the media_path variable in the image_path, lapse_path, video_path?

[scottydrew]

Thanks very much for this, having spent two days trying to set up my RPi as a webcam and failing have just found this... Really hope it works tomorrow

[piecam]

HI Robert,

Just noticed that 2 out of 5 pis seemed stuck again. Web feed frozed at timestamp of yesterday's eventing 6:00 clock. there's a unconverted h264 file in the folder still.

Any info you may need that help fix this problem?

thanks
peng

I am not sure why you are having difficulties unless it is associated with errors accessing your external storage. I have made the code more tolerant to file errors during saving data but there still may be issues in that area.

2 suggestions.

1) Set 1 of the Pi's to use the standard internal set up and see if that remains stable.

2) Start the software in debugF mode. Just run the installer script with debugF instead of start. This will cause raspimjpeg to log its activity and errors to a file called raspiDebug.txt in the www folder.

HI Robert,
This happened in day time when my network (NAS) is fully up and accessible. Anyway, I will try to use defugF mode to see whether I can duplicate this. Then, I will try internal storage.
thanks

HI Robert,

Two of 5 pis got stuck in same mode again. There's nothing in the :~$ cat /var/www/raspiDebug.txt.

I will temporarily change it to internal and see how it goes.

thanks

[Hix]

Something has happened to motion it seems. I dug around and found /var/www/scheduleLog.txt this seems to pin-point when things started to go awry
http://pastebin.com/Q28Cscvf line 3646 is where the problems appear to surface. From reading through. start capture is no longer issuing

Code: Select all

Send ca 1

in motion settings in the GUI "on_motion_detected" is set to (null)
is this the culprit?

It seems to be on both cameras.

I'm lost

[btidey]

Something has happened to motion it seems. I dug around and found /var/www/scheduleLog.txt this seems to pin-point when things started to go awry
http://pastebin.com/Q28Cscvf line 3646 is where the problems appear to surface. From reading through. start capture is no longer issuing

Code: Select all

Send ca 1

in motion settings in the GUI "on_motion_detected" is set to (null)
is this the culprit?

It seems to be on both cameras.

I'm lost

It is on_event_start that matters. It should normally be echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

The scheduler log should have Start capture requested entries when motion sends this command through.

[piecam]

HI Robert,
This happened in day time when my network (NAS) is fully up and accessible. Anyway, I will try to use defugF mode to see whether I can duplicate this. Then, I will try internal storage.
thanks

HI Robert,

Two of 5 pis got stuck in same mode again. There's nothing in the :~$ cat /var/www/raspiDebug.txt.

I will temporarily change it to internal and see how it goes.

thanks[/quote][/quote]

HI Robert,

I used internal sd card storage for /var/www/media so far, those two Pi are ok. However, these symptoms happen with high traffic area, like front door, driveway, etc. If we constantly have traffic, it seems more likely get in stuck state. I was wondering whether there's something in the code can deal with high traffic situation.

I will update soon one day after today and see how it goes.tks

[Hix]

It is on_event_start that matters. It should normally be echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

The scheduler log should have Start capture requested entries when motion sends this command through.

Hi Robert,
Yes this is what both GUIs indicate, though record is not functioning from motion. Manual is fine but motion seems to not respond to movement [big stick waved right in front of both modules]

scheduleLog.txt has shown:
[2015/Apr/03 13:58:18] Start capture requested
[2015/Apr/03 13:58:49] Stop capture request ignored, already stopped

one one of the cameras. The other has no log for the stick I just waved in front of it.

Previous log entries show:

Code: Select all

[2015/Mar/25 12:08:05] Start capture requested
[2015/Mar/25 12:08:05] Send ca 1
[2015/Mar/25 12:08:07] Ignore FIFO char

[2015/Mar/25 12:08:13] Stop capture requested
[2015/Mar/25 12:08:13] Send ca 0
[2015/Mar/25 12:08:15] Ignore FIFO char

Very strange

[Hix]

So, I appear to have motion working again on one of the cameras.
It seems it was the scheduler settings. ca 1 and ca 0 were missing from day when it was set to sun settings.
I have added ca 1 and ca 0 to all profiles as I want it to monitor 24/7



Strangely though the other camera is not working like this. I completely removed and reinstalled RPi_Cam_Web_Remote and changed the settings in scheduler to be the same, saved, stopped and started schedule and sudo rebooted, but to no avail...

The logs show differing things:
Working Camera:

Code: Select all

[2015/Apr/03 15:48:51] RaspiCam support started
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:51] Capture Pipe already exists /var/www/FIFO1
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:51] Scheduler loop is started
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:51] New period detected 2
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:51] Send md 0
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:53] Send em auto
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:55] Send md 1
[2015/Apr/03 15:48:57] Scheduled management tasks

Non-Working:

Code: Select all

[2015/Apr/03 15:46:30] RaspiCam support started
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:30] Capture Pipe already exists /var/www/FIFO1
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:30] Scheduler loop is started
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:30] New period detected 2
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:30] Send md 0
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:33] Send em auto
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:35] Send md 1
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:37] Scheduled management tasks
[2015/Apr/03 15:46:37] Stop capture request ignored, already stopped

I've ground to a halt on the troubleshooting ideas list now. Does anyone have any ideas?

[btidey]

So, I appear to have motion working again on one of the cameras.
It seems it was the scheduler settings. ca 1 and ca 0 were missing from day when it was set to sun settings.
I have added ca 1 and ca 0 to all profiles as I want it to monitor 24/7

That's OK but you can also set the Day mode to AllDay and then the period never changes and it only uses the settings from the Day row. Just makes it easier to maintain.

Strangely though the other camera is not working like this. I completely removed and reinstalled RPi_Cam_Web_Remote and changed the settings in scheduler to be the same, saved, stopped and started schedule and sudo rebooted, but to no avail...

I've ground to a halt on the troubleshooting ideas list now. Does anyone have any ideas?

When motion is detected then it should send a '1' to FIFO1 which scheduler logs as a start request and then sends on the ON command ca 1 to initiate a recording. Similalry when motion says no further movement it sends a '0' which gets logged asa stop request and if a recording is in progress sends a OFF command like ca 0 to stop the recording.

Your second log seems to indicate a stop request without a preceding start request. That can happen when first starting if motion sends a request start before the rest of the system got going but subsequent motion requests should work OK.

The easiest first test is to leave motion detect off and manually send the motion requests from a terminal window t ocheck if that side is working OK.

So do a

Code: Select all

echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

The recording should start and you should see the buttons on the web page change accordingly. Then

Code: Select all

echo -n '0' >/var/www/FIFO1

and the recording should stop. The requests and the commands sent will appear in the scheduler log.

If that works then something is wrong with the motion set up. If it doesn't work then something is wrong with scheduler set up.

[btidey]

The latest update has a major rewrite of raspimjpeg primarily on the config management side to make it easier to change from now on. There should be no noticeable change in the main functionality. If anybody finds an issue with any config change then please let me know.

One thing that has changed is that raspimjpeg now directly maintains the changes to the camera settings (uconfig) rather than the web server side. This simplifies the interface quite a bit but also means that changes made to the settings from commands are stored no matter where the request came from, whereas before only changes coming from the main web page were stored. So if scheduler changes a setting for example then this will get stored correctly. There is an addition command into raspimjpeg (rs 1) which clears the settings and restores the defaults as defined in /etc/raspimjpeg

[Hix]

When motion is detected then it should send a '1' to FIFO1 which scheduler logs as a start request and then sends on the ON command ca 1 to initiate a recording. Similalry when motion says no further movement it sends a '0' which gets logged asa stop request and if a recording is in progress sends a OFF command like ca 0 to stop the recording.

Your second log seems to indicate a stop request without a preceding start request. That can happen when first starting if motion sends a request start before the rest of the system got going but subsequent motion requests should work OK.

The easiest first test is to leave motion detect off and manually send the motion requests from a terminal window t ocheck if that side is working OK.

So do a

Code: Select all

echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

The recording should start and you should see the buttons on the web page change accordingly. Then

Code: Select all

echo -n '0' >/var/www/FIFO1

and the recording should stop. The requests and the commands sent will appear in the scheduler log.

If that works then something is wrong with the motion set up. If it doesn't work then something is wrong with scheduler set up.

Thanks for that info Robert.

Code: Select all

echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

worked, so I am concentrating on motion now then.
I did copy both /etc/motion/motion.conf files to laptop and did a diff on them, but it showed no difference.
I have just apt-get remove motion and apt-get install motion and rebooted, so will see if that may have fixed whatever is up.
Thanks again for the great support here. Excellent work.

[btidey]

Thanks for that info Robert.

Code: Select all

echo -n '1' >/var/www/FIFO1

worked, so I am concentrating on motion now then.
I did copy both /etc/motion/motion.conf files to laptop and did a diff on them, but it showed no difference.
I have just apt-get remove motion and apt-get install motion and rebooted, so will see if that may have fixed whatever is up.
Thanks again for the great support here. Excellent work.

The other things to check in motion is to make sure it can access the cam.jpg which is where it is getting the stream of data to work from. It does this by using the netcam_url setting in motion to fetch it via cam_pic.php. If you have changed the access port of the web server then that must be in this url. Similarly if you have added security onto the web site then that must be in the motion netcam_userpass setting.

[Hix]

The other things to check in motion is to make sure it can access the cam.jpg which is where it is getting the stream of data to work from. It does this by using the netcam_url setting in motion to fetch it via cam_pic.php. If you have changed the access port of the web server then that must be in this url. Similarly if you have added security onto the web site then that must be in the motion netcam_userpass setting.

BINGO! You've saved the day Robert.
I had changed the apache2 port to 8080, which was not reflected in the netcam_url. Now updated and it is working marvellously.

Thanks yet again, you really are a star

[boxgrove]

The other things to check in motion is to make sure it can access the cam.jpg which is where it is getting the stream of data to work from. It does this by using the netcam_url setting in motion to fetch it via cam_pic.php. If you have changed the access port of the web server then that must be in this url. Similarly if you have added security onto the web site then that must be in the motion netcam_userpass setting.

BINGO! You've saved the day Robert.
I had changed the apache2 port to 8080, which was not reflected in the netcam_url. Now updated and it is working marvellously.

Thanks yet again, you really are a star

I think I'm having the same problem here,

I changed my apache2 ports to 8080 with this guide http://www.noveldevices.co.uk/rp-webserverport and changed the netcam_url in motion.conf to http://localhost:8080/cam_pic.php but its still not recording on motion detection.... is there anything else I need to change?

If i revert everything back to 80, the detection works fine!

[btidey]

I think I'm having the same problem here,

I changed my apache2 ports to 8080 with this guide http://www.noveldevices.co.uk/rp-webserverport and changed the netcam_url in motion.conf to http://localhost:8080/cam_pic.php but its still not recording on motion detection.... is there anything else I need to change?

If i revert everything back to 80, the detection works fine!

WIth the apache2 port on 80 then you can use a browser to http://cameraip/cam_pic.php where cameraip should just be the ip of the raspberry. This should give you one snapshot of the camera output. Now change your apache2 settings to 8080 and try browsing to http://cameraip:8080/cam_pic.php and you should get another snapshot. If you don't then the apache2 changes are not right. Once this is working then motion with its url setup for http://localhost:8080/cam_pic.php should also work OK.

The RPi Cam wiki also has pointers to good guides on changing the apache2 port and password settings for this so it may be worth checking those http://elinux.org/RPi-Cam-Web-Interface

The other thing worth mentioning is that the right motion.conf setting needs to be changed. There is the one in the install folder etc folder. That is just copied across during the install. The actual operational one is /etc/motion/motion.conf so any manual edits need to be done to that one (under sudo to get privileges). The motion detection needs to be stopped and started for any changes to take effect. This all happens automatically if you make the changes from the web interface motions settings page and then do a save settings.

[btidey]

Core raspimjpeg updated to log its activity to a configured file. This is an extra parameter in /etc/raspimjpeg (log_file)

In the new default file this is set to be the same as the scheduler log so that scheduler and raspimjpeg events appear integrated together. scheduler events have [] date stamps and raspimjpeg have {} date stamps.

A download log button is added to show log screen so that these can be retrieved easily.

Note that if you do a script update rather than an install then the etc/raspimjpeg isn't changed so to get the logging working like this you would need to add an entry like log_file /var/www/scheduleLog.txt

The debugF function in the install script is removed as no longer required.

Edit: Bit more logging added to web pages so for example zip times are logged.

Schedule now only shows the relevant rows for the day mode selected. You need to save the settings for the day mode first.

Edit2: Day mode changes now show selected rows as soon as the Day mode changes.

[RPi85]

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but is it possible to capture still images using a terminal command without the video stream getting interrupted?