api/events/index/MonitorId:1.json "limit" and sort order query parameters no longer work in recent versions

[MarsRover]

Hello
Starting from 1.37.66~20250612.323-focal call to

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api/events/index/MonitorId:1.json?sort=StartDateTime&direction=desc&limit=1

disregards `limit` query parameter and returns all events (which might take a while).

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5.15.0-139-generic #149~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 16 08:29:56 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[MarsRover]

Had to downgrade to 1.37.66~20250520.297-focal, all higher versions completely ignore limit, sort and direction query parameters.

[iconnor]

Events are now unlimited by default, you have to pass limits into the query.

How to downgrade? apt install zoneminder=whatever version you want

How to see what versions are available ? apt-cache madison zoneminder

[iconnor]

I realise that you are passing limit... I"m not sure it was ever actually honoured. Maybe it was. THe code that got removed use ZM_EVENTS_PER_PAGE and a hard limit of 100.

I hust added a line to respect a limit param... not sure about the direction= in your url... not sure that is honoured by anything.

Isaac

[MarsRover]

I hust added a line to respect a limit param... not sure about the direction= in your url... not sure that is honoured by anything.
Isaac

Thanks, I'll check if it works later.

The goal of this query is to get only the last/current event.
direction query parameter is documented here https://zoneminder.readthedocs.io/en/la ... ted-events, it's the sort field order, ascending or descending.

It did work before.

[MarsRover]

OK. limit in query is now regarded.

But no sorting!

I want to accomplish very simple task via API: get the list of last N events for a given monitor, including incomplete one (the current one being recorded).
It all worked fine until recent updates.

I don't want to mess-up with DB directly to achieve such a simple task.

What am I doing wrong?

[MarsRover]

I want to accomplish very simple task via API: get the list of last N events for a given monitor, including incomplete one (the current one being recorded).
It all worked fine until recent updates.
I don't want to mess-up with DB directly to achieve such a simple task.

OK, here's my solution
this bash code gives me 3 last events for MonitorID 1
)))

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#!/bin/bash
monId=1
nLastEvents=3
curl -sS --noproxy '*' -XGET "http://localhost/zm/api/events/index/MonitorId:${monId}/StartDateTime%20>=:$(mysql --batch --skip-column-names --skip-pager --execute="select REPLACE(StartDateTime, ' ', '%20') AS EncodedSDT from zm.Events where MonitorId = ${monId} ORDER BY Id DESC LIMIT $(( nLastEvents-1 )),1;").json"

All this instead of simple

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zm/api/events/index/MonitorId:1.json?sort=StartDateTime&direction=desc&limit=3

which worked fine at least in May (and still works in 1.37.66~20250520.297).

Maybe it's time to make my own events API, but I'm facing the risk of DB schema changes.

[iconnor]

If you put pagination=true in the query it should restore the old behaviour of returning paginated results.

[MarsRover]

If you put pagination=true in the query it should restore the old behaviour of returning paginated results.

If you mean something like

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/zm/api/events/index/MonitorId:1.json?pagination=true&sort=StartDateTime&direction=desc&limit=3&page=0

than no, it doesn't work in recent 1.37.66~20250706231158

It disregards sort direction and returns 3 first events instead of 3 last events.
Also, with or without limit, it always returns single page and number of pageCount = 1

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"pagination": {
  "prevPage": false,
  "nextPage": true,
  "paramType": "named",
  "pageCount": 1,
  "options": [],
  "page": 1
}

pagination and page query parameters are completely ignored.


Could you please give a simple query example that returns just N last events for the given monitor? (with pagination or without, doesn't matter)

[MarsRover]

Found another way to achieve the same via ajax query, but is't way more complicated and performs way slover

Get last 3 events for MonitorId 1

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#!/bin/bash
monId=1
nLastEvents=3
curl "http://localhost/zm/index.php?view=request&request=events&task=query&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Battr%5D=MonitorId&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Bop%5D=%3D&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Bval%5D=${monId}&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bsort_asc%5D=0&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bsort_field%5D=StartDateTime&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Blimit%5D=${nLastEvents}" \
  -H 'Accept: */*' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8' \
  --data-raw "search=&sort=StartDateTime&order=desc&offset=0&limit=${nLastEvents}&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Battr%5D=MonitorId&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Bop%5D=%3D&filter%5BQuery%5D%5Bterms%5D%5B0%5D%5Bval%5D=${monId}"

Moreover, the event object model in this API response is slightly different from the regular API. To get media file path from it I'll have to further query Storage API and then construct absolute path from Storage "Path" field, event "Scheme" field and event "DefaultVideo" field.

Why it all should be so complicated for an API client that only needs simple things, like getting the list of last N events to do some postprocessing on stored mp4 files?

[MarsRover]

Yet another approach using mysqlsh.
I had some fun.

Usage: ./this_script.js <MonitorId> <NumberOfLastEvents>

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#! /usr/bin/env -S mysqlsh --js --file

const monitorId = Number(sys.argv[1] || 1);   // MonitorId
const nEvents   = Number(sys.argv[2] || 10);  // Last N Events

shell.connect('zmuser@localhost:3306/zm','zmpass');  // hardcoded, since it's not a secret

// SQL with a ? placeholders for parameter binding
const sqlText = `
  SELECT 
    Events.*,
    CASE Events.Scheme
      WHEN 'Medium'  THEN CONCAT_WS('/', Storage.Path, MonitorId, DATE(StartDateTime), Events.Id)
      WHEN 'Deep'    THEN CONCAT_WS('/', Storage.Path, MonitorId, DATE_FORMAT(StartDateTime, '%Y/%m/%d/%H/%i/%S'))
      WHEN 'Shallow' THEN CONCAT_WS('/', Storage.Path, Events.Id)
    END AS FileSystemPath
  FROM Events JOIN Storage ON Events.StorageId = Storage.Id
  WHERE Events.MonitorId = ?
  ORDER BY Events.Id DESC LIMIT ?
`;

// bind params & execute
let result = session.runSql(sqlText, [ monitorId, nEvents ]);

let docs = [], doc;
while ((doc = result.fetchOneObject())) {
  docs.push(doc);
}
print(JSON.stringify(docs)); // dump as a clean JSON array
// print(JSON.stringify(docs, null, 2)); // if you want a pretty-formatted JSON 

[iconnor]

Took another look... most of the stuff I was doing is apparently not required. query params are all parsed by the paginator. But there is no way to get the paginator to return all results, so now we only do pagination if either limit or page is specified in the query. Your initial url works fine for me today.

[iconnor]

I think I can speed up the events listing api too...

[MarsRover]

Your initial url works fine for me today.

Thanks, I'll check a bit later. Which build do you mean by "today"?

[MarsRover]

[/quote]
Thanks, I'll check a bit later. Which build do you mean by "today"?
[/quote]

Confirm that in 1.37.67~20250712005219-focal the sorting issue is fixed!
Big thanks!