ZoneMinder Forums

ZoneMinder 1.25.0-4 on Debian 7.0.

I have a Panasonic BL-C1A, which was in Modect mode. I have only one filter currently set up and it's to run a script when motion is detected, and this has been working. So, I noticed a new motion event but instead of being numbered it was listed as "New Event" and had duration and frame values of 0, and my script didn't run. It has been my experience that even when a camera detects motion in Modect mode, it continues to execute the script when motion is detected again and again, creating new events. But with this occurrence, it seemed frozen. Once I changed the Monitor function to "Monitor" this new event then displayed an unusually long duration and frame value, and showed up numbered as the other events in the list normally do. Wondering what might cause a camera to get hung up like that, or if perhaps I'm misunderstanding the way Modect works.

Incidentally, I also have two very old USB Quickcams (Express and Messenger) functioning on two different USB buses. The video quality is really too poor for recording, but they work well as motion detectors at close range. I wondered whether it's possible to specify a USB camera on a separate computer, by specifying the IP followed by device info? Probably unlikely, but just curious if anyone's had any success with that.

I have the same problem. I am using two Foscam network cameras set to Modetect. When I get a detection on either camera, I will see "New Event" with a duration of 0.00 seconds when I look at the list of events. (I have it setup so my events are normally named after my cameras like "C1_Event_9").

If I stop zoneminder using and then restart it, the task name of the hung event will change to a proper name, and it is clear that the hung event was recording the whole time because the duration will change from 0.00 seconds to something very large. My wife drove into the carport last night, and this morning my disk percentages were way up. I stopped zoneminder, restarted it and had an enormous Motion event that triggered when she drove in.

This behavior is new, but I can't figure out what I did to cause it. It is very consistent now.

jcr639 wrote:I wondered whether it's possible to specify a USB camera on a separate computer, by specifying the IP followed by device info? Probably unlikely, but just curious if anyone's had any success with that.

I think so, I don't know the gory details, but Zoneminder can use ANOTHER Zoneminder's cameras as a source. So you'd have to put ZM on the "separate computer", feed it the USB cameras, and then watch it/modetect/record from your main Zoneminder.

If you were thinking of a direct http://othercomputer/usbstuff/camera kind of hack ... then no.

Although, you could use any OTHER software that will convert a USB camera (local) into a web-camera (it does this by providing an HTTP server to serve up images, there is software to do that, go Google for specifics that would suit your setup "usb camera web server software", "stream your usb webcam" etc.) ... and then it would just like like any other IP camera.

az10, thanks for your reply. I'll keep testing and let you know if I find a solution, and would appreciate it if you would do the same.

mikb, all good info and suggestions. Thanks also.

I re-posted the hung event as it's own topic and received a reply that solved my problem. Maybe it will solve yours too.

The title is Modetect never finishes http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... 29&t=21581

Thanks

Dave Miller

Brilliant Dave. Recreating the monitors worked for me also. And I see that this is apparently resolved with v1.26, so I'll upgrade when I have time. The program so far has worked flawlessly (with that one exception, now resolved).

And for the remote USB camera, I had an old Windows XP computer, installed Yawcam on it, and now I can have that camera in a different area and ZM sees it as an IP stream. For that, the info in this article worked for me:

http://zikography.blogspot.com/2013/09/ ... inder.html

Thanks.