ZoneMinder Forums

I am not sure exactly what happened.
I had to change routers, and it forced me to figure out why zoneminder quit working.
Finally figured out that I had set my old SV3C cameras to be fixed addresses, and when I changed routers zoneminder of course couldn't find them.
Eventually got that sorted out, but still had all sorts of troubles getting zoneminder console to even see them.
As part of the process, I started over with version 1.36.14. Not sure if that has anything to do with all the other changes I've made.
When I finally got the reinstall done, and with all sorts of fooling around, the console can now finally see the cameras, but the picture from the cameras doesn't reach zone minder.
Here's an example of the address I used, which worked (on one of my two cameras) on VLC, but not ZoneMinder 1.36.14.
rtsp://name:password@192.168.1.126:554/stream0

Any thoughts on any changes I can make with the myriad of choices on the settings for....
1) SV-801POE-1080P-L (doesn't work with VLC)
2) SV-801POE-1080P-A (does work with VLC)

Or, are there any more recent cameras that are EASY To configure for ZoneMinder?

I've spent a LOT of time on all of this so far, and it may just be easier to start with new highly recommended cameras that are easy to set up with ZoneMinder.

THANKS !

I use Amcrest PoE cameras, they work well with ZM, other than loosing time on occasion and going back to 2000, operationally I have had no issues. The downside is they are very chatty with their home world and I blocked them from talking to the internet. Also the firmware is not maintained as long as I would like, another reason to keep them in a cage.
There are many good cameras out there that are inexpensive.

I have 7 x SV3C ‎B01POE-1080P-A units that work just fine with all versions of ZM. That model isn't available at the moment by the look of it, but the Wiki lists other models
https://wiki.zoneminder.com/SV3C

Hikvision or clones are usually a safe bet. Anything with ONVIF support will potentially help in future developments.

Post debug logs.

I'm becoming convinced that the old Lenovo laptop I've been using as a server just isn't up to the job.
It runs out of memory and kills the ZM process.
Talk about cheap, I just checked, and the bios is 12 years old,
The cameras are visible to the console, but when asked to do anything the computer just can't get it done.
The same cameras work great on my desktop through VLC.
It's beyond me. It worked fairly well SEVERAL versions back, but I installed 22.04 LTS which was amazingly easy.
Then I installed ZoneMinder which was amazingly easy as well.
Then I installed the cameras, and the console can now see them.
When only one camera is turned on, it will get lucky and record an event once in a while.
But when both cameras are on, it's a mess. Server reports something like "out of memory: killed process 529 (zmc).
I've learned quite a bit about Linux but can't begin to offer much information beyond that.
Here's the real question.
Will even a decent computer (by today's standards) run four cameras easily with ZoneMinder.
Based on how easily my desktop handles the cameras in VLC, I have to think a decent computer paired up with the inherent advantages of Linux and ZoneMinder would absolutely perform amazingly well.

Thanks everybody!

ps. Connor, money on the way. I can only imagine how much time this project takes out of your life. THANKS!

Well, PROBLEM SOLVED.
I swapped out my absolutely ancient Lenovo i3 T410 for a slightly newer i5 T410, which I doubt had much to do with my success.
Installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server, than ZoneMinder version 1.34. The version I had been having trouble with was clear up to version 1.37.something.
I have no idea how I ended up with the 1.37.x something version, but I'll bet I know.
The entire install from scratch took no time at all.
Lesson learned, I think.
Stay away from sudu apt upgrade. If ZoneMinder ain't broke, don't fix it!
The best news is that since my antique T410 has only one job (Zone Minder); I now know how to make it work again quite easily.