Axis cameras on time lapse with dropped events
Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2005 6:41 am
I am having a problem with events being "dropped off" and not written to disk.
My current setup is a Pentium III 500 Mhz computer with 256 of ram and a 200GB HD using ZM version 1.19.5 installed from a LiveCD.
My goal was to monitor 19 Axis 2100 cameras at a resolution of 640x480 (which is mandatory).
At my first approach trying to get it to work in modect, even with 768 of ram, proved impossible, the computer could handle only 4 cameras and tax on the processor and loads was unacceptable.
The next approach was to get the cameras working on time lapse. By setting each camera to record with section lenghts of 600 seconds, in the Misc options a Maximum FPS value of 0.10 and setting under the buffer tag as:
Image Buffer Size (frames) - 11
Warmup Frames -1
Pre Event Image Buffer - 1
Post Event Image Buffer - 0
Alarm Frame Count - 1
... I achieved 600 second segments composed of 60 frames (separated 10 seconds each) for all 19 cameras. I was even amazed to see how events are handled every 10, 20, 30, 40, and 00 minutes on the hour, nicely separated, on all 19 cameras. Since I started with 768 of ram I decided to remove memory to see how it handled with 256 of ram and was surprised to find that the load average is of 1.00, processor use around 30%, all ram in use and an equal amount of swap in use. Login into de system takes about a minute and running query speed is acceptable. So it was let off to do its job.
Yet, one day upon my random visits to the console I was puzzled to see that the Hour column which should report 6 events all the way down from camera 1 to camera 19, reported most cameras with 6 and others with only 5 events. Upon clicking on the link, the events window, instead of displaying events on that particular camera the normal way, being every 00, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, one of them was just missing. (Example: 00, 10, 20, 40, 50 were there, but 30 was nowhere to be found, sometimes others, but always just one dropped off).
Detailed study of messages.log showed nothing uncommon, every 10 minutes events end and get started on a completely normal manner yet some do not get recorded into the database nor written on the pertaining camera folder.
A normal camera folder shows events (folders) being created every 10 minutes as expected in this manner:
But not on the cameras that drop events. The event browse window does show 10 minute separation under the Time column but usually the physical creation of the event folders on the hard disk are created in this weird way:
Being the dropped event anywhere, at the begining or at the end or in between.
Newest events are written first, followed by older ones on a very short lapse as if bufferd out into the HD in a hurry.
I even found another one as weird as:
Being the dropped event anywhere, at the begining or at the end or in between too.
If the computer is trying to cram up lots of events on such a short time no wonder some are being lost...
... so I decided to try a setup, separating the section length for each camera by 5 seconds (Example: Section Lenght: 550, 555, 560, 565, 570, etc) on an attempt to give each some time to get events written to the HD... yet same results followed
Why would folders with events be written newest first oldest last and within such a short time lapse instead of every ten minutes like the other cameras do?
Any suggestions would be appreciated and thanks for reading this long post
Regards!
My current setup is a Pentium III 500 Mhz computer with 256 of ram and a 200GB HD using ZM version 1.19.5 installed from a LiveCD.
My goal was to monitor 19 Axis 2100 cameras at a resolution of 640x480 (which is mandatory).
At my first approach trying to get it to work in modect, even with 768 of ram, proved impossible, the computer could handle only 4 cameras and tax on the processor and loads was unacceptable.
The next approach was to get the cameras working on time lapse. By setting each camera to record with section lenghts of 600 seconds, in the Misc options a Maximum FPS value of 0.10 and setting under the buffer tag as:
Image Buffer Size (frames) - 11
Warmup Frames -1
Pre Event Image Buffer - 1
Post Event Image Buffer - 0
Alarm Frame Count - 1
... I achieved 600 second segments composed of 60 frames (separated 10 seconds each) for all 19 cameras. I was even amazed to see how events are handled every 10, 20, 30, 40, and 00 minutes on the hour, nicely separated, on all 19 cameras. Since I started with 768 of ram I decided to remove memory to see how it handled with 256 of ram and was surprised to find that the load average is of 1.00, processor use around 30%, all ram in use and an equal amount of swap in use. Login into de system takes about a minute and running query speed is acceptable. So it was let off to do its job.
Yet, one day upon my random visits to the console I was puzzled to see that the Hour column which should report 6 events all the way down from camera 1 to camera 19, reported most cameras with 6 and others with only 5 events. Upon clicking on the link, the events window, instead of displaying events on that particular camera the normal way, being every 00, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, one of them was just missing. (Example: 00, 10, 20, 40, 50 were there, but 30 was nowhere to be found, sometimes others, but always just one dropped off).
Detailed study of messages.log showed nothing uncommon, every 10 minutes events end and get started on a completely normal manner yet some do not get recorded into the database nor written on the pertaining camera folder.
A normal camera folder shows events (folders) being created every 10 minutes as expected in this manner:
Code: Select all
Event 196417 - 17/02/2005 10:10:05 P.M.
Event 196437 - 17/02/2005 10:20:04 P.M.
Event 196459 - 17/02/2005 10:30:03 P.M.
Event 196480 - 17/02/2005 10:40:02 P.M.
Event 196501 - 17/02/2005 10:50:27 P.M.
Event 196522 - 17/02/2005 11:00:17 P.M.Code: Select all
Event 196562 - 17/02/2005 11:10:07 P.M.
Event 196581 - 17/02/2005 11:10:06 P.M.
Event 196599 - 17/02/2005 11:10:05 P.M.
Event 196618 - 17/02/2005 11:10:04 P.M.Newest events are written first, followed by older ones on a very short lapse as if bufferd out into the HD in a hurry.
I even found another one as weird as:
Code: Select all
Event 196588 - 17/02/2005 11:28:05 P.M.
Event 196607 - 17/02/2005 11:28:04 P.M.
Event 196625 - 17/02/2005 11:28:03 P.M.
Event 196642 - 17/02/2005 11:28:02 P.M.
Event 196660 - 17/02/2005 11:22:27 P.M. <<- huh?
Event 196678 - 17/02/2005 11:28:17 P.M.If the computer is trying to cram up lots of events on such a short time no wonder some are being lost...
... so I decided to try a setup, separating the section length for each camera by 5 seconds (Example: Section Lenght: 550, 555, 560, 565, 570, etc) on an attempt to give each some time to get events written to the HD... yet same results followed
Why would folders with events be written newest first oldest last and within such a short time lapse instead of every ten minutes like the other cameras do?
Any suggestions would be appreciated and thanks for reading this long post
Regards!
