Web UI dies shortly after startup

[drose25]

I'm a little perplexed. This problem started a few days ago. Basically the web UI just dies -- any attempts to contact the main page result in continual circling loading attempts and trying to click a link like Logs just opens a blank page.

Other web-based interfaces on the same machine continue to run fine. Does Zoneminder run its own webserver?

Any camera window already open will continue to run with no problem, but none of the events or other things under the pic are usable. Clicking them results in a new blank pop-up window.

Any suggestions on where to start?

[linuxsense]

ZM uses Apache so I would start there. What do you get in Apache's error_log when you attempt to access the ZM interface? What Linux flavor and version are you using?

[drose25]

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS. The install has been working fine for quite some time up until now. Technically, the cameras still work great, it's just the webui that's down.

I don't see anything useful in the Apache error log, just a bunch of these from the individual cam windows requesting info:

[Wed Apr 16 20:22:45 2014] [error] [client 192.168.1.86] ERR [socket_sendto( /tmp/zm/zms-444432s.sock ) failed: No such file or directory], referer: http://192.168.1.150/zm/index.php?view=watch&mid=1

From the browser perspective, trying to load the main menu page it just spins like it never connects.

[linuxsense]

Is zm running as the same user as Apache? Should be www-data. That user also needs to be a member of group "video" in /etc/group. If it's not, add it, reboot.

[drose25]

I have zm and apache2 both running as www-data, and www-data is in the video group. If the individual cam windows didn't work this would strike me as a connection/firewall issue the way I'm not able to reach the webui. One reason this has me very perplexed.

[linuxsense]

crank up the verbosity of zm and Apache, you will probably find the root cause.

[drose25]

Thanks for all of your suggestions, linuxsense. Turns out it was Firefox on the client PC being stupid. I discovered a laptop in the house was working with the UI just fine. Closed and restarted Firefox on the problem PC and it's been working fine since. I must have rebooted the server 3x and restarted apache and zm multiple times and never thought to check if the problem was on the client end.

[linuxsense]

Thats a bit odd, but glad you got it sorted out. I know FF can have issues with too many sockets being used when streaming but I have not run into problems with it just loading the page.