Don't waste your time on ZM 1.25 - Stay with 1.24

[snake61]

Sometimes upgrading isn't always a good thing. I was able to get it to work on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS one time. Another install on same machine, same hardware, same everything-just can't get ZM 1.25 to display video on an analog monitor, only IP camera. Have read through 24 pages of threads, some addressing the "black screen". To no avail, the answers are never forth coming, most aren't even answered, and people are left hanging. If you want a very rock solid version of ZM, use 1.24 on a machine with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Wasting days and days of research and tinkering is a foolish waste of time, of which I no longer have the desire to do. It appears from most of the answers, the project is beginning to wane. I think the experience should be noted, just like anything else, wait until a year goes by to upgrade, by then the bugs may be worked out. They should have a version identifier that says at a glance whether the release is stable and solid. Shame. It's a damn good system. Just don't be too overzealous in upgrading - The little added bennies aren't worth the hassle or headache.

[Carrier82]

Mastertheknife's performance patch is hard to install on 1.24, don't know if even possible. Without the patch my weak Atom nettop would have extreme difficulties in performing motion detection tasks necessary. Shame you weren't successful with your hardware, but most people will be successful with 1.25. I'm quite sure people would help here if they had a clue what's wrong. Sometimes these may be quite difficult to troubleshoot as there are so many variables.

[knight-of-ni]

I'm glad you finally ended up with a working system, but zoneminder 1.24 had problems of it own which got fixed in later versions. I personally am glad I'm running 1.25.

Getting a black screen is a rather generic problem which has many possible causes. However, based on the information you stated, my hunch is that the problem may have been a Video 4 Linux problem rather than a Zoneminder problem. Ubuntu 12.04 (or perhaps the newer kernel it runs on) dropped support for Video 4 Linux version 1.

It sounds like you downgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 so you could test that theory by trying to re-upgrade to zoneminder 1.25. Ubuntu 10.04 has support for V4L version 1. Yeah I know. You are probably done with tinkering for the time being. I understand. I've been there.

[Carrier82]

If it ain't broken, don't fix it

[snake61]

knnniggett- I acutally got it to work using the VFL2 in Source settings for the camera, not VFL1. And it worked. Go back to try an duplicate everything, and nothing.

Carrier82-You are absolutely right. I broke the cardinal rule! But I was trying the Ubuntu 12.04-it's pretty slick, but has issues with Flash on Firefox, ZM doesn't work, etc.

But you are right. If it aint fixed, dont break it.

But I haven't given up. I got it to work once, I'm gonna get it to work again. And once I do.....

[knight-of-ni]

In zm 1.24.x, the underlying code was re-written for some of the windows. The event playback window is one example.
Unfortunately, some of the video navigation buttons in that window broke under the new code, but were fixed later on. The video fast forward/rewind buttons come to mind.

So it basically comes down to how you use Zoneminder. If you prefer to navigate via the buttons in the event playback window then you may need to upgrade to a newer version if you want to get the bug fixes. If you don't use these buttons to great extent then yeah I agree there is no need to upgrade.

[snake61]

Whew. Took 4 days and hundreds of threads, but finally!

Did a clean install of Ubunut12.04. Then did all of the updates via Command Line. (read somewhere if you just do the updates by Package Manager, not as effective)

Went to ZM Wiki and followed instructions on 1.25 on Ubuntu 12.04 the easy way. Followed every step. And remember, do it as root.

Fixed the log issue outlined in the following:

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... 29&t=19601

Set up monitors also as outlined in:

http://www.zoneminder.com/forums/viewto ... 29&t=19601

Everything smooth a silk! Now, I will sit on my hands and try not to fix something that ain't broke!

Again, if you do not have the time to spend-use what you have-I only kept pushing cause it pisses me off to let something beat me! Especially when I knew it worked once.

[tbrsc]

glad you got it working.
I just upgraded to 1.25.
installed ubuntu server 12.04 64 bit.
the wiki made the zoneminder install easy.

Ubuntu 10.04 & ZM 1.24 worked quite well for me but i acquired a slightly better machine, so I thought I might as well upgrade.

the main benefit I see is my CPU load is a fraction of what it was previously.
5 IP cams & this thing is not even going to break a sweat.
well worth the time spent in my case.

cheers

[river100]

old thread but..

@ snake61, It does get old when hacking for days. been there.
do you make hard drive images before you re-install or upgrade?
not as nice as a VM, but CloneZilla live images are quick and easy
to make. once you have it right then it's a DVR in a flash.

[BobS0327]

Might I also suggest that you also put your ZM box on a UPS system. In the past, I've had to rebuild my ZM box a few times due to power outages. I got lucky on the last power outage and only had to recreate a mySQL table. I have finally learned my lesson the hard way and put my ZM box on a UPS.

Even though I have become an "old pro" at rebuilding ZM, it's still is time consuming and aggravating. I have over four pages of notes describing the assorted tweaks I have to make in order to get ZM up and running, not to mention the critical ZM downtime. ZM on a UPS system just provides some additional piece of mind.