Cannot view recorded events

[lms]

Hi,

I have a new install of ZM 1.32.3 on lubuntu 19.0.4. Everything seems to work except for viewing recorded events. It seems to be an internal path problem in ZM, but have not found any resolution in the forums. I am seeing the following errors in the log when I try viewing events:

ERR Couldn't open() path " in touch
ERR Unable to send stream frame: Broken pipe

When in the events list for the monitor, The thumbnails show a good picture of the recorded events, and the thumbnails actually play the video when I hover over the thumbnail. But I get the black frame and the error when trying to open the event.

I have verified my time zone is correct in the php.conf.
What else should I check?

Thanks!

[jaeger1957]

Are you seeing any messages in the logs (in the web interface) like these?

2019-10-24 18:37:10 zma_m4 32680 ERR Failed creating mp4 file: /3621/3621-video.mp4 zm_video.cpp 179
2019-10-24 18:37:10 zma_m4 32680 ERR Can't fopen /3621/.3621: No such file or directory zm_event.cpp 188
2019-10-24 18:37:10 zma_m4 32680 ERR Can't mkdir /3621: Permission denied zm_event.cpp 180

The first one (at the bottom) says it can't make a new directory for the event in the root directory on my box, and then can't create files because that directory doesn't exist. I can't find anything directing mine to the root directory, so I haven't figured my problem out yet. Does yours show a similar error for mkdir, perhaps on a different directory?

If I change the permissions to allow ZM to write to my root dir, it actually creates the dirs and files, so I need to find out what's directing it to the root dir. Perhaps you have a similar situation? Or is yours creating the files but not playing them back properly?

[lms]

I am not seeing those errors, and I have verified it is creating directories and making recordings in the correct location. The problem I have is with the playback of the events.

For your problem, the only place I know to look is options, storage to see what the path says there. Mine has the default of /var/cache/zoneminder/events.

[jaeger1957]

Thanks for the info. Here's an update I made on my item:

Update: When I open up permissions for ZM to write to the root dir and it creates the files, the GUI says it can't display the recordings, but they are readable .mp4 files that will play fine in VLC or other player; ZM either can't find them or won't read them. I tried to move one of the created directories from root to the /var/cache/zoneminder/events directory specified in the zm.conf file, and it still won't play them. Dunno if it's a format issue or if ZM is just looking in the wrong place for them.

-- end update

So I think I'm seeing a similar issue to yours, in addition to my path issues. Thanks for suggestions.

[lms]

After a lot of researching and tracing, the problem seems to be some sort of incompatibility between ZM and the browser. Strace shows that the stream is lost on the client end and then the error is displayed. I have tried firefox on linux and mac, and chrome on linux. All see the same problem viewing recorded events. Does anyone know of or have any docs on some settings to tweak for browser compatibility? I have tried changing the playback format setting but that does not seem to do anything. By using a video downloader addon I can download and watch the events outside of ZM. They just won't play in ZM.

[kitkat]

Do the request and response headers, as displayed by the Developer Tools in Firefox and some other browsers, provide any clues?