Camera Turns off automatically?

Support and queries relating to all previous versions of ZoneMinder
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we4zonM
Posts: 56
Joined: Fri May 30, 2008 7:21 am

Camera Turns off automatically?

Post by we4zonM »

Does anyone know if there are settings that can make a camera turn off automatically? This has been happening without my consent, and I would like to find out if I am using the wrong settings on the cameras.

When I start Zoneminder, the camera is ON and in MOTION detect. Then, when the camera should be continuing to record events, there are no new events and the camera address in the control window changes from "green" to "red". What causes this to happen? How can I keep the camera in "green" mode and recording events?
nuck
Posts: 148
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 1:43 am
Location: Canada

Post by nuck »

To the best of my knowledge there is no way to have this happen from the ZM end of things without you having done so intentionally with an external script. zmu -D will disable a monitor (put it to sleep) but I have no idea if that would turn the device name from green to red.

Just a shot in the dark here, but does your camera have the ability to auto-power off after a certain period of time with no activity? I've led a very sheltered life when it comes to usb cams so I don't know if they can do so or not..
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cordel
Posts: 5210
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 4:47 pm
Location: /USA/Washington/Seattle

Post by cordel »

If it's a local cam, try checking dmesg and see if there are any driver errors showing up. If nothing turns up there, turn up debug on zmc and see what you get.

If this is a IP cam, turn up debug on zmc and see what you get. You might try also slowing down the capture rate if this is a cheaper cam using jpeg snapshots.
If the cam serves mjpg push, make sure you don't have any thing for fps limiting in ZM.
we4zonM
Posts: 56
Joined: Fri May 30, 2008 7:21 am

Post by we4zonM »

zmu -D will disable a monitor (put it to sleep)
I have not added any external Zoneminder scripts. For this, how do you tell Zoneminder what monitor to put to sleep? How do you revive it? (zmu -D 1?)
dmesg
No driver error. I have used this camera with 1 monitor and it saves the Events fine. Adding more monitors creates the "sleeping" monitor, with one monitor working and the rest sleeping. Is it a BANDWIDTH issue? If it is, how can I find out what will work? Others have used more than 16 monitors with 1Gz processors?

These are IP Cameras: Remote, Modect, 30 fps, 30 fps alarm, 24 bit color, 640x480, video.cgi
debug on zmc
From Zoneminder options?

IF it is a writing issue, does Zoneminder shut a monitor down if it can not write to the disk? That appears to be what is happening? From the Zoneminder control console, in the STOP state, the SOURCE is "red". Then selecting RUN, and SOURCE changes to "green". Then, it later changes SOURCE to "red" (except one monitor is left "green"). It seems to be Zoneminder making the change?
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