adding pi-timolo.sh to init.d causes RPI to restart every few minutes

[byramsewell]

I've been trying to get pi-timolo to autostart at boot so I've been following the instructions. When RPI first boots I can run ps -ef | grep pi-timolo and I see the python routine running but it dies after a few minutes and does not capture any motion. I completely re-imaged my SD card and started from scratch. All was well until I went through the instruction again to add pi-timolo.sh to /etc/init.d. Once I do this then my RPI is stuck in a reboot itself mode. I have attempted to remove the entry form init.d by running sudo update-rc.d -f pi-timolo.sh remove

This apparently stops the pi-timolo.py service from running but it does not stop my RPI from restarting every few minutes. The only way I know to fix the problem is to re-image the SD card, completely start from scratch and AVOID attempting to autostart pi-timolo.py

Thanks

[pageauc]

If you look at sync.sh it has a routine that monitors if pi-timolo is running and if it is not found then it will reboot the pi to try to reload. I guess this is a bug/feature that I put in since I have a remote camera that I wanted to auto boot if pi-timolo was not running for some reason. You can comment out the reboot code in sync.sh to stop this behaviour. I am assuming you have sync.sh running in a sudo crontab -e.

It would appear pi-timolo is failing for some reason. I would suggest you run it manually from an ssh session and monitor to see what is causing the problem. python will give error tracking info. I have run several of my setups for years without issue but you may have a specific issue that is causing python to have a run time error. I have not built very much error trapping code into the program.

Run the program manually to see if you can trap the error and send me the python error messages.

Claude ...

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 10:51 PM, byramsewell notifications@github.com wrote:

I've been trying to get pi-timolo to autostart at boot so I've been following the instructions. When RPI first boots I can run ps -ef | grep pi-timolo and I see the python routine running but it dies after a few minutes and does not capture any motion. I completely re-imaged my SD card and started from scratch. All was well until I went through the instruction again to add pi-timolo.sh to /etc/init.d. Once I do this then my RPI is stuck in a reboot itself mode. I have attempted to remove the entry form init.d by running sudo update-rc.d -f pi-timolo.sh remove

This apparently stops the pi-timolo.py service from running but it does not stop my RPI from restarting every few minutes. The only way I know to fix the problem is to re-image the SD card, completely start from scratch and AVOID attempting to autostart pi-timolo.py

Thanks

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[pageauc]

Also you might try deleting the .dat files if you are not running the lastest 2.91 version. I ran across the case where a dat file was corrupt and could not be converted to an integer. The new pi-timolo code has error trapping code to recover from this error. This can sometimes happen if the pi is rebooted just during the dat file update and before closing the dat file. Claude ..

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 6:46 AM, Claude Pageau pageauc@gmail.com wrote:

If you look at sync.sh it has a routine that monitors if pi-timolo is running and if it is not found then it will reboot the pi to try to reload. I guess this is a bug/feature that I put in since I have a remote camera that I wanted to auto boot if pi-timolo was not running for some reason. You can comment out the reboot code in sync.sh to stop this behaviour. I am assuming you have sync.sh running in a sudo crontab -e.

It would appear pi-timolo is failing for some reason. I would suggest you run it manually from an ssh session and monitor to see what is causing the problem. python will give error tracking info. I have run several of my setups for years without issue but you may have a specific issue that is causing python to have a run time error. I have not built very much error trapping code into the program.

Run the program manually to see if you can trap the error and send me the python error messages.

Claude ...

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 10:51 PM, byramsewell notifications@github.com wrote:

I've been trying to get pi-timolo to autostart at boot so I've been following the instructions. When RPI first boots I can run ps -ef | grep pi-timolo and I see the python routine running but it dies after a few minutes and does not capture any motion. I completely re-imaged my SD card and started from scratch. All was well until I went through the instruction again to add pi-timolo.sh to /etc/init.d. Once I do this then my RPI is stuck in a reboot itself mode. I have attempted to remove the entry form init.d by running sudo update-rc.d -f pi-timolo.sh remove

This apparently stops the pi-timolo.py service from running but it does not stop my RPI from restarting every few minutes. The only way I know to fix the problem is to re-image the SD card, completely start from scratch and AVOID attempting to autostart pi-timolo.py

Thanks

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/pageauc/pi-timolo/issues/15

See my YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/pageaucp

See my YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/pageaucp

[byramsewell]

I tried running update-rc.d -f pi-timolo.py several times and it appears it finally removed it from init.d and now the pi is no longer rebooting.

[pageauc]

The init.d script should be run using the pi-timolo.sh bash script. This shell script is in the init.d format. Do Not run init.d against pi-timolo.py since it is not compatible with the init.d format. Please read the instructions again.

You may need to edit the shell script variables if installation location is other than pi-timolo folder. Note the init.d shell script pi-timolo.sh will run the pi-timolo.py script as sudo user. Make sure the pi-timolo.py is executable as well as the pi-timolo.sh script. If you untarred the github file per instructions then the permissions should be executable.

Claude ...

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 8:51 AM, byramsewell notifications@github.com wrote:

I tried running update-rc.d -f pi-timolo.py several times and it appears it finally removed it from init.d and now the pi is no longer rebooting.

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[byramsewell]

Yes I am running sync.sh but I'm also running the latest version. I commented out the reboot lines. it ran fine manually as user pi all night but seemed to hang this morning around 8:13. It was still running just no longer doing anything. I killed it, remove mo-pi-timolo.dat and all the images. It would not get past the first log activity line, no log file was produced. I restarted the RPI and again it works fine manually. The problem is that when I run it as root, I get a permission denied error. That perhaps in conjunction with the reboot code in sync.sh is my problem. Error.txt

[byramsewell]

I have an nfs mount to a NAS device. the motion folder inside ./pi-timolo is a symbolic link to my nfs share. this setup works fine running pi-timolo as user pi but for some reason does not work as root. I will investigate further.

[pageauc]

Are you running timelapse, motion or both? It sounds like just motion from your description but not sure. The problem may be with the share across the network if there is an interruption when files are being written. Normally I would send the files to the local SD card and run the mvleavelast.sh script (You would need to edit variables) This may avoid a problem with network minor network interuptions. You would need to put the script in a crontab to schedule the transfers. This would move the files not copy them.

Also it sounds like the the camera is hanging since it does not appear that python is crashing with an error. The fact that you have to reboot to get the camera to work is a good indication the the camera is hanging for some reason. Double check connections. Also You might try changing the nightMaxShut variable in the config.py to maybe 5 or 5.5 The exposure time can be a problem if it goes over 6 seconds. I have experienced this problem myself. It might be crashing after coming out of twilight mode and changing to daymode. Also try changing the twilightThreshold setting if you see overexposed or underexposed images (very black or very white). I have one of my camera's pointing outside east into the sunrise and have it set to 80 but if you are in a lower light situation the you can set it to 50 or so. You can experiment with this setting to see if twilight transitions are free of very dark or very light images

Hope this helps Claude ..

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 10:00 AM, byramsewell notifications@github.com wrote:

I have an nfs mount to a NAS device. the motion folder inside ./pi-timolo is a symbolic link to my nfs share. this setup works fine running pi-timolo as user pi but for some reason does not work as root. I will investigate further.

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[byramsewell]

Thank you Claude, This is very helpful. My problem was indeed NFS mount permissions on my Synology NAS. I have resolved that and will go back and try the autostart at boot feature.

[byramsewell]

Autostart at boot is working now. However all my images are very dark. I have tried to adjust the twilightThreshold setting. I have set it at 90, 50, 30, and 5. All of these settings seem to be about the same except for 90 which was very dark. The pi-timolo.log file shows the same entries for each shot: 20160407_15:40:50 takeDayImage Size=1280x720 exp=auto awb=auto /home/pi/pi-timolo/motion/mo-cam1-1054.jpg I am attaching both images from the logs I mentioned.

again except for the one shot I took with it at 90. That shows the following log entry: 20160407_15:28:00 takeNightImage Size=1280x720 dayPixAve=92 ISO=100 shut=0.001 sec /home/pi/pi-timolo/motion/mo-cam1-1037.jpg

[byramsewell]

The same lighting using a simple raspistill command gives a normal photo.

[pageauc]

When the camera is set for day the awb is auto and exp is auto as per the log entry. However to speed up the camera I set the sleep delay to 0.5 sec. The normal raspistill waits approx 5 seconds so it has a better chance of calculating the AWB and Exp settings. You can change this by editing the pi-timolo.py file for the takeDayImage() function near line 342 and edit approx line 346 time.sleep(0.5) try a longer time period starting at maybe 2 seconds eg time.sleep(2) to see if the awb improves. You can then increase or lower the sleep period to optimize. My setup is for mostly outdoors so I keep the sleep to 0.5 seconds since AWB is pretty fast in bright light but in lower light the AWB takes more time. That should improve things. I should make the sleep a variable.

Let me know how you make out Claude ....

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 3:45 PM, byramsewell notifications@github.com wrote:

Autostart at boot is working now. However all my images are very dark. I have tried to adjust the twilightThreshold setting. I have set it at 90, 50, 30, and 5. All of these settings seem to be about the same except for 90 which was very dark. The pi-timolo.log file shows the same entries for each shot: 20160407_15:40:50 takeDayImage Size=1280x720 exp=auto awb=auto /home/pi/pi-timolo/motion/mo-cam1-1054.jpg I am attaching both images from the logs I mentioned.

again except for the one shot I took with it at 90. That shows the following log entry: 20160407_15:28:00 takeNightImage Size=1280x720 dayPixAve=92 ISO=100 shut=0.001 sec /home/pi/pi-timolo/motion/mo-cam1-1037.jpg [image: mo-cam1-1054] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/16930154/14364643/c40c901a-fcd7-11e5-99ec-0d8fabe42e97.jpg [image: mo-cam1-1037] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/16930154/14364649/c8a1fdea-fcd7-11e5-82d8-e91b911656eb.jpg

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