TimeLapse not functionning

ALoubert · June 18, 2015, 3:40pm

I’m testing NetCam Studio to replace WebCam7.

As for now, everything seems to work, except TimeLapse…
I’ve setup TimeLapse functions as follows:
Frame interval (input): 1min
Frame interval (output): 1day
I’ve also setup the scheduler of my camera so that TimeLapse works all days long.

Problem: when the server starts, the timelapse starts, catches 1 picture, and after 1 minute, generates and 0-byte AVI file, and stops.

I don’t want the TimeLapse to stop (and never restarts by itself) !
Why is the AVI file always empty (null size) ?

I’ve made a test with v1.1.9, and then, with v1.2.0 b2, same behavior…
Strangely, TimeLapse stops after 1 minute, that’s to say at the time it should capture a new picture ?!?
Starting the TimeLapse manually (right click on the cam) does the same.

Can you help ?

Steve · June 18, 2015, 6:22pm

Do you really want 1 frame to last 1 day in the output movie ??

This is probably why you have error. The 2nd parameter is frame duration meaning how long it will last for a single image in the output movie… You most likely want this < 10 seconds.

The timelapse shouldn’t stop by itself, ensure that you have no rule that trigs its stop and check in the logs if anything special or an error is reported there in case it stops prematurely.

ALoubert · June 19, 2015, 10:16am

No, indeed, 1 day was a mistake !
I’ve now set the output frame delay to 1 second…
I just want to capture 1 picture every 1 minute, but all day long.

But I’ve still got the problem with the TimeLapse !
I have no rule that could trigger starting or stopping of the TimeLapse.
Actually, I’m getting 1 (sometimes 2 or 3) pictures, and then, the TimeLapse is stopped.
When I only get 1 picture, the AVI file is 0 byte long.
When I get 3 pictures, the AVI file is correct.
I think the AVI file can only be generated once it has enough data (pictures) to merge, could that be right ?

Well, concerning the TimeLapse stopping, I don’t see why it acts that way.
I went into ServiceHost_20150619.log file to see if something could be found inside.
There are many lines:
Source(0).TimerInactivityElapsed Source(0) - Video Source Stopped due to inactivity.
I’ve got a desktop gadget that queries the cam every 10s (works well), and I’m getting a line like above every 10s !
It seems that the cam enters in sleep mode after a couple of second, and once it’s sleeping, the TimeLapse stops…

I made another test. I launched the NS server as an application (normally, it runs as a service).
As long as I stay on the “live view” tab (showing the cam), the TimeLapse seems to stay runnning.
But as soon as I switch to another tool (library, configuration or whatever), the TimeLapse stops and I get a message like above in the log.

However, I haven’t seen anywhere a parameter to tell the cam to enter in “inactivity mode” after some time !
(The cam is a Microsoft LifeCam connected to a USB port).

Any idea ?

Steve · June 20, 2015, 7:34am

Timelapse movie generation will fail if:

Not at least 3 images
Frame duration > 1 second (bug on our end)

Normally the timelapse feature being activated should prevent the camera from going to sleep, we’ll verify…

ALoubert · June 21, 2015, 9:53pm

OK, frame duration = 1s, but there are usually only 1 or 2 frames captured, that’s why the video’s not generated…

But for sleep mode, for sure, both v1.1.9 AND v1.2.0 beta do enter it !
My cam IS entering in sleep mode after a couple of seconds (I can see it with the LED of the cam switching off).
And immediately after, the timelapse is stopping, and the AVI file is created (actually with a 0 byte length because there’s not at least 3 frames captured).

Steve · June 23, 2015, 9:33am

Confirmed, timelapse feature does not prevent camera from going to sleep. Will be fixed in next release…

ALoubert · July 25, 2015, 9:13pm

Today, I installed your 1.2.0 RC1 version of NS.
This release should correct the sleeping mode of the timelapse feature.
But actually, it still doesn’t !

My webcam still enters in sleep mode after a couple of seconds, setting the timelapse to stop.
Here’s the log since installation (simply tested by starting the service, seeing the cam entering in sleep mode, and then stopping the service):

(Information @ 23:07:51.033 - H:165 - M:52,56MB) ServiceHost Initializing Netcam Studio Service
(Information @ 23:07:51.127 - H:195 - M:53,96MB) Common:SetNoSleep SetThreadExecutionState succeeded. PC will not enter sleep mode during execution.
(Information @ 23:07:52.515 - H:204 - M:56,38MB) MoonwareServerWCF:Constructor Initializing MoonwareServerWCF
(Information @ 23:07:53.311 - H:204 - M:56,50MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Initializing MoonwareServer
(Information @ 23:07:53.311 - H:204 - M:56,98MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Application Folder >> C:\Program Files\Multimedia tools\Moonware Studios\NetCam studio
(Information @ 23:07:53.311 - H:204 - M:57,47MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor UserData Folder >> C:\ProgramData\Moonware\Netcam Studio\Server
(Information @ 23:07:57.726 - H:211 - M:81,61MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor 1884 Network Camera Templates Loaded…
(Information @ 23:07:57.726 - H:211 - M:81,61MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding DirectShow Provider…
(Information @ 23:07:58.350 - H:258 - M:81,78MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding Special Provider…
(Information @ 23:07:58.381 - H:258 - M:82,54MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding NetCam Provider…
(Information @ 23:07:58.678 - H:258 - M:83,57MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding Motion Detector…
(Information @ 23:07:58.678 - H:258 - M:83,77MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding Audio Detector…
(Information @ 23:07:58.693 - H:258 - M:83,27MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding LPR…
(Information @ 23:07:58.709 - H:258 - M:81,63MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding MJPEG Stream Encoder…
(Information @ 23:07:58.724 - H:258 - M:81,64MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding FFMPEG File Encoder…
(Information @ 23:07:58.724 - H:258 - M:82,08MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding TimeLapse Encoder…
(Information @ 23:07:58.740 - H:258 - M:82,09MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding Live Stream Encoder…
(Information @ 23:07:58.740 - H:258 - M:82,09MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding MP3 Audio Stream Encoder…
(Information @ 23:07:58.740 - H:258 - M:82,09MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Adding Watermark Filter…
(Information @ 23:07:58.771 - H:258 - M:83,50MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor 15 Source Plugins Loaded in AvailablePlugins [SourcePlugins]…
(Information @ 23:07:58.912 - H:269 - M:82,16MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of simple FTP uploader…
(Information @ 23:07:59.114 - H:267 - M:82,39MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of NAS Plugin…
(Information @ 23:07:59.224 - H:269 - M:82,45MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of FTP Plugin…
(Information @ 23:07:59.395 - H:270 - M:82,50MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of Dropbox Plugin…
(Information @ 23:08:05.199 - H:482 - M:84,89MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of Google Drive Plugin…
(Information @ 23:08:05.214 - H:483 - M:84,90MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Creating Instance of EmailSender Plugin…
(Information @ 23:08:05.370 - H:487 - M:85,11MB) RuleManager RuleManager Created
(Information @ 23:08:05.838 - H:487 - M:85,11MB) MoonwareServerWeb:Constructor Initializing MoonwareServerWeb
(Information @ 23:08:08.241 - H:537 - M:86,27MB) MoonwareServer:Constructor Web Server started on port 8100
(Information @ 23:08:09.582 - H:577 - M:90,40MB) LocalAudioSource:WorkerThreadAudio Starting Local Audio Capture Thread
(Information @ 23:08:14.702 - H:761 - M:126,50MB) ServiceHost Starting Netcam Studio Service
(Information @ 23:08:14.749 - H:755 - M:126,01MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service Started
(Information @ 23:08:14.755 - H:755 - M:126,27MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service running on net.tcp://localhost:8120/Moonware/ [netTcpEndpoint]
(Information @ 23:08:14.761 - H:755 - M:126,27MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service running on http://localhost:8124/Json [jsonEndpoint]
(Information @ 23:08:14.769 - H:755 - M:126,27MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service running on http://localhost:8124/Soap [soapEndpoint]
(Information @ 23:08:14.775 - H:755 - M:126,27MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service running on net.tcp://localhost:8190/Moonware/mex [mexEndpoint]
(Information @ 23:08:22.157 - H:788 - M:130,13MB) Source(0).TimerInactivityElapsed Source(0) - Video Source Stopped due to inactivity
(Information @ 23:08:22.850 - H:716 - M:112,36MB) LocalAudioSource:WorkerThreadAudio Local Audio Capture Thread finished
(Information @ 23:08:29.194 - H:685 - M:112,41MB) Source(0).WakeUp Source(0) - WakeUp
(Information @ 23:08:29.209 - H:700 - M:112,98MB) LocalAudioSource:WorkerThreadAudio Starting Local Audio Capture Thread
(Information @ 23:08:39.241 - H:782 - M:132,38MB) Source(0).TimerInactivityElapsed Source(0) - Video Source Stopped due to inactivity
(Information @ 23:08:40.160 - H:762 - M:133,51MB) LocalAudioSource:WorkerThreadAudio Local Audio Capture Thread finished
(Information @ 23:09:57.793 - H:678 - M:113,96MB) ServiceHost Stopping Netcam Studio Service…
(Information @ 23:09:58.081 - H:712 - M:113,81MB) ServiceHost Disposing Moonware WCF Server…
(Information @ 23:09:58.085 - H:712 - M:114,25MB) MoonwareServerWCF:Dispose Shutting Down MoonwareServerWCF
(Information @ 23:09:58.098 - H:712 - M:114,33MB) MoonwareServer:Dispose Shutting Down MoonwareServer
(Information @ 23:09:58.116 - H:712 - M:114,34MB) MoonwareCore.SaveSettings Saving new configuration and settings
(Information @ 23:09:58.267 - H:713 - M:115,73MB) MoonwareServerWeb:Dispose Shutting Down MoonwareServerWeb
(Information @ 23:09:58.807 - H:712 - M:113,71MB) Source(0).Dispose Source(0) - Took 530 ms to CloseVideoSource()
(Information @ 23:09:58.845 - H:709 - M:113,95MB) ServiceHost Netcam Studio Service Stopped…
(Information @ 23:09:58.849 - H:709 - M:113,95MB) Common:SetNoSleep SetThreadExecutionState reset. PC is now allowed to enter sleep mode.

Can you have a look ?