Motion fails to record time lapse video

[SirPecanGum]

Ubuntu 14.04
Motion 3.2.12

Invoking timelapse in home/motion.conf causes the following cyclic error. Motion detection continues to work as expected - it is just the time-lapse function causing the error. Worked as expected until 2 days ago. Lots of similar errors can be found via searching but no solution:

[1] Error opening file /home/magnus/Motion/Camera0//20140428-timelapse.mpg: Invalid argument

[1] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/home/magnus/Motion/Camera0//20140428-timelapse.mpg]: Invalid argument

In full:

[0] Processing thread 0 - config file /home/magnus/motion.conf
[0] Motion 3.2.12 Started
[0] ffmpeg LIBAVCODEC_BUILD 3547904 LIBAVFORMAT_BUILD 3544067
[0] Thread 1 is from /home/magnus/motion.conf
[1] Thread 1 started
[1] cap.driver: "uvcvideo"
[1] cap.card: "HP Webcam"
[1] cap.bus_info: "usb-0000:00:1d.7-5"
[1] cap.capabilities=0x84000001
[1] - VIDEO_CAPTURE
[1] - STREAMING
[1] Test palette YUYV (320x240)
[1] Using palette YUYV (320x240) bytesperlines 640 sizeimage 153600 colorspace 00000008
[1] found control 0x00980900, "Brightness", range -128,127
[1] "Brightness", default 0, current 0
[1] found control 0x00980901, "Contrast", range 0,100
[1] "Contrast", default 0, current 0
[1] found control 0x00980902, "Saturation", range 0,100
[1] "Saturation", default 0, current 0
[1] found control 0x00980903, "Hue", range -30,30
[1] "Hue", default 0, current 0
[1] found control 0x00980910, "Gamma", range 1,500
[1] "Gamma", default 1, current 1
[1] mmap information:
[1] frames=4
[1] 0 length=153600
[1] 1 length=153600
[1] 2 length=153600
[1] 3 length=153600
[1] Using V4L2
[1] Resizing pre_capture buffer to 1 items
[1] Error opening file /home/magnus/Motion/Camera0//20140429-timelapse.mpg: Invalid argument
[1] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/home/magnus/Motion/Camera0//20140429-timelapse.mpg]: Invalid argument
[1] Thread exiting
[1] Calling vid_close() from motion_cleanup
[1] Closing video device /dev/video0
[0] Motion thread 1 restart
etc...

[SirPecanGum (sirpecangum)]

Possibly some similarities with this bug #281436.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Akom (akomakom)]

Same here (also Ubuntu 14.04, motion 3.2.12-4) with the addition of "Cannot allocate memory" and then a segfault (motion does not work unless timelapse is disabled). Tried libavcodec54-extra with no change.

Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [2] Error opening file /data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C2.mpg: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [2] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C2.mpg]: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [4] Error opening file /data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C4.mpg: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [4] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C4.mpg]: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [1] Error opening file /data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C1.mpg: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [1] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C1.mpg]: Cannot allocate memory
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [3] Error opening file /data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C3.mpg: Invalid argument
Apr 7 10:15:30 srv motion: [3] ffopen_open error creating (timelapse) file [/data/MOTION/2015-04-07/timelapse-C3.mpg]: Invalid argument

[Akom (akomakom)]

Also, I believe that motion crashes if timelapse is on globally:

Apr 7 10:15:31 srv kernel: [2256000.953935] motion[20444]: segfault at b1abc038 ip 0804bc88 sp b47fe120 error 4 in motion[8048000+34000]

If it is enabled for one thread, then that thread keeps respawning every few seconds.

[Peter Grandi (pg-8)]

This page:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-963876.html?sid=49af6a7ab765b3c4c4a9652504a8794d

seems to have a complete discussion of this issue with the solution.