Comment 9 for bug 294852

12.04 64 bit, seeing the same thing. At first I thought I was working around the issue by giving myself permission to /var/run/motion, until I realized it seems to disappear on itself.

I've also noticed if I run sudo /etc/init.d/motion restart, once motion is detected, the process disappears and no trace of motion is listed under ps -A. Is it possible they're related?