Which configuration item will disable the thumbnail feature of video files?

[denven]

Hi, @roleoroleo

The feature is enabled by default when I hacked with the completely new firmware, but it was disabled after some time of use or configuration changes. I've no idea which item will switch the video thumbnail feature.

Can you tell me about this? Thanks

[roleo]

Both these settings:

[denven]

Both these settings:

However, it may not take effect since I am enabling both, I just checked.

[roleo]

"Snapshot" option enable/disable all snapshot features.
"Snapshot for recorded video" enable/disable the creation of the thumbnails for the recorded video.
I know, it's not a very proper name, but the thumbnail for the cam is like a snapshot.

So, if you want to enable the thumbnails you need to enable both options.

[denven]

No jpg files when both items are enabled.

[roleo]

Strange...
Try to run the process manually:
/tmp/sd/yi-hack/script/thumb.sh cron
Probably there is an error.

[denven]

@roleoroleo I did some checks based on your advice.

Check configurations, failures or logs

• Step 1: check if custom settings are saved

/home/yi-hack # cat etc/system.conf | grep -e ^SNAPSHOT.*=yes
SNAPSHOT=yes
SNAPSHOT_VIDEO=yes

• Step 2: check if the already enabled service is added to crontab

/home/yi-hack # cat /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root
* * * * * /home/yi-hack/script/thumb.sh cron
0 * * * * sleep 20; /home/yi-hack/script/clean_records.sh 90

• Step 3: check if the scheduled service script in crontab runs into failures

/home/yi-hack # tail -f -n5 /tmp/thumb.log
2023-05-07 [01-10-00] [INFO] === SERVICE START ===
2023-05-07 [01-10-00] [WARN] Adjusting folder permissions to 0755 ...
2023-05-07 [01-10-01] [INFO] checkFiles
2023-05-07 [01-10-01] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4].
2023-05-07 [01-10-01] [INFO] === SERVICE STOPPED ===

/home/yi-hack # cat /tmp/thumb.log | grep "jpg FAILED"
2023-05-07 [00-40-01] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4].
2023-05-07 [00-41-01] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4].
2023-05-07 [00-42-03] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4].
2023-05-07 [00-43-01] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4].
2023-05-07 [00-44-02] [ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4]

So far, I know the thumb.sh which is used to snapshot image files doesn't work properly. Although it runs every minute, it fails each time as well, no image files will be generated.

More investigations on the reason for the failures

• check the script thumb.sh source code, and find these code lines

minimp4_yi -t 1 $file $BASE_NAME.h26x
imggrabber -f $BASE_NAME.h26x -r low -w > $BASE_NAME.jpg

/home/yi-hack # find / -type f -name minimp4_yi -o -name imggrabber
/home/yi-hack/bin/imggrabber
/home/yi-hack/bin/minimp4_yi

• Check the video file existence, since it continues to work on the same video files once failure happens and doesn't move on to new files.

/home/yi-hack # ls /tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/50M59S01.mp4
/home/yi-hack #cd /tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H/

/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # minimp4_yi -t 1 50M59S01.mp4 50M59S01.h26x
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # imggrabber -f 50M59S01.h26x -r low -w > 50M59S01.jpg
watermark on
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # echo $?
250
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # ls 50M59S01.*
50M59S01.h26x  50M59S01.jpg   50M59S01.mp4

From the above, the image file is generated, I downloaded it and found it is not viewable.

• Check the original video file:

The original video file 50M59S01.mp4 is only 204.2K which is not a complete one-minute video file, the .h26x file is 24 bytes, and the generated image file is an empty one.

/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # ls -l -hk 50M59S01.*
-rwx------    1 root     0             24 May  7 03:01 50M59S01.h26x
-rwx------    1 root     0              0 May  7 12:14 50M59S01.jpg
-rwx------    1 root     0         204.2K May  2 03:51 50M59S01.mp4

• Enable the debug option for the C program imggrabber and run it again:

/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # imggrabber -d -f 50M59S01.h26x -r low -w > 50M59S01.jpg
debug on
watermark on
Starting program
The size of the file is 24
No frame found
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M02D10H # echo $?
250

The C program imggrabber.c has an exit code -6 when it knows "No frame found" since the Shell $? (the exit code for the last command) range is always non-negative, and is treated modulo 256, then -6 will be converted to 250.

      else {
          if (debug) fprintf(stderr, "No frame found\n");
                return -6;
      }

As we can see an empty snapshot has been generated with an error no 250, and the script thumb.sh then exits after logging the error.

	  echo "${L_FILE_LIST}" | while read file; do
                          ...
			  if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
				  logAdd "[ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [${file}]."
				  rm -f $BASE_NAME.h26x
				  rm -f $BASE_NAME.jpg
				  return 0  # line 102
			  fi
                          ....
          done

So the fact is each time when it fails on some file and exits, it will continue to fail and exit on the same file again, and it will not move on to the newer or other files.

I think the video file is very likely to turn out to be incomplete or corrupted at the time the camera reboots or shutdowns, the imggrabber may always fail to take a snapshot from an incomplete h26x file, which results in the script thumb.sh interrupting at the same file.

• Change the code to ignore the error and continue even when imggrabber fails to grab a frame image.

	echo "${L_FILE_LIST}" | while read file; do
                        ...
			minimp4_yi -t 1 $file $BASE_NAME.h26x
			if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
				logAdd "[ERROR] checkFiles: demux mp4 FAILED - [${file}]."
				rm -f $BASE_NAME.h26x
				# return 0
                                continue
			fi
			imggrabber -f $BASE_NAME.h26x -r low -w > $BASE_NAME.jpg
			if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
				logAdd "[ERROR] checkFiles: create jpg FAILED - [${file}]."
				rm -f $BASE_NAME.h26x
				rm -f $BASE_NAME.jpg
				# return 0
                                continue
			fi
                        ....
        done

• Check the result after the above change, and I find the snapshot image files are all generated.

/tmp/sd/record # cd 2023Y05M07D09H/
/tmp/sd/record/2023Y05M07D09H # ls
06M02S58.jpg  07M00S60.jpg  26M56S03.jpg  27M00S60.jpg  28M00S60.jpg  39M18S42.jpg  40M00S60.jpg  43M20S40.jpg  44M00S60.jpg  51M24S36.jpg  52M00S60.jpg
06M02S58.mp4  07M00S60.mp4  26M56S03.mp4  27M00S60.mp4  28M00S60.mp4  39M18S42.mp4  40M00S60.mp4  43M20S40.mp4  44M00S60.mp4  51M24S36.mp4  52M00S60.mp4

[denven]

And there is a performance issue in the thumb.sh script since it runs every minute with repetitive checks of all existing files.

For example, my SD card storage is 32GB, and one video file is around 10MB, then the number of video files will be accumulated to 3,000+ before the SD card storage exhausts or is cleaned, the more files accumulated in the SD card, the more performance cost will take. This is not favorable.

To enhance, we can change it to check the single latest file which hasn't been generated with a snapshot file, via a timestamp close (1-2 minutes earlier) to its run time to save resources. Most likely, all the new files generated after the time feature is enabled will be captured with the snapshots.

The failures from incomplete or corrupted files cannot be recovered and then can be ignored.

[roleo]

Thank you for your analysis.
I will change the script asap.