Feature Request: Unique event numbers between restarts

Description

It would be really helpful if the event_nr would be unique, even between restarts of motion. at the moment, event_nr starts at 1 after a restart. saving the last used event_nr to a file and use that as starting point after a restart would be one way of doing it I suppose, removing that file would then cause the counter to be reset to 1 again.

-- TWikiGuest - 22 Sep 2005

Follow up

Comments

Check out the new snap release 3.2.4_snap2 MotionRelease3x2x4snap2

I implemented a new convertion specifier which can create event time stamps instead of the event counter.

I do not wish to make Motion depending on being able to write to a file. I think this new alternative is much better and more flexible.

-- KennethLavrsen - 22 Sep 2005

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Yes, that is a very workable solution thanks!

Taco

-- TWikiGuest - 24 Sep 2005

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Hi, I am using Motion running for many days and am wondering how high the Event Number can reach? Is it, say, an unsigned int? And is there a way to reset it, for example, at midnight. (I realise that exiting Motion and re-starting will achieve this, of course. This can be arranged programmatically.) Thanks, Simon.

-- SimonW - 26 Oct 2006

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It is a normal integer. I would think the limit is 2147483647 on most modern Linuxes.

-- KennethLavrsen - 29 Oct 2006

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Thanks for that Kenneth,

Do you have any idea how to reset the event number, other than closing down Motion and restarting it? Simon.

-- SimonW - 30 Oct 2006

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I've answered my own question, after reading the code I see it's already been provisioned for.

To restart motion, signal it with a SIGHUP, ie. kill -1 'pid-of-motion' or (more usefully) killall -HUP motion The 'restart' flag is internally set and it restarts. Thus the event number will be set back to 1. I have yet to test this (have to wait for midnight......)

-- SimonW - 21 Nov 2006

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