Light level changes causing false events

Question

I have a Panasonic BLC-140A Netcam overlooking my front yard with motion-sensing lights. Everything works fine, except that, at night, everytime the lights go off, it triggers an event. I have pasted the relevant (I believe) settings from motion.conf. I have tried the Lightswitch option from disabled to 30 to 90 with no apparent change. Any advice would be helpful. Other than that, Motion works great! I love it's endless configurability. Thank you.

-- AndrewBurgess - 09 Jun 2011 if you can build motion then you might try changing the 5 frames value (this is the number of frames that lightswitch skips) in the source to larger. see also http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/SupportQuestion2011x01x17x085201

Paste in your error messages, config settings, terminal window output etc in this text field.

#######################################################
# Motion Detection Settings:
############################################################

# Threshold for number of changed pixels in an image that
# triggers motion detection (default: 1500)
threshold 1500

# Automatically tune the threshold down if possible (default: off)
threshold_tune off

# Noise threshold for the motion detection (default: 32)
noise_level 32

# Automatically tune the noise threshold (default: on)
noise_tune on

# Despeckle motion image using (e)rode or (d)ilate or (l)abel (Default: not defined)
# Recommended value is EedDl. Any combination (and number of) of E, e, d, and D is valid.
# (l)abeling must only be used once and the 'l' must be the last letter.
# Comment out to disable
despeckle EedDl

# Detect motion in predefined areas (1 - 9). Areas are numbered like that:  1 2 3
# A script (on_area_detected) is started immediately when motion is         4 5 6
# detected in one of the given areas, but only once during an event.        7 8 9
# One or more areas can be specified with this option. (Default: not defined)
; area_detect value

# PGM file to use as a sensitivity mask.
# Full path name to. (Default: not defined)
mask_file value /home/gary/Motion/Gatecam.pgm

# Dynamically create a mask file during operation (default: 0)
# Adjust speed of mask changes from 0 (off) to 10 (fast)
smart_mask_speed 0

# Ignore sudden massive light intensity changes given as a percentage of the picture
# area that changed intensity. Valid range: 0 - 100 , default: 0 = disabled
lightswitch 30

# Picture frames must contain motion at least the specified number of frames
# in a row before they are detected as true motion. At the default of 1, all
# motion is detected. Valid range: 1 to thousands, recommended 1-5
minimum_motion_frames 3

# Specifies the number of pre-captured (buffered) pictures from before motion
# was detected that will be output at motion detection.
# Recommended range: 0 to 5 (default: 0)
# Do not use large values! Large values will cause Motion to skip video frames and
# cause unsmooth mpegs. To smooth mpegs use larger values of post_capture instead.
pre_capture 2

# Number of frames to capture after motion is no longer detected (default: 0)
post_capture 2

# Gap is the seconds of no motion detection that triggers the end of an event
# An event is defined as a series of motion images taken within a short timeframe.
# Recommended value is 60 seconds (Default). The value 0 is allowed and disables
# events causing all Motion to be written to one single mpeg file and no pre_capture.
gap 20

# Maximum length in seconds of an mpeg movie
# When value is exceeded a new mpeg file is created. (Default: 0 = infinite)
max_mpeg_time 0

# Always save images even if there was no motion (default: off)
output_all off

Environment

Motion version:	3.2.12
ffmpeg version:	5:0.6.1+svn201011
Libraries:	ffmpeg, mysql, postgresql
Server OS:	Debian Sid, kernel 2.6.32-5-amd64

-- GaryTibbetts - 20 Dec 2010

Answer