Background daemon seems to not function whatsoever.

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit with Motion on my server. First question is just a quick side question that confuses me... it's the way Motion and its daemon services are communicating to the server. Right now I have /etc/default/motion set to "no", with motion set as an @reboot cron job and it comes up just fine upon system startup. Is that normal? Does the service not need to be running to function when working with cron?

The real problem is this... in /etc/motion/motion.conf, if I enable the daemon towards the top of the config, the auto start daemon won't run (the one you enable in /etc/default/motion). If I reboot, no daemon is running upon system startup. If I disable the daemon in motion.conf, auto start (from /etc/default/motion) begins to work fine again. I'm launching this via startup applications with a custom application entry simply launching "motion". What are the differences between the daemon listed in /etc/default/motion and /etc/motion/motion.conf? Why is it the motion.conf daemon setting interferes with /etc/default/motion's ability to work?

Also, I noticed if I run sudo /etc/init.d/motion restart that the service will run (I can see it in ps - A) but once motion is detected on screen, the service disappears all together. Why is this?

Thank you for all of your hard work and this amazing software!

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

Environment

Motion version:	3.2.12
ffmpeg version:
Libraries:	ffmpeg, mysql, postgresql
Server OS:

-- JaSauders - 31 May 2012

Answer

I've not much info how the official package of motion works in 12.04 , looks that ubuntu is using a custom way to run as a daemon.

I can explain you how motion works and i was dessigned to , if you install from tar package / git or svn , it works as is expecting following the settings in motion.conf

however there're some setting to pay attention ( otherwise motion won't start ) :

- path of pid file and permission of user used to launch motion

- path of save images / movies ( or motion will exit if has not permission )

- permission of video devices ( or motion won't be able to capture images and will exit )

- Run motion on startup depends on some devices to be available ( video device or/and network )

So if all above is good , motion should work good without issues.

Good luck !

-- AngelCarpintero - 02 Jun 2012