camera feeds

congratulations on an excellent integration, much more robust than previous integration approaches from my perspective.

just a few quirks to note on the (Security Spy) camera integration.

- sometimes I see a canned image (display house) instead of the feed for one or more camera feeds. I can't replicate this however and it hasn't happened for a while.
- otherwise on opening I usually see a cached images for each cam. however the image refresh countdown ticker updates in the corner long before the image itself updates
- am i right in thinking its necessary to click on an image to force an update of all feeds?
- is the refresh rate a HomeKit thing or is it configurable?

cheers

HI

Thanks for the feedback!

The Canned image occurs when you restart the plugin (probably should also default to this canned image if the feed image is really old >12 hours or so… but haven’t as yet)

The way I have instituted cameras to avoid impacting anything else within Homekit App - is the cameras update separately if when/requested from an homekit app.

Basically:
There is a seperate plugin camera thread updating cameras as requested. This takes 10 seconds to update image, and then will be display with next update/refresh cycle - so images are 10 seconds or so behind. (& need 2 complete cycles to display update)
If out of local network - I believe this is 60 second update.

All happens automatically - nothing needs to be done.

If you have no homeKit app open, nothing is requesting images - this all sits idle and has no impact. I thought this was best, even if adds a 10 second image delay.

If you have 1 or 22 cameras - the same applies and shouldn’t impact either Indigo Mac, or other homekit devices at all.

Glenn


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ah that is making sense.

Though I'm seeing the timer run up to a full minute even though i'm on the LAN, then restart. I assume the timer is meant to show the last refresh?

oh and one other query: should clicking through to the individual cameras be working? the 'thumbnails' are updating on the 60sec cycle but opening the camera view in HomeKit generates a timeout.

You should be able to open the camera stream if correctly set up. (The clicking)

Check you have run the xattr command as this is needed everytime you update the plugin (it’s very annoying)

Otherwise - can run the ffmpeg logging menu item command and see what issue may be.


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ah. yes i did that, however re-ran the install prerequisites just in case... i generated a permission error installing cryptography, suspect thats it. will need to spend some time on that. at least i know what to expect when its working.

okay....so I I think I have the environment sorted out, but I still can't see live camera images.

everything appears to be working as expected, except clicking though on a camera thumbnail leads to a time-out message in the HomeKit app.

on clicking the thumbnail the Indigo log reports:
HomeKitLink Siri [7604cf6a-0293-4d5b-b7b0-c44f15ae77b0] Started stream process - PID 75399

and on the time-out:
HomeKitLink Siri [7604cf6a-0293-4d5b-b7b0-c44f15ae77b0] Stopping stream.


As a sanity check I reloaded the old (HomeKit Bridge) plugin and cameras have full functionality.

Do you have any other debugging suggestions? [for now at least I can stick with the old plugin for cameras...so this is not the highest priority but would be nice to get sorted!).

Hi

Also, as mentioned above, run the ffmpeg debug from the menu to check output of ffmpeg.

& disable audio of the camera stream as a trial (in HomeKitLink Bridge device selection page)

Glenn

thanks. I tried deleting the bridge and starting afresh [took a while to figure out the QR code pops on the host mac even if you are on a remote indigo client!) but same issue arises. log is as follows:

Code: Select all

HomeKitLink Siri                ['./ffmpeg/ffmpeg', '-rtsp_transport', 'tcp', '-probesize', '64', '-analyzeduration', '0', '-re', '-i', 'rtsp://indigo_icy:!cam@:8555/stream?cameraNum=5&width=1280', '-map', '0:0', '-c:v', 'libx264', '-bf', '0', '-pix_fmt', 'yuv420p', '-color_range', 'mpeg', '-f', 'rawvideo', '-r', '12', '-b:v', '299k', '-bufsize', '2392k', '-maxrate', '299k', '-payload_type', '99', '-ssrc', '1325992', '-f', 'rtp', '-srtp_out_suite', 'AES_CM_128_HMAC_SHA1_80', '-srtp_out_params', '', 'srtp://192.168.1.102:63xx309?rtcpport=63309&localrtcpport=63309&pkt_size=1316']
   HomeKitLink Siri                =================================================== Run Ffmpeg Command Ended  ====================================================
   HomeKitLink Siri                ======================================= Hopefully this provides some troubleshooting help  =======================================


i can't see any clues there (but not sure what I'm looking for either...)?

Hi

That’s a bit weird - the ffmpeg command should give a lot more info

Almost looks like hasn’t run at all ??

Having another look at it now:
Would delete your username / password in the IP address above
But does password have a @ in it ?- maybe simplify, or create new user with simple password for testing?
&
Have you run the xattr command on the host mac?

Otherwise try again and see if get a different result …


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as you say it certainly seems like nothing is happening (though no error messages at all are returned by the plugin).
yes I've run (and rerun) the xattr command.

should I try manually installing FFMPEG perhaps?

Installing ffmpeg manually will definitely not help. Also not that easy to do. Plug-in always uses its own version:

Have you edited the post to remove your visible password?

If your password has a @ in it (as per my last post) would pay to change and try again.

But it does seem it is not getting a IP address for that camera at all. Hard to tell where it should be where password begins.

That will be related to the SS setup within the camera and how the HKLS bridge reads it. To check that will need a startup debug log of the bridge (turn all debug on and reload plug-in) as it sets up the cameras. Welcome to PM that - with all debug options on and should be able to sort..

Edit:

Think have found a difference between image handling (uses security spy - “address”) and video feed (which we use “xaddress”). If can post log of securitySpy Camera device which is not working - should be able to help. (Can do here, or in GitHub )

thanks - will do...however fiddling with SS credentials I appear to have triggered a python3 issue with the plugin. Now i have to resolve that first! [posted in the SS thread].

Further to above

Give version 0.2.33 a try:
Press the Green Code button on main page:
https://github.com/Ghawken/HomeKitLink-Siri

Use "address" instead of "xaddress" if "xaddress" blank - same exists for image URL - which is possibly why images are working - yet stream isn't.

Have a small hunch may work ...
Will need xattr run after install as well.

If not will need the logging as last post (sadly)

Edit - see the security spy issue - could still log devices of device - and copy/paste... but regardless try 0.2.33 won't hurt

woohoo!
camera feeds working perfectly, after the last update.
I received, for the first time, a message requesting authorisation for FFMPEG to receive incoming connections - this was not seen previously that i recall.
thanks for your help!!!

....so the live streaming continues to work a treat. And, new devices are appearing instantly in HomeKit (which never reliably happened with the old plugin).

one more camera anomaly to report (not a fatal one, but for info): the still images don't always update when the counter restarts.
I noticed by accident when standing in-frame but out of wifi range (so on the 60 second refresh cycle) and need to spend a bit more time to see if i can discern a pattern.