Log says timlapse completed. no errors, but no timelapse

[stuartsmith-nasstar]

Hi Thomas, Firstly - thankyou for this great software. I'm running just now on a Zero with asi120mc - not ideal but no Pis in stock anywhere and it's all I've got. I've changed upped the swap space to 4gb and I've slowed captures to every 30 secs, 60 in daytime.

I've been running 3 days, and yesterday I seem to have got a timelapse video. Today, nothing.
The log has :
Mar 23 06:43:08 allsky allsky.sh[6098]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Timelapse complete
from this morning (it's now 10.20am). And no errors.

But no new timelapse, and if I look in tmp timelapseTMP.txt has one line:
Processed 2055 images

And it's dated 05:45 this morning (I assume daylight saving time accounts for 1 hour difference)

But the only directory under there is 'sequence-20230321' from the previous timelapse run, and thats just got previous images in it.

So it all seems to be working, and ticking along. But no timelapse (or keogram for that matter), and no obvious errrors anywhere either ?

[EricClaeys]

@stuartsmith-nasstar What version of Allsky are you using?
Look between the endOfNight.sh: ===== Generating Timelapse and endOfNight.sh: ===== Timelapse complete lines for any error messages.

[stuartsmith-nasstar]

v2022.03.01, downloaded and installed from git on monday. I just tried running it for that day manually and it worked fine, which is good at least. I've checked the whole log for errors and nothing - only those two lines suggesting it did it.

I'll leave it running shall I, and see if it does the same tomorrow or recovers ?

[EricClaeys]

@stuartsmith-nasstar Try the following:

cd ~/allsky/images
mkdir test
# copy a few .jpg files from 20230322 to the "test" directory
cd ~/allsky/scripts
./generateForDay.sh -t test

that will create a timelapses of the "test" directory which only has a few images so should be fast.

[EricClaeys]

@stuartsmith-nasstar please ATTACH you /var/log/allsky.log file, don't copy/paste it, and I'll take a look.

[stuartsmith-nasstar]

Hi Eric, I tried turning off the camera during the day - and that has done the trick. Obviously I'd be nice to have it working during the day, but I'll take what I can get. That's 3 nights now, and it's been stable and doing videos, etc of each night now that daytime camera is off. So maybe something up with it when that's on ?

[EricClaeys]

You can try turning the camera on during the day but turn OFF saving images during the day. I suspect that will also work because there are about half as many images.
Do you have a Pi Zero, or Zero 2?

[stuartsmith-nasstar]

pi zero. i'd use a pi4 if i could get one anywhere. so yeh - very resource limited, and I suspect that was the issue. It was for the daytime movies I wanted day images for, so not really bothered about just a live view. I suspect that having it off after dark is giving it the cpu and memory it needs to do the movie. the time stamp on which is 9am.. when daylight is about 5.45.. so it's taking 3 hours to make the movie! So I think probably with the day imaging on too, it was just continually running - maybe it thought it had finished but had just timed out, or the next day had started. When I manage to get a faster pi, I'll try turning it back on again. Still great software, and looking forward to getting it in an enclosure and into a proper position.

[EricClaeys]

@stuartsmith-nasstar We don't recommend the Zero for exactly the reason you noticed. Limited memory and a VERY slow CPU. In fact, our newest documentation says: The Pi Zero and Pi Zero W, with their limited memory and very limited CPU power (single CPU core), are not recommended. You will likely not be able to create keograms, startrails, or timelapse videos.

[Jonk2]

I don't want to hijack this discussion, but I'm not getting any timelapses, keograms or startrails using let's say a week old dev version.

Here's part of the log:

Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[28254]: Processing end of night data
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[28254]: ==========
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[28254]: === Starting daytime capture ===
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[28254]: ==========
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:42   @ 26.38 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Generating Keogram
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[453]: nice: ‘15’: No such file or directory
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Keogram complete
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Generating Startrails
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[455]: nice: ‘15’: No such file or directory
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Startrails complete
Mar 22 06:12:42 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Generating Timelapse
Mar 22 06:12:43 allsky allsky[457]: nice: ‘15’: No such file or directory
Mar 22 06:12:43 allsky allsky[440]: endOfNight.sh: ===== Timelapse complete
Mar 22 06:12:43 allsky allsky[466]: nice: ‘15’: No such file or directory
Mar 22 06:12:45 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061242.jpg'
Mar 22 06:12:45 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:45   @ 29.24 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:46 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061245.jpg'
Mar 22 06:12:46 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:46   @ 29.24 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:47 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061246.jpg'
Mar 22 06:12:47 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:47   @ 29.24 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:47 allsky allsky[550]: ERROR: Error parsing /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json Extra data: line 1 column 1970 (char 1969)
Mar 22 06:12:47 allsky allsky[550]: ERROR: Failed to open /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json
Mar 22 06:12:48 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061247.jpg'
Mar 22 06:12:48 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:48   @ 29.24 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:49 allsky allsky[637]: ERROR: Error parsing /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json Extra data: line 1 column 1970 (char 1969)
Mar 22 06:12:49 allsky allsky[637]: ERROR: Failed to open /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json
Mar 22 06:12:49 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061248.jpg'
Mar 22 06:12:49 allsky allsky[28254]: STARTING EXPOSURE at: 2023-03-22 06:12:49   @ 29.24 ms (0.03 sec)
Mar 22 06:12:50 allsky allsky[706]: ERROR: Error parsing /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json Extra data: line 1 column 1970 (char 1969)
Mar 22 06:12:50 allsky allsky[706]: ERROR: Failed to open /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json
Mar 22 06:12:51 allsky allsky[28254]:   > Saving DAY image 'image-20230322061249.jpg'

There's also an issue where it's trying to save a day image, but I always have saving day images disabled (DAYTIME_SAVE="false")... the option appears to have gone missing from config.sh?

[Jonk2]

@EricClaeys here's the file as requested.
postprocessing_day.txt

The 'Daytime save' is set to 'NO' probably by default?

[EricClaeys]

@Jonk2 daytime save has always been off by default, I assume because many people are only interested in meteorites so don't care about the daytime.

I will look at your log file when I am on my computer.

[EricClaeys]

@Jonk2 Remove the last character of /home/pi/allsky/config/modules/postprocessing_day.json. There should only be two } at the end of the file, and your file somehow got a 3rd.

Yes, the default for "Daytime Save" is "No". I assume Thomas set it this way since a lot of people use their cameras to look for meteorites and other nighttime objects, so don't save their day pictures.

[Jonk2]

@EricClaeys Ok, thanks for checking it out. However, opening the file shows only 2 curly braces:

[EricClaeys]

@Jonk2 the file you attached had 3. @Alex-developer said there's a bug where two programs sometimes write to that file at the same time which corrupts it.