SmartDashboard can't connect to Axis Camera

[jarruda]

It definitely seems like there's a good amount of flakiness with the WPICameraExtension. I'm disheartened that the author has yet to post; all I would like is the source to this to be able to debug the issue for everyone that's facing it.

It may even be something as simple as a connection timeout that needs to be adjusted - because once the feed is established it remains up without issue, correct?

If someone is aware of who the author is (Brad Miller?), can someone PM him to please take a look at this thread?

EDIT: Or if someone is aware of how to obtain the source to build everything, that works too.

[jwakeman]

Originally Posted by jarruda

It definitely seems like there's a good amount of flakiness with the WPICameraExtension. I'm disheartened that the author has yet to post; all I would like is the source to this to be able to debug the issue for everyone that's facing it.

It may even be something as simple as a connection timeout that needs to be adjusted - because once the feed is established it remains up without issue, correct?

If someone is aware of who the author is (Brad Miller?), can someone PM him to please take a look at this thread?

EDIT: Or if someone is aware of how to obtain the source to build everything, that works too.

As an attempt at troubleshooting this issue I thought of trying to run ffmpeg (actually ended up using ffplay) directly from the command line to see if I could get the camera to stream that way. I used the following command:

ffplay -f mjpeg -i http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg

When I did this I see a similar output (max_analyze_duration reached) in the command window:

C:\MinGW\bin>ffplay -f mjpeg -i http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg
FFplay version git-N-29181-ga304071, Copyright (c) 2003-2011 the FFmpeg develope
rs
  built on Apr 18 2011 21:32:50 with gcc 4.5.2
  configuration: --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --enable-version3
 --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-memalign-hack --enable-avisynth --enable-bz
lib --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enab
le-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable
-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-
libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --e
nable-zlib --cross-prefix=i686-w64-mingw32- --target-os=mingw32 --arch=x86_32 --
extra-cflags=-I/home/kyle/software/ffmpeg/external-libraries/win32/include --ext
ra-ldflags=-L/home/kyle/software/ffmpeg/external-libraries/win32/lib --pkg-confi
g=pkg-config
  libavutil    50. 40. 1 / 50. 40. 1
  libavcodec   52.120. 0 / 52.120. 0
  libavformat  52.108. 0 / 52.108. 0
  libavdevice  52.  4. 0 / 52.  4. 0
  libavfilter   1. 79. 0 /  1. 79. 0
  libswscale    0. 13. 0 /  0. 13. 0
[mjpeg @ 0057D010] max_analyze_duration reached
[mjpeg @ 0057D010] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, mjpeg, from 'http://10.0.63.11/mjpg/video.mjpg':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0.0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p, 640x480 [PAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 25 fps, 25 t
br, 1200k tbn, 25 tbc
[ffsink @ 004A1940] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted scaler 0' between the f
ilter 'src' and the filter 'out'
[scale @ 004A1980] w:640 h:480 fmt:yuvj420p -> w:640 h:480 fmt:yuv420p flags:0x4

  74.85 A-V:  0.000 s:79.7 aq=    0KB vq=    0KB sq=    0B f=0/0   /0

The ffplay window comes up and plays video for a few seconds and then freezes! To me this means there is some incompatibility between ffmpeg (at least with the arguments we are supplying) and the Axis camera. This should be a good technique for finding if there are some additional parameters we can pass to ffmpeg to keep a stable stream coming. Any ffmpeg gurus out there that can suggest some params to try?

[jmllinger]

Our team is having the same kinds of problems. SmartDashboard crashes and camera feed issues. I don't know enough about either to do useful debug, but I did figure out how to get to the SmartDashboard source code. I've attached a document explaining how to use it from NetBeans. It may not be 100% correct, but should be enough to get you going. I don't know what version of source was used to build the 1.0.4 installer; it doesn't seem to be documented anywhere.... Hope someone can actually FIX the problem!

[jarruda]

I created a ticket for this on the FIRSTForge project for WPILib (albeit it appears to be a SmartDashboard project issue).

http://firstforge.wpi.edu/sf/go/artf...3608510482 20

Kevin O'Connor stated that the issue is known and a fix is in the works. It may help to make any camera setting changes you can to improve the frame rate form the camera, as the issue appears more often when the frame rate drops below 25fps. I noticed the feed is much smoother on the 1011 than the 206 when viewing from a browser.

The source is also available as part of the SmartDashboard code here (FIRSTForge account needed):
http://firstforge.wpi.edu/integratio...ystem=exsy1002

Once my team's code is complete I can dedicate some time to trying to debug the extension, but hopefully this will help anyone else experiencing the issue in the meantime.