Motion shows grey screen on cam libcamera sees

[DifferentComputers]

I'm running Motion version 5.0.0-git-20250515-462b701 on a Raspberry Pi running bookworm. Though the web interface says version 4.7.0.

Linux dash 6.12.25+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.25-1+rpt1 (2025-04-30) aarch64 GNU/Linux

My connected camera is the Arducam 8mp IMX219
dash:~/libcamera $ libcamera-hello [0:27:15.092113375] [1219] ERROR IPAModule ipa_module.cpp:171 Symbol ipaModuleInfo not found [0:27:15.092320874] [1219] ERROR IPAModule ipa_module.cpp:291 v4l2-compat.so: IPA module has no valid info [0:27:15.092466811] [1219] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:326 libcamera v0.5.0+59-d83ff0a4 [0:27:15.212755816] [1222] WARN RPiSdn sdn.cpp:40 Using legacy SDN tuning - please consider moving SDN inside rpi.denoise [0:27:15.218705949] [1222] INFO RPI vc4.cpp:447 Registered camera /base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx219@10 to Unicam device /dev/media0 and ISP device /dev/media1 [0:27:15.218949073] [1222] INFO RPI pipeline_base.cpp:1121 Using configuration file '/usr/share/libcamera/pipeline/rpi/vc4/rpi_apps.yaml'
and in case it's usful
[0:27:15.224377645] [1219] INFO Camera camera.cpp:1205 configuring streams: (0) 1640x1232-YUV420 (1) 1640x1232-SBGGR10_CSI2P [0:27:15.225842952] [1222] INFO RPI vc4.cpp:622 Sensor: /base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/imx219@10 - Selected sensor format: 1640x1232-SBGGR10_1X10 - Selected unicam format: 1640x1232-pBAA
Motion apparently knows the camera is there, but just gives me a grey screen and no configuration options in the web UI

How can I make the camera work with Motion?

I've already tried 'libcamerify motion' and no change.

[DifferentComputers]

Log tells me waiting for camera to be added via web config, but there is no camera in the web config to be added.

[NTC][ALL][mo00] process: Processing config file /etc/motion/motion.conf
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set: Unknown config option "setup_mode"
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set_depr: "video_device" replaced with "v4l2_device" after version 5.0.0
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set_depr: "movie_codec" replaced with "movie_container" after version 5.0.0
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set: Unknown config option "DASHmovie"
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set: Unknown config option "stream_port"
[ALR][ALL][mo00] edit_set: Unknown config option "stream_localhost"
[ERR][ALL][mo00] myfopen: Error opening file /var/log/motion/motion.log with mode ae: Permission denied
[EMG][ALL][mo00] set_log_file: Cannot create log file /var/log/motion/motion.log: Permission denied
[NTC][ALL][mo00] mytranslate_init: Language: English
[NTC][ALL][mo00] pid_write: Motion pid: 1246
[NTC][ENC][mo00] av_init: libavcodec  version 59.37.100
[NTC][ENC][mo00] av_init: libavformat version 59.27.100
[NTC][STR][mo00] startup: Starting webcontrol on port 8080
[NTC][STR][mo00] start_daemon_port1: Started webcontrol on port 8080
[NTC][ALL][mo00] init: No camera or sound configuration files specified.
[NTC][ALL][mo00] init: Waiting for camera or sound configuration to be added via web control.`

[RWL-69]

I am still using motion 4.x but I am seeing that the format of the configuration file for version 5 is different according to your posted logs. I checked and the latest official release is 4.7.

From the messages about the motion.log files, I am thinking it could be a permission error. I ran into that in the past. Needed to manually start motion with sudo.

[ERR][ALL][mo00] myfopen: Error opening file /var/log/motion/motion.log with mode ae: Permission denied

[NTC][ALL][mo00] init: No camera or sound configuration files specified.

Says that there is no camera to communicate with which is a configuration issue and may be related to the differences in configuration between 4.x and 5.x versions.

Can you communicate with the camera with ffplay? If so, then read the documentation for version 5 and see what has changed. Usually the default config files have worked for me as a great starting point. In most cases, just adding the correct camera info to the original config file.

[arbeaman]

Make sure /var/log/motion, as well as all of the files in that folder, are owned by motion. The log file permission error is likely because something is owned by root, preventing it from writing log information. Once the permissions are fixed, you can check /var/log/motion/motion.log for additional error information. To get more information in the log, set log_level 8 in your config file. I also recommend checking and /var/lib/motion and making sure it and all files within are also owned by motion, not root.

No camera or sound configuration files specified means you are missing a camera parameter in your config file. A camera parameter and a separate camera config file are required for each camera you are using. A single camera can no longer just be in the main motion.conf file. Create a file /var/lib/motion/camera1.conf and make sure your /var/lib/motion/motion.conf includes camera /var/lib/motion/camera1.conf. These separate config files are how motion version 5 determines how many cameras it needs to handle. There are example camera config files loaded by motion in the default config folder. The above assumes you are using the motion V5 default directory and name for the config files. If you are using a different directory or names, change the information above accordingly.

With motion version 5 you no longer need libcamerify. You can use libcam_device camera0 as your camera and it will access the camera via libcamera. camera0 is the only option for the camera name with libcamera. This should be in the camera config file.

I had to run sudo usermod -Ag i2c motion to give motion the ability to access the i2c bus. Without this, motion cannot see any libcamera cameras.