Camera blinks but doesn't record

Question

I am trying to start a stream on my Raspberry Pi Camera when I boot the Raspberry Pi. I have tried the following options:

1. Using crontab

   @reboot /home/pi/video.sh &

2. Using init.d Copied the script video.sh into init.d

3. Added following code to /etc/rc.local

   if [ $(tty) == /dev/tty1 ]; then

   /home/pi/video.sh &

   fi

I can also add that the script contain this:

raspivid -o - -t 0 -hf -w 640 -h 360 -fps 25 | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554}' :demux=h264

This string starts a continuous flow of data and start to stream from VLC. To watch the stream I start VLC, or as I do, start the HTML page I have created and enter the raspberry IP-address.

My guess is that when booting the Pi it runs the script, but after that stop or get terminated by another startup script, since the camera just blinks for a second then turn off.

Is there a way to make this script keep running even after startup?

Answer 1

I have now solved it.

My solution was to make a script the check if there are any processes named vlc, and if there are none it run the script that starts the stream. Then I added the followin to cron with crontab -e:

@reboot /home/pi/check.sh

The script itself contain the following code:

#!/bin/bash
pidof='pidof vlc'
if [[ -z $pidof ]]
then
        exit
else
        /home/pi/video.sh
fi
exit

video.sh contain the following string to start the stream:

raspivid -o - -t 0 -hf -w 640 -h 360 -fps 25 | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554}' :demux=h264 &

What I think may cause the problem I had was that when the Pi run scripts at startup, it just runs it, and when finnished it stop. That would explain why the camera blinked for about 1 second and then stopped.

Answer 2

Anything in /etc/rc.local should keep running after boot indefinitely. If it is crashing, you can make it restart automatically by putting it in a while loop:

#!/bin/sh
while true
do
    raspivid -o - -t 0 -hf -w 640 -h 360 -fps 25 | cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554}' :demux=h264
done

Answer 3

Most bootscripts run as root.
VLC doesn't allow that.
You should run vlc as normal user, maybe like so:

raspivid -o - -t 0 -hf -w 640 -h 360 -fps 25 |su pi -c "cvlc -vvv stream:///dev/stdin --sout '#rtp{sdp=rtsp://:8554}' :demux=h264"

or in /etc/crontab:

@rebootpi/home/pi/video.sh &

or in the /etc/rc.local:

if [ $(tty) == /dev/tty1 ]; then su pi -c "/home/pi/video.sh"& fi