PiCameraNotRecording exception when trying out PIR script

Question

So I was trying out this exact same script in this answer https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/a/46513 but when I tried to run it (for the second or third time) it gave me this exception:

Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 810, in __bootstrap_inner
self.run()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 763, in run
self.__target(*self.__args, **self.__kwargs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpiozero/mixins.py", line 509, in fill
self.parent._fire_events()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpiozero/mixins.py", line 327, in _fire_events
self._fire_deactivated()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gpiozero/mixins.py", line 306, in _fire_deactivated
self.when_deactivated()
File "PIRscript.py", line 24, in finish_video
camera.stop_recording()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py", line 1193, in stop_recording
'port %d' % splitter_port)
PiCameraNotRecording: There is no recording in progress on port 1

I rebooted my pi and tried starting up the script again, but I keep getting this error. This seems like it's because I don't close the camera anywhere, but I need to know

1. how do I handle this exception now i.e. how do I make this error go away?
2. how do I change my code to make it close the camera safely?

Answer 1

While I was never able to figure out how to integrate a safe camera-closing solution into that script, I ended up using a workaround which uses the functions pir.wait_for_motion() and pir.wait_for_no_motion() and the code looks something like this:

pir.wait_for_motion()
camera = PiCamera()
camera.start_preview()
camera.start_recording(video_name)
pir.wait_for_no_motion()
camera.stop_recording()
camera.stop_preview()
camera.close()