FAQ

Everything works! but live streaming does not - either in ZoneMinder or ZMNinja

Check if streaming works in the web interface. If it does not work, zmNinja won't work either. Fix ZM first

Everything works! but live streaming does not in ZMNinja (works in ZoneMinder)

Go to zmNinja settings and fix your cgi-bin path. the automatic path that is filled in won't work. Here is a hint, go to zoneminder->options->paths and check the value of the cgi-bin path - your zmNinja path will be "base path of your server" + cgi-bin path.

I use self signed certificates with SSL and zmNinja auth doesn't work! (works with http)

1. You need to make sure the common name used while generating the cert is the same as the hostname you specify in zmNinja
2. You need to make sure you import the SSL cert into your phone (if you are using the mobile app).

Please read [this] (https://github.com/pliablepixels/zmNinja/blob/master/docs/SSL-Configuration.md)

I have 20 monitors but zmNinja only shows 10

Go to developer settings - increase the limit.

It doesn't work

It does. If you need more help, please enable Debug Logs (Developer Settings) then please look at the logs and let me know what you see.

My events is stale

Tap on the "..." menu option and tap refresh. Alternately, exit events view, load another view, and go back to events.

I'm using mocord/record and I don't see events without alarms

Tap on the "..." menu option and toggle "Show all events". By default, it shows events with at least one alarm frame

I've configured multiple users in ZoneMinder with restricted access but even restricted users can access everything in zmNinja

The APIs don't support user roles yet. I'm working on enhancing the APIs to support roles - it works in my local version (as of Dec 9 2015). When I merge the patch zmNinja will automatically work with roles.

The Timeline is useless for me. Why only 200 last events?

But it looks really cool, doesn't it?

The timeline uses vis.js which renders all events to the DOM at once. It doesn't have the ability for partial rendering triggered on scroll. This means its very expensive and based on my testing more than 200 slows down a mobile device and depending on your desktop speed, you can crank it to 500+ (or more for a more powerful server). You can change the setting of # of events in Developer Settings and experiment

Pan/Tilt/Zoom doesn't work

I don't use PTZ myself, so I've been lazy in testing it. What I have tested so far is Pan works for cameras that support move/moveCon. Tilt/Zoom/Presets support has not been added.

But for this to work, PTZ needs to work in ZM first. Once it works in ZM, try it in ZMNinja.

I'll add all the other features one day. Not today. Friday, likely.

What is this Event Server

The Event Server is a contribution I made to ZoneMinder that adds a daemon to the existing list. It listens for new events using shared memory (aka very efficient) and then sends notifications of events to listeners (you can write your own app that listen as well as use zmNinja). This is a chapter on its own, and I have a dedicated page/project for this here. I'd encourage you to install and use it - its very nice.

I am using your event server. I get push notifications to my desktop apps, but not my iPhone/Android phone

Both Apple and Android require that only trusted "servers" can push notifications to your phone. By "trusted", they mean the server needs to use the same SSL certificates that zmNinja uses. That way they can make sure only the author of the app can send the app messages. This makes a lot of sense, because otherwise anyone could spam your phone.

What this means is that you need to enable "usePushProxy" in the event server and have it point to my public push server. If you install the event server, this is enabled by default. If it is not working, check your ZM logs (not ZMNinja) to see if zmeventserver is complaining about anything

It looks like you allow me to modify the frequency of push notifications. Very cool - will it send me all events that I missed if I make the frequency of a monitor event push to say, 600 seconds?

Nope. It only sends the latest events. What it does is before sending push notifications, it checks if the last time a push was sent for this monitor is < the time you specified. If it is, it does not send. That's all.

Oooh. I have 20 cameras and I have 15 phones. I've registered push on all of them and I love getting notifications

Awesome. Happy you liked it. But please help me by configuring zones properly so you don't keep routing a huge number of false alarms to my server. Its running in a VM in an iMac and I'd appreciate you tuning your intervals and zones so my server doesn't die.

Is this free

The source code is free, grab it, compile it, use it. The desktop ports are free as of today. I may charge for it some day. The mobile ports will be uploaded to the Appstore/Playstore for a fee.

Who are the developers behind this?

Me.

Is zmNinja an official ZoneMinder product?

No. But the ZM developers are amazing people who have been very helpful.

I want to donate money

I'd strongly encourage you to donate to to Zoneminder. They need funds much more than I do as ZoneMinder is a very complex product. If you have already, or would still like to donate to zmNinja, let me know and I'll set up a donation page (which I don't have now).

I want to donate time/expertise/code

Great. Make sure you read the license , read the contributing guidelines and if it works for you, happy to see what you'd like to do.