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I am trying to set up a Raspberry Pi model B+ with PiCamera to be a security camera. Wifi connects to my home network, motion is installed, detecting motion and saving pictures, and I am able to send mail via ssmtp and Google's servers at smtp.google.com:587. You can see my setup here.

The problem is with the on_event_start and on_picture_save triggers, which do not seem to fire. on_event_start executes the command: mail -s "Motion detected" MYEMAILADDRESS </dev/null; that command works fine when I run it by hand, but is not run when motion is detected. on_picture_save executes the command: mpack -s "Patio door" %f [email protected]; that command works fine when I run it by hand, but is not run when a picture is saved. I know the setup is right because I have a working "Front door" security camera that I set up six months ago and it is still working properly.

Can anyone suggest what I might have missed when setting up the new camera?

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  • What does the command mail -s "Motion detected" MYEMAILADDRESS actually DO on your system, if you just put it in as a command line? (I'm assuming you have changed MYEMAILADDRESS to something sensible). Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 14:50
  • It sends me an email with an empty body. I forgot the redirection of </dev/null that creates the bulk body. Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 16:15
  • I have a similar problem. In my case, on_picture_save works but on_event_start doesn't... Commented Sep 23, 2015 at 13:25
  • @SteveRobillard Well it seems it's a bug as you can see in this Commented Sep 23, 2015 at 16:04
  • @clemtoy thanks for the quick response. I am going to leave the edit since user448810 is OK with it. I am also going to clean up the comment thread. Commented Sep 23, 2015 at 16:13

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I would test this by putting a simpler command in place of the mail & mpack commands - why not change the line to this: 

on_event_start : >~/Trigger1 # this just creates an empty file on_picture_save : >~/Trigger2

and see if these 2 files are generated when an event fires off?

Then you can test the actual real commands, by typing them into terminal, and see if a file does actually get sent; then copy the working line into the config file.

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  • I've already tested the actual real commands. They work fine from the command line. I suspect some permission issue that prevents motion from running the command. Commented Jun 17, 2015 at 16:18

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