Changing camera configuration on the fly in motion

[bamoore01]

I need to re-ask a question I asked earlier this year on the motion plus discussion. I got a little busy back then and am now re visiting that problem I have. The cameras that I have (IMX327 and IMX415 sensors) do not have the exposure range to cover bright daylight and night time light changes if they are left to automatically set the exposure settings. As a result I set the frame rate to a low value and set the exposure via libcamera_params based on a calculated brightness value of the picture. Each time I change the exposure, I modify the .conf file, kill the motionplus process and restart it. When I asked the question before, Mr-Dave sent me to an example link. That link is no longer valid but that may not matter much since I really did not understand what it was telling me at the time. I have been trying to figure out the web control commands to do this but nothing that I am doing seems to work.

Is there a better way to control motionplus than what I am doing? I ask this because in all of my searching for how to do this properly I read someplace that using the web control does pretty much what I'm doing already, change the conf parameters and restart motionplus. So if there is a better way, I'd appreciate some help and examples of how to get this done.

Also, is Motion V5 ready to use? I see that it replaces motionplus but I don't see that it has be published yet.

[Mr-Dave]

The following is an example of how to change configuration values. In this example, it is changing the framerate to be 12. The IP, port0 and camid would need to be changed to match your configuration. Once the command is submitted, the camera(s) specified will be restarted to implement the change.

curl -s -o -X POST {IP}:{port0} --data "camid={camid}" --data "command=config" --data "framerate=12" 1>/dev/null

Motion v5 is not released yet.

[bamoore01]

Thanks. With that I got it working - Kind a .

I can issue the command as follows to change the text_left or text_right and get the proper results;
curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080 --data "camid=101" --data "comand=config" --data "text_left=xxxs"
so I think my format and ip/port/camid values are correct.

But if I issue a command to change the framerate or ExposureTime, it seems to be ignored. Nothing happens
curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080 --data "camid=101" --data "comand=config" --data "framerate=12"
curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080 --data "camid=101" --data "comand=config" --data "ExposureTime=10"

If I use the any framerate or ExposureTime values in the .conf file, it works fine so the values are valid.

Also, if I try to use any of the conversion specifiers like %T or {fps} in the command string, they are ignored. I'm not sure if that is by design or not.

[Mr-Dave]

Note the typo in
curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080/ --data "camid=101" --data "comand=config" --data "framerate=12"
should be
'curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080/ --data "camid=101" --data "command=config" --data "framerate=12"`

Once I fixed that and ran the command I see that the camera was restarted with the new value.

As for the one using ExposureTime, that isn't a Motion configuration option so it won't do anything.

I haven't tested the specific specifiers you listed but some of them may need to be url encoded.

[lbr38]

Would a reload parameter be possible? For example

service motion reload # or systemctl reload motion

I'm in the same situation, and being able to reload the configuration would be a real plus, rather than stopping/restarting Motion (can take up to 8sec).

I will try the curl commands though, but I find it a bit archaic to edit a configuration like that, in my opinion.

[bamoore01]

Yea. the typo was just in the email, not the commands that I was doing. The framerate command does work for me. Not sure what was going on with my computer the other day that I could not get it to work. Probably trying too many things at once. I guess I was getting confused between the libcamera_params commands and the Motion configuration commands that can be sent via curl. Is there a list of the valid Motion commands someplace that can be sent via curl? I'm not sure what you are saying in the final sentence about the specifiers needing to be encoded in the url. I guess what I'm looking for is what Ludo is asking for. Reloading the conf file on the fly would be a great help.

…

On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM Ludo ***@***.***> wrote: Would a reload parameter be possible? For example service motion reload # or systemctl reload motion I'm in the same situation, and being able to reload the configuration would be a real plus, rather than stopping/restarting Motion (can take up to 8sec). I will try the curl commands though, but I find it a bit archaic to edit a configuration like that, in my opinion. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1922 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADXUTFMHGVWXNO7T27MKTKT4BKMUFAVCNFSM6AAAAACON234H6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTKMRTHEZDANA> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[Mr-Dave]

Hmmm...I did test it and saw that the framerate change worked on my computers....

All the Motion parameters can be adjusted. One of them is libcam_params and that one specifies all the configuration options for the libcamera device.
e.g. To set the exposure mode for libcam to long, it would be
'curl -s -o -X POST http://192.168.1.26:8080/ --data "camid=101" --data "command=config" --data "libcam_params=AeExposureMode%3D2"`

Note the %3D in the command this is the url encoding of = . When sending commands/data to the web interface, some data must be url encoded which is the default for the curl command. You may also be able to use different options for curl to do the url encoding but I've not investigated that.

I'd note that there an option to reload via signals. But that is likely to be slow too since it will restart everything not just the affected camera.

[bamoore01]

Thanks again for your help. I'm good now at running these commands from the command line prompt using curl. It works well. But.... I'm having a problem getting the curl command to work from python.

If I enter the command;
curl -s -o -X POST http:192.168.1.26:8080/ --data "camid=101" --data "command=config" --data "text_left=xxx"
followed by the curl restart command, everything works well.

But when I try to execute ethe same command from python using subprocess.run(), it fails. Fails meaning nothing changes.

a1 = ['curl', '-s', '-o', '-X', 'POST', 'http://192.168.1.26:8080/', '--data', '"camid=101"', '--data', '"command=config"', '--data', '"text_left=Nyyy"']
subprocess.run(a1)

a2 = ['curl', '-s', '-o', '-X', 'POST', 'http://192.168.1.26:8080/', '--data', '"camid=101"', '--data', '"command=restart"']
subprocess.run(a2)

I don't get any error messages back but I do get the following showing up in the mp.log file;

Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parseurl: Sent url: /
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parseurl: Decoded url: /
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parms_edit: camid: >< camindx: >-1< cmd1: >< cmd2: >< cmd3: ><
Dec 14 13:16:38 [INF][ALL][wc00] client_connect: Connection from: 192.168.1.26
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][ALL][wc00] hostname_get: Full Host: //192.168.1.26:8080
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][ALL][wc00] Above message repeats 1 times
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parse_cmd: key: "camid value: 101"
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parse_cmd: key: "command value: config"
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parse_cmd: key: "text_left value: Nyyy"
Dec 14 13:16:38 [ERR][ALL][wc00] parse_cmd: Invalid post request. No command
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parseurl: Sent url: /
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parseurl: Decoded url: /
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parms_edit: camid: >< camindx: >-1< cmd1: >< cmd2: >< cmd3: ><
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][ALL][wc00] hostname_get: Full Host: //192.168.1.26:8080
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][ALL][wc00] Above message repeats 1 times
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parse_cmd: key: "camid value: 101"
Dec 14 13:16:38 [DBG][STR][wc00] parse_cmd: key: "command value: restart"
Dec 14 13:16:38 [ERR][ALL][wc00] parse_cmd: Invalid post request. No command

It looks like the command is being sent but for some reason it not proper. Any suggestions?? I've tried

[bamoore01]

I did finally stumble on a way to make this work using subprocess.run(). The following script will give me the results I want. It simply changes the text on the lower left of the video stream to "yyy";

import subprocess
str = ["curl", "http://192.168.1.26:8080", "-s", "-o", "/dev/null", "-X", "POST"]
result = subprocess.run(str + ["-d", "camid=101", "-d", "command=config", "-d", "text_left=yyy"])
result = subprocess.run(str + ["-d", "camid=101", "-d", "command=restart"])

Thanks again for your help. But there is one more question. Is there a way to get return values from motionplus or libcamera of things like lux.

[Mr-Dave]

There isn't anything available to show the current configuration values of libcamera.