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Mavlink Camera Manager not appearing on QGC

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  • Eric KatzfeyE Eric Katzfey

    You can also run mavlink-camera-manager with the debug flag -d to show the protocol messages being transferred to QGC.

    Daniel RyuD Offline
    Daniel RyuD Offline
    Daniel Ryu
    Regular
    wrote on last edited by
    #8

    @Eric-Katzfey Here is my update regarding the Mavlink Camera Manager. I switched to QGC 3.5.6 (the latest does not in fact work with mavlink camera manager) and I was able to stream one camera using the mavlink camera manager, but only one camera at a time (no dropdown screen). I had all three cameras running simultaneously with voxl-streamer and mavlink-camera-manager, all with different ports and ids. Individually, I could stream each one to QGC, which would only show the first camera service that I would start up and not give me an option for switching to the others.

    Strange behavior: I had all three mavlink-camera-manager services running. I can only see the first camera I start on the QGC screen (lets say its hires, for this example). I then CTRL-C (stop) the mavlink-camera-manager process thats running the hires. However, the hires stream doesn't stop and continues streaming as normal. This continues until I stop all three mavlink-camera-manager services, which is when the QGC then shows a "Waiting for video" screen.

    Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.35.48 PM.png

    When i tried clicking the double boxes in the top left corner, the QGC went into a non-responsive state and I had to force quit QGC.

    Commands I ran and error messages I received

    Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.34.44 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.34.59 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.38.02 PM.png

    QGC error message (this was repeated multiple times when running more than one stream, up to 4):
    Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.36.19 PM.png

    Eric KatzfeyE 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • Daniel RyuD Daniel Ryu

      @Eric-Katzfey Here is my update regarding the Mavlink Camera Manager. I switched to QGC 3.5.6 (the latest does not in fact work with mavlink camera manager) and I was able to stream one camera using the mavlink camera manager, but only one camera at a time (no dropdown screen). I had all three cameras running simultaneously with voxl-streamer and mavlink-camera-manager, all with different ports and ids. Individually, I could stream each one to QGC, which would only show the first camera service that I would start up and not give me an option for switching to the others.

      Strange behavior: I had all three mavlink-camera-manager services running. I can only see the first camera I start on the QGC screen (lets say its hires, for this example). I then CTRL-C (stop) the mavlink-camera-manager process thats running the hires. However, the hires stream doesn't stop and continues streaming as normal. This continues until I stop all three mavlink-camera-manager services, which is when the QGC then shows a "Waiting for video" screen.

      Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.35.48 PM.png

      When i tried clicking the double boxes in the top left corner, the QGC went into a non-responsive state and I had to force quit QGC.

      Commands I ran and error messages I received

      Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.34.44 PM.png
      Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.34.59 PM.png
      Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.38.02 PM.png

      QGC error message (this was repeated multiple times when running more than one stream, up to 4):
      Screen Shot 2021-09-02 at 3.36.19 PM.png

      Eric KatzfeyE Offline
      Eric KatzfeyE Offline
      Eric Katzfey
      ModalAI Team
      wrote on last edited by
      #9

      @Daniel-Ryu I'm going to have to resurrect my development station to look into this. The mavlink camera manager doesn't actually do any streaming. It's job is to just run the mavlink camera protocol to allow you to easily connect to a stream coming from voxl-streamer (or other application). Can you show the output of the mavlink camera manager application(s) when the debug "-d" option is used? That will show the protocol messages being transferred between the GCS and Voxl.

      Daniel RyuD 1 Reply Last reply
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      • Eric KatzfeyE Eric Katzfey

        @Daniel-Ryu I'm going to have to resurrect my development station to look into this. The mavlink camera manager doesn't actually do any streaming. It's job is to just run the mavlink camera protocol to allow you to easily connect to a stream coming from voxl-streamer (or other application). Can you show the output of the mavlink camera manager application(s) when the debug "-d" option is used? That will show the protocol messages being transferred between the GCS and Voxl.

        Daniel RyuD Offline
        Daniel RyuD Offline
        Daniel Ryu
        Regular
        wrote on last edited by Daniel Ryu
        #10

        @Eric-Katzfey

        Hires, stereo, tracking mavlink-camera-manager debug outputs (in this order). All three are running at the same time:
        Screen Shot 2021-09-03 at 12.39.55 PM.png

        Screen Shot 2021-09-03 at 12.40.04 PM.png

        Screen Shot 2021-09-03 at 12.40.13 PM.png

        Voxl-streamer debug output for hires (only hires had updated debug output, other voxl-streamers only had the standard bootup debug)
        Screen Shot 2021-09-03 at 12.40.33 PM.png

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        • Eric KatzfeyE Offline
          Eric KatzfeyE Offline
          Eric Katzfey
          ModalAI Team
          wrote on last edited by
          #11

          Okay, thanks! That shows, at least, a mavlink protocol session has been initiated with the mavlink-camera-manager. The camera protocol is documented here: https://mavlink.io/en/services/camera.html. The mavlink-camera-manager module is implementing a portion of that protocol. When it first connects there should be a flurry of protocol messages going back and forth. Once things are setup then it is just heartbeat messages as you see in the debug output above. So the key part of the debug output is the very beginning.

          Daniel RyuD 1 Reply Last reply
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          • Eric KatzfeyE Eric Katzfey

            Okay, thanks! That shows, at least, a mavlink protocol session has been initiated with the mavlink-camera-manager. The camera protocol is documented here: https://mavlink.io/en/services/camera.html. The mavlink-camera-manager module is implementing a portion of that protocol. When it first connects there should be a flurry of protocol messages going back and forth. Once things are setup then it is just heartbeat messages as you see in the debug output above. So the key part of the debug output is the very beginning.

            Daniel RyuD Offline
            Daniel RyuD Offline
            Daniel Ryu
            Regular
            wrote on last edited by
            #12

            @Eric-Katzfey Where can I go from here then, to be able to swap streams from a dropdown menu in QGC?

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • Eric KatzfeyE Offline
              Eric KatzfeyE Offline
              Eric Katzfey
              ModalAI Team
              wrote on last edited by
              #13

              Look at the beginning of the debug output from mavlink-camera-manager. Do you see anything besides the heartbeat / ping messages? If so, can you paste that here?

              Daniel RyuD 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • Eric KatzfeyE Eric Katzfey

                Look at the beginning of the debug output from mavlink-camera-manager. Do you see anything besides the heartbeat / ping messages? If so, can you paste that here?

                Daniel RyuD Offline
                Daniel RyuD Offline
                Daniel Ryu
                Regular
                wrote on last edited by
                #14

                @Eric-Katzfey

                Screen Shot 2021-09-09 at 9.17.48 AM.png

                Screen Shot 2021-09-09 at 9.48.55 AM.png

                Screen Shot 2021-09-09 at 9.49.34 AM.png

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                • J Offline
                  J Offline
                  jaredjohansen
                  Regular
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #15

                  @Eric-Katzfey , we got it working. The secret we were missing was our MAV_SYS_ID was not set to 1, which, apparently, is what this capability expects. Thanks!

                  Eric KatzfeyE 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • J jaredjohansen

                    @Eric-Katzfey , we got it working. The secret we were missing was our MAV_SYS_ID was not set to 1, which, apparently, is what this capability expects. Thanks!

                    Eric KatzfeyE Offline
                    Eric KatzfeyE Offline
                    Eric Katzfey
                    ModalAI Team
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #16

                    @jaredjohansen Great! Glad to hear it!

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • wilkinsafW Offline
                      wilkinsafW Offline
                      wilkinsaf
                      ModalAI Team
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #17

                      We are facing a similar issue. Is it correct to say there is not one singular service on VOXL that will automatically stream all cameras to QGC?

                      We have to write our own script for it correct?

                      Daniel RyuD 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • wilkinsafW wilkinsaf

                        We are facing a similar issue. Is it correct to say there is not one singular service on VOXL that will automatically stream all cameras to QGC?

                        We have to write our own script for it correct?

                        Daniel RyuD Offline
                        Daniel RyuD Offline
                        Daniel Ryu
                        Regular
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #18

                        @wilkinsaf Way we handled it was creating our own services/scripts for streaming to QGC automatically with mavlink-camera-manager. Hope it helps

                        wilkinsafW 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • Daniel RyuD Daniel Ryu

                          @wilkinsaf Way we handled it was creating our own services/scripts for streaming to QGC automatically with mavlink-camera-manager. Hope it helps

                          wilkinsafW Offline
                          wilkinsafW Offline
                          wilkinsaf
                          ModalAI Team
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #19

                          @Daniel-Ryu

                          I figured. We just wanted to double check that this was the case. Thank you!

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