Validating if APIs work on ZM

Please make sure you go through this before you wonder why zmNinja is not working.

Assumption: Your ZM server is accessible at http://server/zm -> replace this with your actual path

Make sure ZM APIs are working:

• Step 1: Open up a browser
• Step 2: Log into ZM
• Step 3: Open another tab in the same browser (IMPORTANT: Has to be from the same browser you logged into ZM)
• Step 4: Type in http://server/zm/api --> you should see a page with green bars. If you see red, your APIs are not working
• Step 5: Type in http://server/zm/api/host/getVersion.json --> you should see a response like:

{
    "version": "1.30.0",
    "apiversion": "1.0"
}

version/apiversion may be different. If you don't see such a response, your APIs are not working

• Step 6:make sure you can see monitors and events:

Type in http://server/zm/api/monitors.json --> you should see a response like:

{
    "monitors": [
        {
            "Monitor": {
                <lots of additional details>
            },
            <more monitor objects if you have more than one>
        }]
}

if you find the page empty, your APIs/permissions have a problem. Please post in the ZM forums (please DON'T contact me first as its not a zmNinja bug)

Type in http://server/zm/api/events.json --> you should see a response like: (this list may be an empty set if you don't have events but you will still see the {"events":[]} text - if you find the page empty, your APIs have a problem. Please post in the ZM forums (please DON'T contact me first, as its not a zmNinja bug)

{"events":[{"Event":{ <many more details> }}]}

Top reasons why monitors and events API returns blank while getVersion works:

• You don't have monitor/event view permissions allocated to the user
• You have an invalid camera definition (happens sometimes when you remove and re-add cameras)
• If you are using non UTF8 characters in your monitor names/zone names this can cause issues. Edit /usr/share/zoneminder/www/api/app/Config/database.php (assuming ZM is in /usr/share) and make sure 'encoding' => 'utf8' is uncommented (remove //) around line 74. I've submitted a patch but till its merged, you might have to do it manually.

zmNinja API notes:

• Please make sure the user credentials you use has:

• view or edit access to monitors
• view or edit access to streams
• view or edit access to system

• If you are accessing zmNinja remotely, make sure you first access ZM remotely from your desktop browser, ensure it works and then use the same DNS/IP for zmNinja

How to report errors

• I'm not a magician. I don't know why something is not working if you don't provide sufficient inputs. Enable debug logs in zmNinja Developer options and then email me the logs. Thats a good start.
• Its often hard to infer a problem especially when its due to some unique apache/nginx mungling you might have done but haven't told me about it. In such cases, try and give me remote access to your ZM for a day. Configure a limited user with just one monitor. It will save hours of frustration (mostly on my side). Thanks