(Solved - ish)Webcam and new kernel

[sjhstorm]

Got everything fairly sorted with the new kernel except my web cam (microsoft VX1000). It worked quite well under Hardy (except no microphone), now lsusb recognises it but skype and kopete says none installed. Mind you on the plus side the web cam microphone works.

Any thoughts as I was hoping the new kernel had better support for web cams.

Steve

[dibl]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

A quick experiment last night with Camorama -- it goes straight for /dev/video0 which is my Hauppauge PVR-150 (which I don't use any more) and it won't look at the USB bus where my Logitech Quickcam is. Prolly I'll just pull the PVR-150 out of my box.

[sjhstorm]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

Not sure what is wrong, lsusb shows the cam correctly, lsmod shows driver, it's just that no application can see it. wondering if it's v4l1 / v4l2 implementation in the kernel. I'll have a play when I get back home and report if I find anything useful.

[sjhstorm]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

This seems to be the problem, must be new kernel as I tried Suse 11.1 beta today with the same results

dmesg - result:
[ 318.096282] usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 318.254802] usb 6-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 318.259737] usb 6-1: SN9C105 PC Camera Controller detected (vidid 0x045E:0x00F7)
[ 318.382372] usb 6-1: No supported image sensor detected for this bridge

any ideas ??

[dibl]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

Bummer. If it's not detected, then there's not much hope from playing with drivers.

I thought I read somewhere that the gspca driver had been updated, but this looks more like a kernel problem than a driver.

[sjhstorm]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

Hi dibl

Yes it certainly seems to be a regression in the kernel, have pasted lsmod and lsusb outputs below:

steve@Dell:~$ lsmod | grep video
video 25104 0
output 11008 1 video
videodev 41344 1 sn9c102
v4l1_compat 22404 1 videodev

steve@Dell:~$ lsusb
Bus 006 Device 004: ID 045e:00f7 Microsoft Corp. LifeCam VX-1000.
Bus 006 Device 003: ID 03f0:1411 Hewlett-Packard PSC 750
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 0644:0200 TEAC Corp.
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:2003 Dell Computer Corp. Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. M-UV69a/HP M-UV96 Optical WheelMouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Just hope they get this sorted as I would think many other must be having this problem

[sjhstorm]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

After having a little google this could have something to do with it

http://mirror.celinuxforum.org/gitst...09b3a7d63715d1

[dibl]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

Bummer -- I think you're waiting for a kernel fix. Hopefully it won't be a long wait.

[3vi1]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

After seeing your messages, I dug out my cams and tested:

QuickCam Express: Worked fine in 8.04 (and tested fine with one early 8.10 Alpha), but no longer. It's recognized by lsusb, and some apps like Kopete will show garbage coming from it. Camorama and others show nothing, generating spurious errors that /dev/video0 doesn't exist when I can see it does and that I have the proper authority to it.

QuickCam Pro 9000: Works normally.

It looks to me, too, like there's been some sort of kernel regression affected certain cam hardware.

[sjhstorm]

Re: Webcam and new kernel

I think we could do with a new list of cams that work under the .27 kernel. although this could be quite expensive buying a new cam every time a new kernel comes out.

Having three daughters at university who constantly contact me on skype, I'm having to keep switching back to Vista (5 times last night) and I would much prefer to remain in Kubuntu.

I'll start the list:

Microsoft VX1000 Cam= No Mic= Yes

[sjhstorm]

(Solved-ish)Re: Webcam and new kernel

First the good news as per https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/280657

The web cam is now working, you need to download the patch and compile http://linuxtv.org/hg/~jfrancois/gsp...ve/tip.tar.bz2

Now the bad news, the built in microphone does not work so I am now back to the position I was in Hardy. One day (I hope soon) there will be no need to boot windows (apart from the odd game).

I tested the cam with cheese and skype (working) Kopete (not working)

hope this helps.

[dibl]

Re: (Solved - ish)Webcam and new kernel

I pulled my PVR-150 card a month or so back, but the webcam still doesn't work. It is a Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX. It shows up on the USB bus like this:

Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:08d7 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Communicate STX

But camorama crashes when I try to run it, and ekiga won't recognize it either. I downloaded and attempted to install the patch linked above, but after compiling it appeared to fail at the ".install" phase. After restarting my system, camorama still crashes the same way. I'll take a look at the mxhaard site later -- if I can ID the module that is needed for this webcam, maybe it's in that patch, and maybe I can hand load it now.


EDIT: Here's the end of a longer story than I want to write here. After installing the above mentioned patch:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libv4l-0
$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so camorama

where "camorama" can also be "ekiga" or whatever. To make it easy on myself, I wrote a little bash script and saved it in my user folder:

#!/bin/bash
# run ekiga with webcam working on kernel 2.6.27
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so ekiga

#end

[Guest]

Re: (Solved - ish)Webcam and new kernel

Thanks dibl, your post helped me.

I have Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX

Bus 005 Device 005: ID 046d:08d7 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Communicate STX

Kubuntu distro:

Linux desktop 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Nov 4 19:33:06 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

lsmod | grep video returns:

video         28948 0
output         11776 1 video
videodev        46720 2 gspca_main,compat_ioctl32
v4l1_compat      24580 1 videodev

After playing with gspca modules I left the default gspca_zc3xx in kernel module.

Camorama work well with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so, Skype still not, hope to solve it too.

If anyone wants some more details, don't hesitate to write me

[joiner]

Re: (Solved - ish)Webcam and new kernel

I have this web cam, where do i put the codes in ? do i open the terminal and type the lines in

[dibl]

Re: (Solved - ish)Webcam and new kernel

Yep, the easiest way is Alt-F2 and enter "konsole" with no quote marks. Then paste in these lines, one at a time, and press "Enter" at the end of each line pasted into the konsole:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libv4l-0
$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so camorama

If you didn't already install camorama, then you'll have to sudo

apt-get install camorama

before you do that last line above.