Skype cannot find webcam on amd64

[wvengen]

Skype does not detect a webcam, even though Cheese is working correctly.

First thing was that gstreamer1.0-plugins-good wasn't installed, which provides the video4linux2 gstreamer elements. Skype doesn't seem to depend on this.

After installing this, it still doesn't work, though gstreamer does:

    $ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-tools:i386
    $ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep v4l
    $ sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0-plugins-good:i386
    $ gst-inspect-1.0 | grep v4l
    video4linux2: v4l2src: Video (video4linux2) Source
    video4linux2: v4l2sink: Video (video4linux2) Sink
    video4linux2: v4l2radio: Radio (video4linux2) Tuner
    video4linux2: v4l2deviceprovider (GstDeviceProviderFactory)
    $ gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src ! xvimagesink
    (... shows window with a webcam image ... press Ctrl-C ...)
    $ dpkg -l | grep skype
    ii skype 4.3.0.37-1 i386 Wherever you are, wherever they are

[wvengen (wvengen)]

It turned out to be an apparmor profile that restricted reading /dev. Skype needs to be able to enumerate /dev to find a webcam.

Even though Skype is linked with gstreamer, it doesn't require gstreamer1.0-plugins-good for accessing the webcam.
Sorry for the buzz. Hope this might help someone else.