Update to libv4l killed skype webcam

[Paul Abrahams]

I'm running Skype under Kubuntu Meerkat on an Asus K60IJ laptop -- a 64bit environment. Until a few weeks ago, the video webcam test worked for me, but now it doesn't.. I can't be sure about the date when it stopped working, but I did discover that the libv4l package was updated on January 27 -- which well might be the dividing line between when it worked and when it doesn't.

Many people have reported problems with Skype video in the forums. The universally recommended solution is to run it like this:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l2convert.so /usr/bin/skype

and the reports I've seen suggest that this should work. But when I do that and run the video test, I get:

pwa@Asus-laptop:~$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l2convert.so /usr/bin/skype
Segmentation fault

I have two different webcams attached, and neither of them works with Skype, though they both work with cheese. I've also tried running Skype in a Kubuntu 10.10 32-bit environment under VirtualBox -- and there the video test works as it should. So the problem is specific to the 64-bit environment, and probably relates to some 32-bit versus 64-bit mismatch.