cheese does not display webcam picture

[iSmith]

Binary package hint: cheese

When I try to open up cheese it does not display the picture from the webcam, even though the webcam light is on.( on ubuntu 8.10, all the latest patches )

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it without more information.

Please include the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingHardwareDetection as separate attachments.

Also, do you know if the webcam works in Ubuntu at all (like with skype or another video conferencing or streaming application)? Thanks in advance.

[iSmith (ismith-user)]

It is only cheese that is affected, even after a reinstall of cheese. Skype can detect video from the webcam.

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

Do you have any other applications open that are (or could be) using the webcam? I don't think cheese will show the video/picture if something else is using the camera. If you do have other programs open (like skype), close them AND cheese, then re-open cheese.

[iSmith (ismith-user)]

No cheese is the only program using the webcam. I tried camorama also, it says it cannot connect to /dev/video0. Both programs generate no error messages in the system logs or when launched from terminal.

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

I can confirm this happening to me. The webcam works great with Skype or with xawtv.
Cheese will not show any image, although the webcam led is ON.
I also confirm Cheese has problem on closing: it freezes and I need to force it to close.

Of course no other program is using the webcam at the same moment.

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

Same problem occurs with gstreamer-properties when testing the video input, so it seems not depending upon cheese, but sounds like a matter of GStreamer.

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

It seems this bug was also filed in the original Gstreamer bugzilla:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=556947

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

iSmith, can you please include the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingHardwareDetection as separate attachments as I requested earlier. Thank you.

[ethana2 (ethana2)]

I have this problem after attempting to change the webcam resolution. It hangs before even erasing the combo box menu.

Cheese in unusable on this 8.10 install, which is unfortunate because this is the first time it has indicated that my webcam is capable of its 1600x1200 resolution.

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

Confirming ethana2:
a freeze occurs also when you try to change resolution. I suppose it's
the same background problem.

Il giorno ven, 24/10/2008 alle 23.32 +0000, ethana2 ha scritto:

> I have this problem after attempting to change the webcam resolution.
> It hangs before even erasing the combo box menu.
>
> Cheese in unusable on this 8.10 install, which is unfortunate because
> this is the first time it has indicated that my webcam is capable of its
> 1600x1200 resolution.
>

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

Ricompiling uvcvideo kernel module from svn ( http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/#download ) fixed it.
With the SVN uvcvideo module Cheese works normally, except for resolution selection:
trying to change the resolution will not give any result and the size of the image will remain the same.

[marcosdsanchez (marcosdsanchez)]

I have the same problem ( Bug #287607 )

[Samir (samir-i)]

Unfortunately, recompiling fresh uvcvideo driver from SVN didnt solve this one for me.

My camera (Sanyo W33SA) worked fine in Hardy, it even seems to be working fine in Intrepid when using Ekiga and luvcview. No go in gstreamer apps (cheese).

Could this be a gstreamer bug?

Seems there are regressions with gstreamer and some other webcam drivers concerning the integration with libv4l library (format conversion library recently introduced). Maybe same stuff happens here with uvcvideo / gstreamer / libv4l combination?

[legodude (legodude)]

I have what I consider a similar problem with Cheese.

I have a Thinkpad X200 with integrated camera:
[ 7.954991] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 8.004421] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (17ef:480c)
[ 8.005240] input: UVC Camera (17ef:480c) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.7/usb4/4-6/4-6:1.0/input/input7
[ 8.005267] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[ 8.005269] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)

With 8.10 Beta, Cheese worked perfectly with my system.

I have since upgraded to 8.10 RC and Cheese will now load, turn on the video light, but not display any picture. In preferences it seems to detect the camera fine, and even lists the supported resolutions. Running "cheese -v" does not display any output.

When closing Cheese, it crashes and has to be force-halted.

[Michele Costantino Soccio (michelinux)]

That's exactly what I experience.
legodude, could you please try to launch gstreamer-properties and check whether the video input is working with it?

Il giorno gio, 30/10/2008 alle 02.17 +0000, legodude ha scritto:

> I have what I consider a similar problem with Cheese.
>
> I have a Thinkpad X200 with integrated camera:
> [ 7.954991] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
> [ 8.004421] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (17ef:480c)
> [ 8.005240] input: UVC Camera (17ef:480c) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.7/usb4/4-6/4-6:1.0/input/input7
> [ 8.005267] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
> [ 8.005269] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)
>
> With 8.10 Beta, Cheese worked perfectly with my system.
> I have since upgraded to 8.10 RC and Cheese will now load, turn on the
> video light, but not display any picture. In preferences it seems to
> detect the camera fine, and even lists the supported resolutions.
> Running "cheese -v" does not display any output.
>
> When closing Cheese, it crashes and has to be force-halted.
>

[vinlos (vincenzo-losito)]

To restore the correct webcam behaviour try to do the following commands:

$sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo
$sudo modprobe uvcvideo

It will work to restore the webcam in other application (such as skype), but if you run again Cheese, it will be necessary to do again the previous commands.

[legodude (legodude)]

Michele and vinlos,
gstreamer-properties will display video. If I then try out cheese it will not work, as expected. If I then try gstreamer-properties again, it will act like it is displaying the video, but not show anything. I think have to reload the driver as suggested by vinlos.

mike

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

Thanks for your bug report, This seem to be a a dup for bug#290506. Any further comments are welcomed in bug #290506.

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

@Michelle, you've been hit by another bug. The bug that applies to you is bug #287888, thanks for you input don't hesitate on put more information there.

This bug it's a gstreamer/cheese problem.

Thanks