Webcam Issues

[no2498]

ah cheese it not working well now days
im not much better off than you
you need some thing to see the cam in/on not cheese or skype
try the cam in ekiga softphone
not that you need to use it in it
we just need to get the cam on/up so it comes on

[arpoodle]

I've had similar issues.
Dell Latitude E6400
Linux 2.6.31-20-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 12 05:23:09 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

Webcam was working fine until a couple of days ago.
gstreamer-properties shows 4 options for video:
- test input
- video for linux (v4l)
- video for linux2 (v4l2)
- Custom

None of them work, with the error
"cannot identify device '/dev/video[]'"

As I'd run gstreamer-properties from the command line, I've got some more verbose error messages there:

:/dev$ sudo gstreamer-properties
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'artsdsink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'esdsink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'glimagesink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'sdlvideosink'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'v4lmjpegsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'qcamsrc'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Skipping unavailable plugin 'esdmon'
gstreamer-properties-Message: Error running pipeline 'Video for Linux (v4l)': Device "/dev/video0" does not exist. [v4l_calls.c(168): gst_v4l_open (): /GstPipeline:pipeline0/GstV4lSrc:v4lsrc2]
gstreamer-properties-Message: Error running pipeline 'Video for Linux 2 (v4l2)': Cannot identify device '/dev/video0'. [v4l2_calls.c(482): gst_v4l2_open (): /GstPipeline:pipeline1/GstV4l2Src:v4l2src4:
system error: No such file or directory]

It's proving a pain, since I work from home and use the cam for videoconferencing both with skype and other apps.

[no2498]

i have seen this file but cant find it on the computer and know i installed it

it looks like the file you need for skype

this is not it but looks like
lib v4l so v4l2 so

you may get by with the same file they use in skype
take skype out and put in cheese

btw cheese has all the settings for webcams now days

so you may need to go bug cheese

[hopkinsjeni]

Ok,
so I have tried using Ekiga, as recommended by one of these replies, it didn't work, the program stopped responding as soon as I tried to view webcam.
I am still absolutely clueless, any other advice out there?
Jeni

[no2498]

can you find and install guvcvideo,xawtv

look in the usb see if you have had any bad unmounts

[hopkinsjeni]

I can't fidn the file you suggested and I haven't had any bad unmounts as far as I know

[no2498]

look in the system, administration, synaptic package manager, type in, webcam

[hopkinsjeni]

Couldn't find that package in the list. I feel I am being very blonde about this whole thing, there must be something simple i am missing

[no2498]

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so cheese

see if that helps with cheese
open a terminal copy and past it

then look for this in synaptic
libv4l/v4l1compat.so

or this
libv4l/v4l2compat.so

[hopkinsjeni]

jeni@dell-desktop:~$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so cheese
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.
** Message: Error: Stream contains no data.
gsttypefindelement.c(742): gst_type_find_element_activate (): /play/decodebin0/typefind:
Can't typefind empty stream

** Message: Error: Could not determine type of stream.
gsttypefindelement.c(757): gst_type_find_element_activate (): /play/decodebin0/typefind

totem-video-thumbnailer couldn't open file 'file:///home/jeni/.gnome2/cheese/media/0004.ogg'
Reason: Stream contains no data..

** (cheese:13488): WARNING **: could not load /home/jeni/.gnome2/cheese/media/0004.ogg (application/ogg)



Any Ideas??