[SOLVED] Skype green video

[lian1238]

Hi,

My skype video used to work before. Before Ibex and even after installing Ibex. But now, it's just a green video (from my webcam). In cheese, everything works fine.

This is the model of webcam:
ID 0ac8:303b Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. ZC0303 WebCam

There appears to be a workaround. The command is:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

But I get the following error:

ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.

[antiplex]

i have a completely different webcam model (logitech) but i also get a green and interference-like-looking picture when using it through skype while with cheese everything works fine.

after trying around a little i found this thread on skype-forums quite helpful; its about using a user-space webcam driver calles 'gstfakevideo'.
this may be a solution rather for the little more experienced user and not really beginners, so be careful and use on your own risk!

it works like a charm in my case although with this, everything a bit more complicated than just starting skype. but if you know how to write simple shell-scripts, it shouldn't be a big hazzle...

oh, note that the green-image was in my case there from the beginning!

regards, anti

[justin212k]

Hi, my webcam (creative PD1110, 041e:401c Creative Technology, Ltd WebCam NX [PD1110]) also works fine in cheese (and xawtv), but shows a green staticky screen in skype. looks like your v4l1 library wasn't in lib32:

The command is:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

But I get the following error:

ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded: ignored.

mine wasn't either. Try

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

That found the library, but didn't fix the green screen problem - I'm still working on that. Good luck.

[davidmaxwaterman]

I found this.

Worked for me, but I had to *remove* the LD_LIBRARY_PATH thing mentioned above (which I had been trying) - else it still didn't work.

HTH.

[lian1238]

davidmaxwaterman, thanks for the link. Glad it worked for you. But in my config.xml file, I don't have a Video section. Did you add it or was it there. Could you tell me its relative position? (Above/below what)

I tried putting it below SoundDevice, then I restarted skype. The testing showed only green. When I was in a call, skype crashed after a few seconds, and video was still green.

Edit: I turned compiz off already.

[davidmaxwaterman]

davidmaxwaterman, thanks for the link. Glad it worked for you. But in my config.xml file, I don't have a Video section. Did you add it or was it there.

It was already there.

Could you tell me its relative position? (Above/below what)

I don't have the computer I was using to hand right now, but on this computer it's right under a StatsSender block. It is two indendation levels in, and <Lib> (should be near the top) is it's parent.

I tried putting it below SoundDevice, then I restarted skype. The testing showed only green. When I was in a call, skype crashed after a few seconds, and video was still green.

Edit: I turned compiz off already.

Well, the only other thing I did was to edit the script that runs skype. I'm not sure if this is a script I wrote myself, but for me :

$ file `which skype`
/usr/bin/skype: POSIX shell script text executable
$ sudo gvim !$
sudo gvim `which skype`
$ cat !$
cat `which skype`
#!/bin/sh

#LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype.real "$@"
/usr/bin/skype.real "$@"

IE, I basically removed the bit that sets LD_PRELOAD.

However, on this machine, it basically makes no difference. I'm not sure if it made a difference on my other computer or not (I think it did) - actually, I'm not sure if it was removing the LD_PRELOAD, or the config.xml thing; perhaps both.

Sorry I can't be more help.

BTW, I am using the Logitech Quickcam for Notebooks Pro, as is the guy who wrote the page above, I think.

[genseek]

you get this error most likely because you are using 32bit skype in 64bit ubuntu, in that case you just need to use the following path to the library:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so

[lightchild]

hi everybody!


i have the same problem with green stripes in skype in my kubuntu...

but the link you provided does not function now as i see... actually it writes: "Rethinking Content
Reorganising personal website content" and nothing can be found...

please help, what can i do with skype video?

thank you in advance!

[pjalegria]

+1...

[davidmaxwaterman]

you get this error most likely because you are using 32bit skype in 64bit ubuntu, in that case you just need to use the following path to the library:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so

I"m not using 64bit ubuntu...

Max.