hi guys
i have just done a new install of mint 21, all went well till i went to install a webcam. i chose cheese, that didnt work, then i chose camera, that didnt work, then i tried a couple of others.
any ideas what is the problem.
the terminal shows devices dev video1 dev video0 media 0
cheers guys
Hi chaza.
Please tell us about your system: laptop/desktop; model etc and what terminal commands you actually used. By “installing a webcam” I am guessing that you have a desktop or very old laptop.
You might try
sudo lshw
and look for a line detailing usb0. (or usb1, etc)
Keith
hi
its a dell laptop, 16gb ram, 256 gb ssd. i didnt use any terminal commands to install i used the software manager, i onlyused the terminal after doing some research and thats what someone said would fix the issue.
that command sudo ishw doesnt work…
cheers keith
Hi Chaza,
As Keith says, lshw should help and if it’s not working, you might need to install it. That said, you could also try;
lsusb
I get something like this;
$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 1bcf:08a0 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc. Gaming mouse [Philips SPK9304]
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 152d:1561 JMicron Technology Corp. / JMicron USA Technology Corp. JMS561U two ports SATA 6Gb/s bridge
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045e:0772 Microsoft Corp. LifeCam Studio
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:c31c Logitech, Inc. Keyboard K120
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
The “Lifecam Studio” being my webcam. Initially it’s a question of whether the system recognises the device. If it doesn’t you may need to install a driver, if it does, it may be a problem with cheese …
There’s a list of explicitly supported devices here if it helps;
https://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
I’ve not come across a VideoCam in quite some time that doesn’t “just work” out of the box …
If it looks like it really can see the camera, try installing Zoom or visiting the microsoft teams site, they’ll both try to access the camera … rules Cheese in or out as a potential issue.
Note: you can also use chrome directly by going to settings → privacy and security → site settings → camera … if it can see a camera it should be listed in the drop-down at the top of the page.
… or even something like Trueconf that doesn’t abuse one’s personal data. Just saying!
Ok ok, bad examples, too main-stream and off-the-cuff … 
So, to use a true open source privacy respecting application, my preference in recent years has been “Jitsi”, you can quickly start a meeting and test your camera here;
Just type a random string as a “room name” and click “Start Meeting” 
lsusb
i got
us 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1241:1111 Belkin Mouse
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:0a2b Intel Corp. Bluetooth wireless interface
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:568c Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Integrated Webcam HD
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Ok, so the answer is that device should just work;
Can you clarify “didn’t work”, did you get an error or is it just not seeing the device. As you can see the device, I’m sort of expecting at least some applications to see it. You could also check “dmesg” to see if there are any related messages …
$ sudo dmesg | grep video
[ 4.442846] videodev: Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 4.610941] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
You should see “more” messages, but if you see these two it should be working …
hi mad
this is what i got when i ran the code.
3.186861] ACPI: video: Video Device [GFX0] (multi-head: yes rom: no post: no)
[ 6.072853] videodev: Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 6.240736] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
should i have seen more.
cheers
Hi, well that looks like it should be working, so …
Ast this point it looks like a Cheese / compatibility issue … (?)
hi mad
i dont understand, what is jitsi.
and how do i test if chromium is seeing the camera.
ive used , camera, cheese, kamosa, none seem to work at all.
#cheers
From above;
Note: you can also use chrome directly by going to settings → privacy and security → site settings → camera … if it can see a camera it should be listed in the drop-down at the top of the page.
So, to use a true open source privacy respecting application, my preference in recent years has been “Jitsi”, you can quickly start a meeting and test your camera here;
Just type a random string as a “room name” and click “Start Meeting”
…
You’re still saying “it doesn’t work”, without saying “how” it doesn’t work. Do any of these applications actually “see” the camera? At system level you can clearly see it, so it would be very odd if none of the applications can. If the applications can see it, what happens when they try to access to the camera, blank screen, error message? Each “application” will try to use or access the camera in a slightly different way, so some sort of feedback from one of these applications is what you’re looking for re; a clue to what is going on …
hi mad
yes, none are working , ive just done an online webcam check. allworks fine, took a pic…
what happens when i try to use the camera,
kamoso doesnt do anything
camera i just get a blank frozen screen with the swirling icon motionless
cheese does nothing at all
Ok, cheese and company don’t work.
What is the “online webcam check” that works?
Note: Cheese isn’t working for me either, not sure whether it’s a bug or whether it’s not happy running on Wayland. My Camera does however work fine with Chrome and other Video tools.
hi mad
it was a webcam checker i came across,
A “webcam checker” … so this is a cheese alternative you’ve installed on your machine?
no while i was searching for solutions i came across this webcamchecker, i clicked thetest button and my camera worked, it gave me all the camera technical info
Ok, so in order for this to work (in a browser) the browser must be able to see the camera. For you to be able to take a picture, the camera sounds like it’s working fine, in which case my expectation is that other web based tools (teams, zoom, jisti, slack etc) will also be working fine.
Sounds like the problem is with Cheese and it’s pals, and given Cheese isn’t working for me either, it just sounds like they’ve not had some needed updating / maintenance.
is there a way or command that will give me any updates
ive just uninstalled all the webcams i have,