Setting up new webcam

BarrryA

Zoom isn't passing a video input test with my new webcam (although audio input seems to work), so I ran the following commands:

$ dmesg | tail
[148615.182252] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: SN0001
[148615.185401] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB 2.0 Camera (0c45:6366)
[148615.210220] uvcvideo 1-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Extension 4 was not initialized!
[148615.210223] uvcvideo 1-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Extension 3 was not initialized!
[148615.210225] uvcvideo 1-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Processing 2 was not initialized!
[148615.210226] uvcvideo 1-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Camera 1 was not initialized!
[148615.210402] input: USB 2.0 Camera: USB 2.0 Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/input/input42
[148615.252865] usb 1-1: 3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84
[148615.561882] usb 1-1: 3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84
[148615.647363] usb 1-1: 3:1: cannot get freq at ep 0x84

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 035: ID 0c45:6366 Microdia Webcam Vitade AF
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045e:0040 Microsoft Corp. Wheel Mouse Optical
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c31c Logitech, Inc. Keyboard K120
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0764:0501 Cyber Power System, Inc. CP1500 AVR UPS
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

From the above info, I gather that the problem isn't with Zoom. But I can tell you that Zoom has the same problem whether installed by Snap or Flatpak.

brent

Microdia website says all webcams are WIN or MAC only.
But so do many logitech models including mine but always seem to be PNP in solus for me.

Internets says arch/ubu driver workaround exist fwtw. but info scare.

solus calls this resolved but I'm not sure everything I am reading: https://dev.getsol.us/T9017

fyi---I'm operating on the assumption this is a driver problem but I'm often wrong, the camera is often seen in lspci or dmesg but won't operate. Someone might have a quick solution hopefully. hang in there. I really believe this cam will run on solus somehow.

DataDrake

Looks like this webcam is not reporting the necessary information for it to be initialized on Linux. You might check to see if it works with a simpler program like cheese, but It may not be compatible with the generic webcam drivers on Linux.

BarrryA

DataDrake It works reasonably well with Cheese.

DataDrake

BarrryA Hmm. Have you tried messing with the Video settings in Zoom (e.g. forcing HD video, changing aspect ratio)? Maybe it's just picking an unsupported mode.

BarrryA

DataDrake That didn't help when I tried it earlier.

DataDrake

BarrryA I'm not sure then. You might be at the point of needing to get support from Zoom.

brent

have no ideal what uvc means but here's my recognized logi cam w/built in mic in zoom--

I'm guessing you get no recognition in video settings?
In the live zoom mute/unmute toggle it sees and calls it by its model: 270.

If you have nothing or even generic I think DataDrake is right that the hardware itself is giving up nothing (as I interpreted him). we just don't know the reasons yet.
If you got no recognition I wonder what could be the bridge for your webcam to talk to system?

BarrryA

DataDrake It's not just Zoom. Although Cheese seems to work, though with choppy video, the video doesn't work on this test: https://www.onlinemictest.com/zoom-not-picking-up-webcam/.

BarrryA

brent The only difference in my video settings is that for Camera it says "USB 2.0 Camera: USB 2.0 Camera". The mute toggle lists Webcam Vitade AF Analog Mono.

brent

BarrryA Zoom sees your webcam in mute/unmute toggle. Zoom does NOT see webcam in zoom video settings (like it's generic or something).
That's bizarre on the surface. Half of zoom recognizes half a camera, kind of. Glass half empty or full here?🙂

BarrryA

I finally got the webcam to work - at least in Fedora. Due to the fix, I expect that it will work in Solus as well.

The fix: I plugged the webcam directly into a USB slot on the computer. Before, I was connecting it to a USB cable. H/t Gordon Williams at the end of https://askubuntu.com/questions/1078741/how-can-i-install-microdia-uvc-microscope. I won't be able to come up with a better explanation than he gave.

Why Fedora and not Solus? I had a report that the webcam worked in Linux Mint, and when that didn't work for me, I wanted to try distros known for good hardware support. And my Solus installation now boots into emergency mode. Just based on what I had been doing, rather than on an understanding of what can and can't put Solus into emergency mode, my preliminary guess is that the problem is that I woke the machine up from hibernation with Transmission still running from getting the ISO for a distro from a torrent. If someone could suggest where to report this, I'll try to do so. Obviously, this would be no fun to test on the machine that I'm relying on as my lifeline to the outside world in a pandemic, so all I can do on my own right now is report it.