Empathy Google Video Chat Not Working

[mikshepard]

I've been trying to get the video chat working on my google account through empathy, however when I connect a call, I can see them and hear them but they can't see/hear me. I installed the web browser plugin for gmail video, and we can see each other on there, I can also hear the other person, but they cannot hear me. So I have two problems, sending audio doesn't work (microphone is not muted) on either, and empathy can't send video correctly. My only focus is on empathy however, I just used the web browser for debugging. (Pidgin doesn't work either)

Looking at the empathy website, it says I need two packages installed "gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg" for the h264 decoder/encoder, however gstreamer0.10-pluigins-ugly-multiverse is not available in deban, so I don't know where to find it.

I tried installing these packages "telepathy-sofiasip telepathy-butterfly telepathy-idle libtelepathy-farsight0 python-tpfarsight" as suggested in a different forum, but no difference. I am running Mint DE on a eeepc t101mt.

I also installed gstreamer0.10-x264 in hope that it would fix the problem, it updated a libx264-104 package as well, but no change. I'm assuming this is for the h.264 encoder needed for gstreamer from the gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse package, where can I find a debian equivalent? I tried installing x264, libffms2-2 packages, hoping they would give me the encoder I need, however it backfired horribly. Now I just get error in empathy that the encoder I'm using is not compatable with the encoder the other person is using. Now I can't even see or hear them, it won't even connect! I tried uninstalling those two packages and the problem persists, I don't know what to do now. Those two packages also updated these packages libpostproc51 libavutil50. Any ideas? I've been working on this for days, and searching the internet like crazy for answers. Thanks

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$ gst-inspect-0.10 | grep 264
ffmpeg:  ffdec_h264: FFmpeg H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 decoder
ffmpeg:  ffmux_ipod: FFmpeg iPod H.264 MP4 format muxer
h264parse:  h264parse: H264Parse
rtp:  rtph264depay: RTP H264 depayloader
rtp:  rtph264pay: RTP H264 payloader
typefindfunctions: video/x-h264: h264, x264, 264

-Mike

[mikshepard]

Ok, has anyone got pidgin or empathy working with the video chat feature over google talk?? I've started a post on the debian forumhere as well, but still haven't gotten it working. It seems to work fine for other people. Is this a mint issue or something I'm missing? Out of the box, I could see and hear people, they just couldn't see me. After a dist-upgrade, it just disconnects as soon as I connect a call. gstreamer-properties is configured properly, cheese sees my camera fine, but both pidgin and empathy both crash in the same way. I have all the gstreamer plugins installed. Any ideas?? I've been working on this for weeks now.

Thanks,
Mike

[rbanavara]

not sure about pidgin / empathy, but have you tried the Google web plugin for video chat? If this as well has problems, then the chances of pidgin / empathy working might be slim. If it works, you can use that OR you have more chances of getting pidgin / empathy working (provided you find the correct configuration).

[mikshepard]

Yes, i have tried the web browser plugin and that works fine. I just want the app to work so I don't have to switch to a browser to video conference. I was hoping someone has some ideas on how I can get this working. I've been racking my brain on this for weeks, and it's becoming very frustrating. Thanks for any help you can provide.

-Mike

[CiaW]

I don't see mention of who is the maker of your webcam? That may or may not be relevant to this issue, though it was one of the first questions that came to mind.

I don't yet have a webcam but I've recently been doing a bit of research, and this site might be helpful, it has a list of supported devices for Linux UVC driver: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

Though it sounds like your device works, just not in Google Video Chat with empathy? Have you checked any of the log files, to see if there's anything interesting there? Or try pulling up empathy in a terminal window and running the google video chat and see if there are any error messages that come up in the terminal?

[mikshepard]

Sorry, I didn't list my camera because both empathy and pidgin give me a loopback (showing myself back to me) in a small window to the right while the call is connecting, when the call connects, so v4l is regonizing the camera just fine. It's when the call connects and it tries to send/recieve the video, it immediately disconnects. The camera is the standard built in one that comes with my eeepc t101mt.

I did get a error log this time, seems running empathy with the libvl compat mode does get rid of a few errors, it makes no difference in pidgin however. It seems I have found the problem (don't know the fix though). Here is the last of the output from empathy:

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(empathy:10923): tp-fs-DEBUG: stream 1 0x9c63f50 (audio) cb_fs_stream_src_pad_added: New pad src_1_4075308823_99: 99: audio speex clock:16000 channels:1 params:(nil)
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
empathy-Message: Element error: Could not create VDPAU device for display: (null) -- (null)

(empathy:10923): tp-fs-DEBUG: tf_channel_dispose
tp-fs-Message: tf_stream_error: stream error errorno=0 error=UI stopped channel
tp-fs-Message: tf_stream_error: stream error errorno=0 error=UI stopped channel
(empathy:10923): tp-fs-DEBUG: _tf_session_dispose

It seems that empathy is not using xv for an output, it is instead trying to use a nvidia driver. Since I am running an intel video driver, I need to switch this, any ideas how? I've already set it to xv in gstreamer-properties however I still get the same error. I'm guessing something else needs to be configured?

Thanks for any help,
Mike