[SOLVED]Getting Logitech Quickcam S5500 to work

[quartus]

Hi folks,

Recently I've installed Mint 7 (main, 32bits) on the computer I've built for my mother. Chatting with family on Skype is one of the primary things it is going to be used for, so I tried if the Logitech webcam I have would work there (it should, worked out of the box on Lenny @ my own workstation). It turned out, it didn't, even though I installed all the (possibly) required packages before connecting the thing (qc-usb-source, "-"-utils, xserver-xorg-video-v4l, v4l-conf, setpwc).

On my mom's PC the device doesn't even show up in /dev/, on my own (also Mint 7) it does but luvcview and xawtv get nothing but a grey image out of it. However, in both cases the device gets recognized by lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:09a1 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Communicate MP/S5500

Now Helena's out, I decided to give the give it a shot. Started up the liveCD (main, 32 bits as well, on my own PC), installed all the packages again, played around with settings... still the same result (well, the grey color does respond to what I do with brightness/contrast/sharpness, just no image appears). The output of setpwc -p might be useful:

mint@mint /dev $ setpwc -d /dev/video1 -p
setpwc v1.2, (C) 2003-2006 by folkert@vanheusden.com
Current device: UVC Camera (046d:09a1)
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCPROBE: Invalid argument
Warning: this might not be a Philips compatible webcam!
VIDIOCPWCPROBE returns: ��� - 8789952
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGSERIAL: Invalid argument
Serial number:
Resolution (x, y): 640, 480
Offset: 0, 0
Brightness: 37008
Hue: 0
Colour: 7710
Contrast: 6939
Whiteness: 0
Palette: Unknown! (0)
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGCQUAL: Invalid argument
Compression preference: 134524724
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGAGC: Invalid argument
Automatic gain control: 134524724
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGAWB: Invalid argument
Whitebalance mode: unknown!
Blinking of LED is not supported by the combination
of your webcam and the driver.
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGCONTOUR: Invalid argument
Sharpness: 134524724
Error while doing ioctl VIDIOCPWCGBACKLIGHT: Invalid argument
Backlight compensation mode: on
Anti-flicker mode is not supported by the combination
of your webcam and the driver.
Noise reduction mode is not supported by the combination
of your webcam and the driver.
Pan/tilt range is not supported by the combination
of your webcam and the driver.
Get pan/tilt position is not supported by the combination
of your webcam and the driver.

...lspci says:

mint@mint /dev $ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82G35 Express DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82G35 Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801IB (ICH9) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801IB (ICH9) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G94 [GeForce 9600 GT] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev b0)
03:00.0 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB368 IDE controller
05:00.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7131/SAA7133/SAA7135 Video Broadcast Decoder (rev d1)
05:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller (rev c0)

EDIT: the main difference between my mom's PC's hardware and my own is the main board, I bought her an Asus P5QPL-VM EPU and my own is P5E-VM SE. Her onboard graphics are good enough so I decided she wouldn't need a video card. I have an Sparkle GeForce 9600GT. But even when I had Radeon HD 4670, the webcam worked fine (in Debian).

That's about it, I would appreciate any help on getting the thing to work. I might have overlooked something, so if you need more information, feel free to ask.

Tnx in advance.

[rich_roast]

That's a uvc camera, and according to their working devices list should just work. All I can think of off the top of my head is to try the usual library plug in workaround:

Code: Select all

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so foo

where foo is the app you wish to have it work with (it should be that one, the uvc site mentions it includes a V4L2 kernel device driver); I had a pretty decent look around the uvc page, unofficial wiki and project pages, and where I wasn't able to find anything or post anything, perhaps you will be able to.

[quartus]

@rich_roast: Tnx for your reply, tried that out, unfortunately that didn't do the trick

Though while browsing through the page of the first link you posted, I saw these USB-port-related issues; so I thought, maybe just reconnecting the device to another port will get the job done. So I gave it a shot... successfully!

So maybe it was just the difference of USB 1.1 vs 2.0. It is kinda strange, however, I'm more than glad it works.

Thanks again for your help!

[quartus]

Just performed some more testing on what ports it would work and why and got some weird results:

- On my own PC it will only work when plugged into one specific port in the front, otherwise a grey image is guaranteed.
- On my mom's PC in contrary it suddenly appears to work in ALL the ports; one of them does require root access, `sudo luvcview -d /dev/video0` did the magic (how the ...).

Anyway, it works and I'm more than glad that it does.

[rich_roast]

I'm glad that you were able to work around the issue, as bizarre the fix seems to me, the important thing is that you've got it working on both machines, which is great! I know it's narky but could you edit your original post and whack a "(SOLVED)" after the title, please? This will help other people with Logitech Quickcams find your experience. Finally, you'll probably already know that running user space programs as root is frowned upon generally: in Mint, the default permissions for users does not include video devices: that can be changed by going through administration -> users and groups, "unlock" and click the properties button for user, user privileges tab and check the "Use video devices" checkbox. I'm not very hot on user management so maybe I've got something wrong but hopefully that should let the user access /dev/video0 without the need for administration privs.

[quartus]

I'm glad that you were able to work around the issue, as bizarre the fix seems to me, the important thing is that you've got it working on both machines, which is great! I know it's narky but could you edit your original post and whack a "(SOLVED)" after the title, please? This will help other people with Logitech Quickcams find your experience. Finally, you'll probably already know that running user space programs as root is frowned upon generally: in Mint, the default permissions for users does not include video devices: that can be changed by going through administration -> users and groups, "unlock" and click the properties button for user, user privileges tab and check the "Use video devices" checkbox. I'm not very hot on user management so maybe I've got something wrong but hopefully that should let the user access /dev/video0 without the need for administration privs.

Yah, I was a bit perplexed myself, to be honest. As for user/group rights, it worked, thanks a lot! I could have thought of going through the menu, but well, maybe it's just Linux doing the job correctly, so I don't have to dig much through the system. Still nice to learn new features.

Agreed, running such things as root is not something I'm about to make a habit of. In the end that gives a lot more headache. I remember this time when I accidentally chmodded my complete filesystem to 700... That was nasty! The good thing is that the system kept on working, though with some errors :']

Topic title changed, tnx for notifying!