gspca webcam weirdness - openSuSE 12.2

English Hardware
1

I have a Logitech QuickCam Chat USB webcam that needs the gspca drivers. Under 11.4, this camera worked fine for Skype etc with the “LD_PRELOAD” thing going. I moved the skype binary to skype-bin and created a bash script called skype then did the preload and then ran skype-bin.

Under a completely new 12.2 release it doesn’t work at all despite the LD_PRELOAD thing.
In a fit of “something” :slight_smile: I plugged in an old Sony EyeToy camera. It works just fine!

Here’s a snippet of log showing each camera getting plugged in. The first plug in is the Logitech, the second is the EyeToy:-


Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.685103] usb 5-1: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=092e
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.685114] usb 5-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.685122] usb 5-1: Product: Camera
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.685127] usb 5-1: Manufacturer:         
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.688203] gspca_main: spca561-2.14.0 probing 046d:092e
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE kernel: [10034.747196] input: spca561 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/input/input17
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE mtp-probe: checking bus 5, device 10: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1"
Mar 22 18:51:28 ULLAFREE mtp-probe: bus: 5, device: 10 was not an MTP device
Mar 22 18:52:14 ULLAFREE kernel: [10081.000100] usb 5-1: USB disconnect, device number 10
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10086.858074] usb 5-1: new full-speed USB device number 11 using uhci_hcd
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.040129] usb 5-1: New USB device found, idVendor=054c, idProduct=0155
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.040139] usb 5-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.040146] usb 5-1: Product: EyeToy USB camera Namtai
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.040152] usb 5-1: Manufacturer: Sony corporation
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.043223] gspca_main: ov519-2.14.0 probing 054c:0155
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE kernel: [10087.266267] input: ov519 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1/input/input18
Mar 22 18:52:20 ULLAFREE mtp-probe: checking bus 5, device 11: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.3/usb5/5-1"

The difference I see is that for the Logitech, spca561 is the “driver” but for the EyeToy ov519 is our man.

However, lsmod reveals the same modules loaded regardless of which camera is plugged in. I guess the modules are not unloaded.


ULLAFREE:~ # lsmod|egrep gspc
gspca_ov519            44059  0 
gspca_spca561          14034  0 
gspca_main             31548  2 gspca_ov519,gspca_spca561
videodev               95159  2 uvcvideo,gspca_main

Is this a bug in spca561 do you think or am I doing something real silly? If a bug, where do I try to report it?

Cheers - AK

2

Have you tried to test your Logitech QuickCam Chat USB webcam 046d:092e under any apps other than Skype ?

3

Good point O. I hadn’t but I have just run up cheese and the camera works OK with it albeit that some of the effects in cheese are not functioning.

Seeems that this a purely Skype issue. Will dig around some more.

Thank you for the input.

4

Have just been trying to test with qv4l2. When I test the Logitech, I see the error message “Error: Inappropriate ioctl for device” but Ican still capture images from it. The EyeToy shows no errors at all.

I guess if Skype gets a similar error, it decides not to persevere with the camera. I don’t see any errors from Skype though and there don’t seem to be any options for getting it to output any debugging info either. Will try to find out if I can get into Skype’s logging mechanism.

Cheers - AK

5

Are you confident your Skype install is good ? Did you follow this guide for Skype install : https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Skype

6

Yes. The exception was that I got the Skype from their site instead of the repos.

I’ve since tried out a more recent uvc-type camera and that works just fine.

I then created the ~/.Skype/Logs directory to trigger the production of logs but the file is “encrypted”. It’s looking a bit like a dead end right now. I may try to uninstall this version and re-install from the repo.

Cheers - AK