Arch Linux

archangel_lucif

Member

Registered: 2015-11-22

Posts: 10

Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

My webcam works on every other application (Cheese, in Adobe Flash webcam tests, etc.) except for Skype. I have Googled around for workarounds and fixes but every one I have come across has failed me. I tried reinstalling Skype, purging it, purging its configurations, it simply doesn't want to work.

Last edited by archangel_lucif (2015-11-24 02:01:25)

jmboris

Member

Registered: 2014-12-04

Posts: 4

Re: Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

Hello 

In the wiki there is a solution  , so you have to edit your /etc/profile  adding the following lines.

#This makes skype works
export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/'$LIB'/libv4l/v4l2convert.so
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

archangel_lucif

Member

Registered: 2015-11-22

Posts: 10

Re: Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

I'll try that out as soon as I get home and report back. Thanks.

archangel_lucif

Member

Registered: 2015-11-22

Posts: 10

Re: Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

Alright, so adding those lines to the last parts of /etc/profile seems to break XFCE's transparency effects that I've got on... Is there a specific place I should place it in there to prevent this?***

Edit: On further inspection this solution does not work, I found the wiki article you were referring to as well. The whole transparency thing was to blame on that last line, but I'm not using Compiz so I shouldn't have to use that in the first place. I changed the "dir" to lib64 but still no beans. Do you think it could be some sort of driver issue? It's a Lifecam HD-3000 and the few sources I've visited say specifically it doesn't support v4l2. There must be some way to get it to work in Skype. It works everywhere else but Skype and this wasn't an issue with any other distro (Which is understandable) - Any possibility that I'm missing a driver?**

Edit:  I found an older forum post from somebody having this same issue in 2013 (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=157109), the whole thing seems to describe my issue almost perfectly. Apparently the issue was caused by their locale not being set to a UTF-8 locale... The output of "locale" in a terminal for me is:

LANG=C
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=
**

The locale settings don't seem to change when I try to change them as instructed on the wiki, they defy the /etc/locale.conf file and stay what they are as above...
Alright, I've managed to fix it on my own. I'll state how right now, okay, for further reference if anyone has this issue and when they go to the video options in Skype and the webcam has a bunch of funky characters... It's likely related to this. In /etc/locale.conf I had

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

But it should be

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Save it and restart... Fixed the problem for me, cam is working in Skype now.

Last edited by archangel_lucif (2015-11-23 04:50:02)

ProS

Member

Registered: 2018-01-23

Posts: 1

Re: Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

Thank you a lot, archangel_lucif, I prove it works. In my case I also had another line in that file: LANGUAGE=en_US. I changed it for LANGUAGE="en_US". Don't know if it was required, but just in case.

P.S. I read a lot of these forums, but I registered especially for you, my time savior

Last edited by ProS (2018-01-23 17:08:30)

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 13,354

Website

Re: Webcam not working with Skype (SOLVED)

I'm glad you have resolved your problem, but please do not bump old topics.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … .2Aonly.2A

Closing.

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