Arch Linux

excitablesnowball

Member

Registered: 2012-03-02

Posts: 7

Webcam stopped working

At some point last year, my webcam stopped working. I originally figured it was a misconfiguration on my part, but after reinstalling Arch Linux about a month ago (to switch to the 64-bit version), I noticed that it still didn't work. The previous time I had installed Arch it worked out of the box. This is the integrated webcam on a Lenovo ThinkPad T500.

Any suggestions for debugging it?

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 17ef:4807 Lenovo UVC Camera
[clipped other stuff]

It looks like a UVC device, so I tried loading the right driver:

$ sudo modprobe uvcvideo
$ dmesg
[clipped irrelevant stuff]
[118412.200110] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118412.211561] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118412.211638] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118412.211643] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118412.211658] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: setting latency timer to 64
[118412.281838] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (17ef:4807)
[118412.284431] input: UVC Camera (17ef:4807) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.7/usb1/1-6/1-6:1.0/input/input18
[118412.285936] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[118412.285942] USB Video Class driver (1.1.1)
[118416.368295] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D3

But when I try viewing it in xawtv, it gives an error and shows a black screen. The indicator light next to the webcam does not light up.

$ xawtv -c /dev/video0
This is xawtv-3.101, running on Linux/x86_64 (3.5.3-1-ARCH)
xinerama 0: 1680x1050+0+0
Alsa devices: cap: (null) (/dev/video0), out: default
v4l2: oops: select timeout

Some new stuff shows up in dmesg after running xawtv:

$ dmesg
[clip]
[118584.466021] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118584.478187] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118584.478265] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118584.478270] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: power state changed by ACPI to D0
[118584.478285] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: setting latency timer to 64

Last edited by excitablesnowball (2012-09-03 08:01:59)