Integrated webcam not showing picture

[ursula]

I tried to search the forum, but did not find any solution to this issue. Also Google hasn't been very helpful.

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge with integrated webcam that works fine in another OS, but in Mageia 2 the camera led turns on but the picture doesn't show. When I try to use programs like Skype or Cheese, the webcam does turn on, but all I get is a grey picture.
Also untill last week I had an old Mandriva installation on this same laptop and the camera was working fine, so maybe there is something missing from my Mageia 2 installation...

It's been a long time since I have needed to ask help in any forum and I really don't know what information I should put here... So, please, let me know what information is needed to try to resolve this small but annoying issue.

With lsusb I get this info:

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[ursula@localhost ~]$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 147e:1001 Upek
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c52f Logitech, Inc. Wireless Mouse M305
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 17ef:4810 Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]

uname -a shows this information:

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Linux localhost.localdomain 3.3.8-desktop-2.mga2 #1 SMP Mon Jul 30 21:35:06 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[zugunder]

Just to make sure - do you have v4l (2) installed?

[ursula]

Yes, the v4l (2) is installed.

[djennings]

Do you have 3D desktop effects enabled? If so try without them.

[ursula]

No 3D desktop effects enabled.

[oj]

I was trying to get a web cam going on fedora a couple days ago, I eventually plugged it into a different USB port and it suddenly just worked. Oddly, it now works in the port I had it in originally, too.. worth a try.

[tom_]

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 17ef:4810 Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]

it doesn't appear in the list of the supported cam,
maybe you should ask for details to the driver developers

http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

[ursula]

I was trying to get a web cam going on fedora a couple days ago, I eventually plugged it into a different USB port and it suddenly just worked. Oddly, it now works in the port I had it in originally, too.. worth a try.

My camera is built in the laptop, so cannot really try another port.

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 17ef:4810 Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]

it doesn't appear in the list of the supported cam,
maybe you should ask for details to the driver developers

http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

Yeah, it doesn't appear there, but it was working fine with an old Mandriva installation, so I thought it might work with Mageia too. I can live without the camera, but it would have been nice to get it working if I decide to keep using Mageia.

[Latte]

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 17ef:4810 Lenovo Integrated Webcam [R5U877]

it doesn't appear in the list of the supported cam

According to http://sysphere.org/~anrxc/j/articles/thinkpad/ the camera should work with linux (same ID)
and also here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Le ... Web_camera it says that Lenovo Integrated Cameras should work out-of-the-box (however not the same ID)?

Only a guess: Is the uvcvideo kernel module loaded?

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 lsmod | grep uvcvideo

If not you can try:

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modeprobe -v uvcvideo

[ursula]

The uvcvideo module is loaded:

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uvcvideo               72283  0
videobuf2_vmalloc      13020  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_core         32760  1 uvcvideo
videodev              101959  1 uvcvideo
media                  21380  2 videodev,uvcvideo
usbcore               207173  8 ehci_hcd,usb_storage,ums_realtek,uas,usbhid,btusb,uvcvideo

It seems everything is ok, but still I have a webcam that shows only a grey picture. I can live with that, but still I wonder why it's not working on a new Mageia while it worked on much older Mandriva. Life is full of mysteries, maybe this is one of those mysteries.

[tom_]

have you tried to change the camera settings with guvcview?

otherwise you should ask to the driver developers,
probably they are intrested in fixing your problem
and the fault is simply due to the fact thta they haven't
an hardware like your, so they don't know nothing about
this problem