Webcam problems (Function not implemented)

lyallp

I have posted a question over in mulimedia, http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-689983.html upon reflection, I think the question belongs here.

Hi, I have been following the wiki at http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_a_webcam and seem to be having reasonable success, all the way up to the point where I actually try to use the webcam (an MSI StarCam 370i).

Firstly, I am doing everything as root - once I get things working, I will address any permission problems.

I have installed the gspcav1 driver.

BradN · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 2:49 am Post subject:

I think this is the first spot where things start to go wrong:

Apr 27 18:40:18 lyalls-pc /tmp/portage/media-video/gspcav1-20071224/work/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: init isoc: usb_submit_urb(0) ret -38

Without looking at the code and what could cause a -38 return code, I'm not sure what the problem would be. It looks (first guess just from this message) like a usb call to outside of the gspca driver is failing.

Actually I've just used this driver sucessfully (with a different chipset webcam) a few days ago on 2.6.24-r4, and after figuring out I had to set the driver type to v4l (not v4l2) in mplayer, I had no problems getting an image.

One possible idea is trying a driver one version older, since sometimes later versions break a device that was working before...

Here are some outputs from a working session:

lyallp · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:32 am Post subject:

Well, I know why the driver says 'Sensor currently not support light frequency banding filters'.
There is a 'switch' statement at roughly line 1918 in gspca_core.c which required, in my case, an additional line

BradN · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:47 am Post subject:

The light banding thing doesn't seem to prevent it from working (it shows up in my output but the camera worked)

lyallp · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:18 am Post subject:

Well, I am making progress.

After digging around the kernel USB source, finding the ENOSYS return code (which is 38 ) which is returned by usb/core/hub.c, I thought I would try plugging my webcam directly into the mobo USB port, rather than the more convenient USB Hub I was using.

Now, I get a white screen with little trianglur bits spread in an even grid across the whole screen, when I use

lyallp · Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 7:33 am Post subject:

Well, I am definitely having fun here.
I seem to have gone backwards, now nothing shows at all, not sure why.
I know the webcam won't work in my USB Hub, when everything else I have plugged into it does, because of some unimplemented functionality, either in the USB drivers or the Hub itself.

I tried using usbview (app-admin/usbview-1.0-r3) to have a look at the webcam. Now, I am no expert in what to expect but the output from this webcam looks really suspicious, like there is some form of looping somewhere, although, each repeat of the interface seems to vary it's max packet size.

I am very interested to see other webcams outputs from usbview (or from /proc/bus/usb/devices, as it's more compact and I can feed a file containing the /proc/bus/usb/devices data into usbview for 'prettifying').

Mine shows...USB camera

BradN · Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject:

At first glance it appears that all the different "alternate numbers" are there to support varying packet sizes, as the driver chooses the one with the largest packet size.

Bobe84 · n00b Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 4

Ok, don't bother. I took gspcav1 driver and modified it to work with MSI StarCam 370i and MSI StarCam Clip.
Driver code is stripped down and only works with 0c45 60c0 id.
go to : http://pamplast.com/gspca/
download it
it compiles as msicam module
remove old gspca
and try this on
I u have problems please first read readme.txt, and u have email and jabber contact.

Regards Boban Aleksov, Serbia.

BradN · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject:

Sounds like something the gspca crew would want to have... have you submitted a patch?

Bobe84 · n00b Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 4

Well i didn't send them patch because there is no way to truly identify that this is my chip, i havent found way to read that from camera

I was emailing Michele Mxaard and he replyed couple of times but for now it will stay this way.
This driver is very modified, and my opinion was why not to make it only for 0c45 60c0, so i kicked out all other code.
So now it compiles to modulename=MSICAM not GSPCA; Only works for 0c45 60c0 to escape posibility to have interference with gspca.
Only thing i have to do is to make color balancing or auto white balancing workin.(very big job) Now colors are increased equally.
Driver is configured to work from ~13fps to 30fps max.
Please email me at bobe84@gmail.com for some feedback and impressions.

BradN · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 12:19 am Post subject:

Hmm, so what you're saying is that the USB ID isn't enough to guarantee you're talking to that specific chip? Or you're having problems making sure your changes to the gspca code only affect it when using that chip?

Bobe84 · n00b Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 4

Well yes, there seems to be other devices with that ID

Sangha 535k for example.And i tried to read chip id from camera with no success.
Anyway i wrote different codes for sonix bridge init is completely different.
So i did what i did...
I dunno what is Michele from gspca planning to do or when it is going to release new, but i think next gspca will support these cameras.
(Problem with these cameras is that they have different i2c base, and when doing init to camera it writes to completely wrong place)
Second thing is that these cameras have newer image sensors on them( sort of upgraded version )
For example mine sensor has IFP incorporated, so he can automaticaly(without driver) change expo regulate color balance bla bla.
Mine driver is like driver for win and it does not use IFP feature because it turned out to be very unuseful feature.

BradN · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 2:30 am Post subject:

Well, what other projects have done, ie bttv for video capture boards, is use a card= parameter to override any auto-detection or for boards that can't be distinguished... maybe something like that will be necessary.

lyallp · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 3:09 am Post subject:

Well, I have an image now :-)

I installed camorama and things seem to work ok, with regard to video, but people are blue :-)

Thanks!
_________________
...Lyall

Bobe84 · n00b Joined: 06 May 2008 Posts: 4

Ok, now try spcaview, camstream, cheese, skype, or some other program and it will work.
Camorama doesn't now whether he has RGB or BGR stream.
If u really want to work this nice with camorama u can put FORCE_RGB=1 in gspca_core.c.

Cheers, Boban.

lyallp · Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 7:28 am Post subject:

spcaview - much better.

Thanks :-)

Bottom line, it does not work when plugged into my Hub but does if I plug it directly into the Motherboard USB sockets.

The problem with the hub is some unimplemented functionality, which I think is in the Linux USB core, as the Hub works fine in Windows.
_________________
...Lyall