Re: [Qce-ga-discussion] QuickCam Web not quite working

[phil <ph...@no...>]

phil wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've spent some time trying to get my QuickCam Web (usb) running with
> the qc-usb drivers and I'm pretty close to getting it working (I think). 
> I've got the drivers compiling, installing, and loading just fine. lsmod 
> shows the driver loaded, I've got an entry in /dev (video0) and the test 
> program that ships in the qc-usb-0.6.6 source tree shows the correct 
> attributes for my camera:
> <snip>
>      		*** Camera Info ***
> 	Name:           Logitech QuickCam USB
> 	Type:           513
> 	Minimum Width:  32
> 	Maximum Width:  356
> 	Minimum Height: 32
> 	Maximum Height: 292
> 	X:              0
> 	Y:              0
> 	Width:          356
> 	Height:         292
> 	Depth:          24
> 	Color           true
> </snip>
> 
> When I run the test program the the -l flag, the "Read frames:" messages
> dump but where they usually read frames at around 7.5 fps (I've had this
> camera working fine in the past) they're very slow and I'm getting 
> messages in syslog like so:
> 
> <snip>
> 	Nov 24 13:47:33 lili kernel: quickcam: frame lost
> 	Nov 24 13:47:34 lili last message repeated 9 times
> 	Nov 24 14:05:16 lili kernel: quickcam: Control URB error -2
> </snip>
> 
> The funny thing is this: if I put my hand over the camera lens the test
> program starts getting frames again and my syslog stops getting frame
> drop messages ... creepy.
> 
> As an additional test I loaded up camorama (a program I've used before
> with this camera) to see how it would react. I get an error message 
> popping up saying "Unable to capture image". However, if I put my hand 
> over the lens (like above) I get a video of the inside of my hand :-), 
> program doesn't hang/error out. As soon as I remove my hand though, the 
> application hangs up (presumably waiting for frames that are being 
> dropped) and eventually I get the error message pop-up telling me it's 
> "Unable to capture image".
> 
> This seems to be pretty erratic behavior and I have no idea where the 
> problem may lie. I've tried version 6.5 and 6.6 of the driver as well as 
> the qc-usb-source that comes packaged for debian. My gcc version matches 
> the one used to compile my kernel and everything.
> 
> Any help would be great.

Yay flaky usb hardware! I was using the usb jacks on the front of my 
work station for easy access and it turns out my camera doesn't like 
'em. They work fine for thumb drives so I figured they were good. 
Plugging my camera in to the back of my computer solves the problem I 
describe above ... yeesh.

Thanks for a great/free driver, camera is working just fine now.

Cheers,
- Philip