Hi.

I have a USB webcam that I have used previously on Windows and wanted to
test on my RPi 5.

I've installed MS Teams but it doesn't recognise the camera (plugged in to
a USB socket on the Pi).

VLC does give me a picture when I set it to use the camera, but the
colours are just green and purple and black, so not usable.

Does anyone have recommendations for a USB camera that I can use with the
Pi5, or software I might need?

TIA,
--
Brian Howlett
-----------------------------------------------------
I stayed up all night playing poker with Tarot cards.
I got a full house, and four people died.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 13/11/2025 22:39, Brian Howlett wrote:

Hi.

I have a USB webcam that I have used previously on Windows and wanted to
test on my RPi 5.

I've installed MS Teams but it doesn't recognise the camera (plugged in to
a USB socket on the Pi).

VLC does give me a picture when I set it to use the camera, but the
colours are just green and purple and black, so not usable.

Does anyone have recommendations for a USB camera that I can use with the Pi5, or software I might need?

TIA,

I wonder if cheese exists for RPi - that was always my default webcam
tester/ Looks like it does

Try that first...if that works the webcam/USB is OK


--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels





--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Brian Howlett <news-spamtrap@brianhowlett.me.uk> writes:

I have a USB webcam that I have used previously on Windows and wanted to test on my RPi 5.

I've installed MS Teams but it doesn't recognise the camera (plugged in to
a USB socket on the Pi).

VLC does give me a picture when I set it to use the camera, but the
colours are just green and purple and black, so not usable.

Does anyone have recommendations for a USB camera that I can use with the Pi5, or software I might need?

My Logitech C270 was fine when directly attached to a Pi 5B, but not so
good via a USB hub. I don?t know which component is at fault there, but
if you?re using the Pi?s sockets then this it doesn?t matter. You can
still get one of these devices for about œ20 on Amazon.

My C920 was fine both ways.

I used the Debian build of Cheese[1] to test both.

[1] https://packages.debian.org/trixie/cheese

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Brian Howlett wrote:

Does anyone have recommendations for a USB camera that I can use with the Pi5, or software I might need?

I've been using Philips SPC 1000NC Webcam (USB 0471:0332) for >10y now. It
is a UVC device. Take care that whatever you buy is UVC. This will
guarantee 99,99999% to work properly.

You will probably also have to take care of permissions. I am not sure but I have myself in the 44(video),46(plugdev) groups.
Teams works also fine.

BR


--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:24:40 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I wonder if cheese exists for RPi ...

The answer is just an ?apt-cache search? away ...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 14 Nov, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

My Logitech C270 was fine when directly attached to a Pi 5B, but not so
good via a USB hub. I don't know which component is at fault there, but
if you're using the Pi's sockets then this it doesn't matter. You can
still get one of these devices for about ?20 on Amazon.

My C920 was fine both ways.

Thanks all, for your suggestions. Given me some food for thought...
--
Brian Howlett - Email to From: address deleted unseen -----------------------------------------------------
I ate a dozen oysters last night.
Only seven of them worked...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 15/11/2025 11:43, Daniel James wrote:

Why it doesn't work with cheese on the Pi I can't say, though maybe the buffer deadlock message from vlc contains a clue that cheese isn't doing something necessary that vlc is?

... On a Pi500+ the webcam works perfectly with cheese (and the same "CRITICAL" errors appear in the terminal window) but while vlc shows an
image it is an inverse video image in magenta and green. The same
"buffer deadlock" message is shown in the terminal window.

I'm baffled.

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 14/11/2025 01:24, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I wonder if cheese exists for RPi - that was always my default webcam tester/ Looks like it does

Yes, cheese is just an "apt install" away.

I had a spare moment and a spare webcam and a Pi 3b that wasn't doing
anything so I plugged the webcam into the Pi and installed cheese ...

... the camera was recognized straight away, but I did not get a
picture. cheese displayed "There was an error playing video from the
webcam".

So I tried the camera on my big AMD64 box (which already has the same
model of webcam installed) and cheese recognized both and let me switch between them and display an image from either.

So I went back to the Pi. I tried changing resolutions with no joy. I
tried changing source to one of the (non-existent) Pi camera sources and
back. No joy.

I tried running cheese in a terminal and got:

-----
$ cheese

(cheese:1798): Cogl-WARNING **: 11:05:55.858: driver/gl/gl/cogl-texture-driver-gl.c:453: GL error (1281): Invalid value


(cheese:1798): Cogl-WARNING **: 11:05:55.858: driver/gl/gl/cogl-texture-driver-gl.c:457: GL error (1281): Invalid value


(org.gnome.Cheese:1798): cheese-CRITICAL **: 11:05:56.658: GValue type
gint x GstValueList, cannot be handled for resolution

(org.gnome.Cheese:1798): cheese-CRITICAL **: 11:05:56.659: GValue type
gint x GstValueList, cannot be handled for resolution

(org.gnome.Cheese:1798): cheese-WARNING **: 11:05:58.128: Internal data
stream error.: ../libs/gst/base/gstbasesrc.c(3187): gst_base_src_loop
(): /GstCameraBin:camerabin/GstWrapperCameraBinSrc:camera_source/GstBin:bin28/GstV4l2Src:v4l2src1:
streaming stopped, reason not-negotiated (-4)
-----

None of which meant anything much to me.

I then tried vlc (again, in the terminal). Opened a capture device,
(mode Video camera, device name /dev/video0) and got a VERY slow video
of myself. I should think the frame rate was about 4fps ... but the
camera was definitely working.

vlc produced one message in the terminal window that looks interesting:

[0000007f70028fb0] main decoder error: buffer deadlock prevented

The camera is one I bought from the Raspberry Pi store in Cambridge for
about œ25 three or four years ago. It is an "A4TECH PK-910H 1080P
Full-HD WebCam". The one on my AMD64 box came from Pi Hut (during Covid,
when you couldn't get webcams from the usual suspects even for silly
money), they have it online for œ32 today.

Why it doesn't work with cheese on the Pi I can't say, though maybe the
buffer deadlock message from vlc contains a clue that cheese isn't doing something necessary that vlc is?

--
Cheers,
Daniel.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 15 Nov, Brian Howlett <news-spamtrap@brianhowlett.me.uk> wrote:

[snip]

Thanks all, for your suggestions. Given me some food for thought...

Just to update, installed Cheese and works perfectly, also the camera now works in Teams - yay!

I suspect installing Cheese may have installed some dependencies that
Teams needed but didn't complain about.

Still gives me inverted colours in VLC, but not looking to use that
anyway.
--
Brian Howlett
----------------------------------------------
My net income doesn't cover my gross habits...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 17/11/2025 00:13, Brian Howlett wrote:

On 15 Nov, Brian Howlett <news-spamtrap@brianhowlett.me.uk> wrote:

[snip]

Thanks all, for your suggestions. Given me some food for thought...

Just to update, installed Cheese and works perfectly, also the camera now works in Teams - yay!

Ah...

I suspect installing Cheese may have installed some dependencies that
Teams needed but didn't complain about.

Wouldn't be the first time

Still gives me inverted colours in VLC, but not looking to use that
anyway.

That may be a VLC config issue.

--
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's
too dark to read.

Groucho Marx




--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)