What I want to do

I want to use the infragram webcam (link) with a Linux Mint or Ubuntu notebook. I'm also testing it in a Beaglebone Black with a Debian system.

My attempt and results

Sometimes the webcam is not recognized by the system. When I plug the camera the system logs that a new USB device is present, and it even creates a new /dev/video1 file:

[20256.036523] usb 2-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 6
[20264.678411] usb 2-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 7 using ehci-pci
[20264.812963] usb 2-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0ac8, idProduct=3470
[20264.812967] usb 2-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[20264.812969] usb 2-1.2: Product: USB2.0 Camera
[20264.812971] usb 2-1.2: Manufacturer: Vimicro Corp.
[20264.813760] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB2.0 Camera (0ac8:3470)
[20264.815820] input: USB2.0 Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.2/2-1.2:1.0/input/input20

However, when I try to open the camera using qv4l2 (Graphical Qt v4l2 control panel) it fails. I've noticed that sometimes, querying the camera capabilities using v4l2-ctl when failing helps fixing the issue (that is, if qv4l2 fails to open the camera, query the capabilities with v4l2-ctl and then try again with qv4l2).

When I can't access the camera, it seems to take much longer querying (seconds vs millis). This is the output in the syslog file:

[16330.374501] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16330.674580] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16330.974356] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16331.274247] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16331.574006] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 3 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16331.874070] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 3 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16332.173979] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 3 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16332.473871] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 7 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16332.773797] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 7 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16333.073503] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 7 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16333.373581] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 6 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16333.673645] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 6 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16333.973284] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 6 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16334.273084] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16334.573067] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16334.872967] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16334.897363] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 9 on unit 2: -32 (exp. 2).
[16335.196669] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 9 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16335.496572] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 9 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16335.796658] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 4 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16336.096384] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 4 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16336.396473] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 4 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16336.696247] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 5 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16336.996278] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 5 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16337.296167] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 5 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16337.596045] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_CUR) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16337.895798] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_CUR) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16338.195878] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_CUR) UVC control 11 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 1).
[16338.495666] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 8 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16338.795502] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 8 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16339.095472] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 8 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16339.395376] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 1 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16339.695277] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 1 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[16339.895491] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 1 on unit 2: -32 (exp. 2).

This is the output of the v4l2-ctl command when working OK:

jarrarte@jarrarte-nb:~ > sudo v4l2-ctl -d 1 --all
Driver Info (not using libv4l2):
        Driver name   : uvcvideo
        Card type     : USB2.0 Camera
        Bus info      : usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.2
        Driver version: 3.13.11
        Capabilities  : 0x84000001
                Video Capture
                Streaming
                Device Capabilities
        Device Caps   : 0x04000001
                Video Capture
                Streaming
Priority: 2
Video input : 0 (Camera 1: ok)
Format Video Capture:
        Width/Height  : 1280/720
        Pixel Format  : 'MJPG'
        Field         : None
        Bytes per Line: 0
        Size Image    : 1843200
        Colorspace    : Unknown (00000000)
Crop Capability Video Capture:
        Bounds      : Left 0, Top 0, Width 1280, Height 720
        Default     : Left 0, Top 0, Width 1280, Height 720
        Pixel Aspect: 1/1
Streaming Parameters Video Capture:
        Capabilities     : timeperframe
        Frames per second: 30.000 (30/1)
        Read buffers     : 0
                     brightness (int)    : min=-10 max=10 step=1 default=-28672 value=-10
                       contrast (int)    : min=0 max=20 step=1 default=36873 value=20
                     saturation (int)    : min=0 max=10 step=1 default=6 value=6
                            hue (int)    : min=-5 max=5 step=1 default=-28672 value=-5
 white_balance_temperature_auto (bool)   : default=1 value=1
                          gamma (int)    : min=100 max=200 step=1 default=41110 value=100
                           gain (int)    : min=32 max=48 step=1 default=45088 value=32
           power_line_frequency (menu)   : min=0 max=2 default=1 value=1
      white_balance_temperature (int)    : min=2800 max=6500 step=1 default=47460 value=2800 flags=inactive
                      sharpness (int)    : min=0 max=10 step=1 default=36868 value=10
         backlight_compensation (int)    : min=0 max=1 step=1 default=45056 value=1
                  exposure_auto (menu)   : min=0 max=3 default=3 value=3
              exposure_absolute (int)    : min=8 max=16384 step=1 default=512 value=8 flags=inactive

When it's not recognized, the command doesn't ouput the lines after "Read buffers" line.

Questions and next steps

• Is this a camera compatibility problem?
• Is this a UVC (unified video class) problem?
• Is this a V4L2 (Video for Linux 2) problem?

Why I'm interested

I'm interested in using this webcam, but I need it to be reliable!