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I am trying to get the integrated webcam on an Acer Aspire laptop to work but there is no image coming out of Cheese. When Cheese runs, the LED next to the webcam comes on but there is no image. Cheese GUI is shown below. Nothing works. What can I do?

I know everyone is affected by COVID19 during this period and undergoing some form of lockdown/inconvenience. Webcam is really necessary at this stage. I am trying to help someone get their webcam to work. Thanks.

I found answers on this similar question for 14.04. But don't seem to be able to use those solutions. I also noticed this Acer Aspire notebook does not have a shortcut/Function key to manually switch on/off the webcam like some of the laptops mentioned in the link.

Based on the outputs from the terminal, I know Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:57cc Realtek Semiconductor Corp. HD WebCam is the webcam that this system is using. However, uvcvideo can't seem to initialize it. What can I do here?

I found this website on UVC supported devices. It seems that this class only supports 2 Realtek webcams. 0bda:57cc does not appear to be supported.

Any thing else I can do in this situation to get this webcam to work?

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:57cc Realtek Semiconductor Corp. HD WebCam
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04ca:3015 Lite-On Technology Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 1a2c:2d43 China Resource Semico Co., Ltd 
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 275d:0ba6  
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 058f:9254 Alcor Micro Corp. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

$ lsmod | grep video
uvcvideo               98304  1
videobuf2_vmalloc      20480  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops       20480  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_v4l2         24576  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_common       57344  2 videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo
videodev              225280  4 videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_common
mc                     53248  4 videodev,videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_common
video                  49152  2 acer_wmi,i915


$ ls /dev | grep video
video0
video1


$ uname -r
5.4.0-88-generic


$ dmesg | grep "video"
[    4.014471] videodev: Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[    4.088470] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device HD WebCam (0bda:57cc)
[    4.104949] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo

cheese_gui

Close-up of webcam:

webcam

Sun Bear
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    Can you try see if the webcam works with another application such as Skype and report back? – Raffles Jun 07 '20 at 12:49
  • Silly question: Did you open the sliding lid, if present? Please post: 1) Model of PC, 2) output of uname -a – sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio May 28 '21 at 09:45
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    @Raffles I have gotten access to the laptop. Using the Zoom application, the webcam the LED next to the webcam comes on but there is no image, i.e. the zoom application shows a black out window. Same result as the Cheese application. – Sun Bear Oct 14 '21 at 13:44
  • @sancho.sReinstateMonicaCellio The laptop is a Acer Aspire E14. It does not have a mechanical window sliding lid. I have upgraded it use Ubuntu 20.04 Linux 5.4.0-88-generic #99-Ubuntu x86_64. The same issue persist. – Sun Bear Oct 14 '21 at 13:47
  • It could be a hardware failure, however I suggest to see if it works in a live USB environment (use the latest version) and report back. Also try to use an external webcam and see if it works. – Raffles Oct 14 '21 at 21:59
  • @Raffles Using a live USB environment, the black screen issue persisted. When I plugged in a usb webcam, Cheese was able to project the images captured by the usb webcam as default. The laptop webcam led indicator did not light up. Does this mean the laptop webcam is faulty? – Sun Bear Oct 17 '21 at 15:12
  • I have consulted with a friend, in over 100 Ubuntu 20.04 installs we have never had a problem with a driver for built in webcams. So the driver is unlikely. It is very likely a hardware issue. One other tip, try Ubuntu 21.10 live usb, if that doesn't work, unless you are dual booting with Windows and can try it that way, I suggest to buy a clip-on usb webcam and use it instead. – Raffles Oct 18 '21 at 23:50
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    @Raffles I confirm it is a hardware issue. Thanks. – Sun Bear Jan 08 '22 at 18:32

1 Answers1

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May be some other application also using webcam that's why it's happens. and it happens me too. so find out what applications using your web cam.

Kandhaswamy
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