Shotwell can’t find camera, after kernel change

[Member DaveW]

On my Antix 17.4 (32 bit) system, I recently changed from kernel 4.9.212 to 5.6.10, mostly because Wireguard is included in that kernel version.

The regularly accessed programs seem to function without any problem. However, Shotwell does not recognize my camera when running 5.6.10 (it still does, when I roll back to 4.9.212).

Where would I look to find the cause of the problem?

Is it likely that other programs will be balky with the updated kernel? If so, I will run the newer kernel only when needing Wireguard.

Thanks!

[Member Xecure]

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I am not familiar with webcam drivers, but your experience may mean that the new kernel does not come with you specific webcam driver.

You could start by using the 4.9 kernel and figuring out the exact model for the webcam and exact driver being used. I am not sure if all webcams are USB or if internal ones are PCI.
Check in terminal
dmesg | grep "video"
or maybe more specifically
dmesg | grep "WebCam"

You need to write down the device ID and the driver used. With this you can check on the net if anyone has built the driver for new kernels (or are having problems with their webcam with the new kernels), downoad it and build it yourself.

The best option, if your webcam runs in a usb interface (I think most do) is first
inxi --usb -x | grep "Video"
This will give you the name of the device and driver used, but for more info, find the device in
inxi --usb -xxx
which gives you everything (device ID, name, driver, etc).

For example, for my laptop, I get

... info: Chicony type: Video driver: uvcvideo ...
... chip ID: 04f2:b2dc ...

uvcvideo is the driver and the ID for my device is 04f2:b2dc

I would start with that.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member DaveW]

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Xecure, Thank you for the starting places. I tried the commands given, but did not get info on the camera or driver.
I did get camera info by using Control Centre “full info” (inxi -zv8). But did not see driver info there.

I have submitted a “bug report” to shotwell help.

Thanks!

[Member DaveW]

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Well… I submitted a bug report and received this answer:

Shotwell version 0.24.5

This version is antique and was released three and a half years ago. You are using a version that is too old and not supported anymore by GNOME developers.

Please feel free to reopen this task if the problem still occurs with a recent version of GNOME, or feel free to report this bug in the bug tracking system of your Linux distribution if your distribution still supports the version that you are using.

I’m using the most recent version in the Antix 17, Stretch repository. So, I guess, I’ll just use the earlier kernel, when using Shotwell.

[Member Xecure]

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Well, gnome developers … let’s not get into it.

If you can post the inxi lines (with the corresponding category) where the webcam appears, we may be able to find out more, if you are still interested in trying to get it to work on the new kernel. There is no guaranties, but maybe we can advance a bit more.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member DaveW]

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The Shotwell help site sent another note:

One Note: All camera communication is done through gphoto2 anyway.

Apparently, Shotwell and gphoto2 do not use WebCam or video.

The only relevant “inxi –usb -xxx” line is:

Device-1: 1-7.1:10 info: Canon PowerShot A3300 IS type: Still Imaging driver: N/A
interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 04a9:3223
serial: C5B05446D8A048E0A5EB857D46893640

With either kernel version, photos can be extracted from the camera with cli programs: gphoto2 or gphotofs, and then previewed with Mirage.

gphotofs uses the kernel FUSE module. My guess is that Shotwell does also. It seems strange that Shotwell balks with the newer kernel. But, I have work arounds. So that is good enough for now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Member Xecure]

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I am the dumbest person in the world. Forgive me for confusing Digital Camera with Webcam. I must not have payed attention while reading. All things I wrote are useless.

If you can extract the images through the cli app, then at least you have found a solution there.

Good work finding a solution. Even if you cannot get the GUI app to work, you found a work around.

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member DaveW]

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Dumbest person? I think not!
I do appreciate your consideration of my problem.
I discovered that after using either cli program to get files out of the camera into a computer directory, they can be imported into Shotwell. So, except for an added step or two, things still work as before.
Thanks again!

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