webcam no longer works - "invalid tuner"

[daytooner]

I just got the updated package from FC14 repository: VLC media player 1.1.9 The Luggage (revision exported. Now my webcam no longer works. In the output messages I get:

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[0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: opening device '/dev/video0' [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: V4L2 device: Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 using driver: pwc (version: 10.0.12) on usb-0000:00:1d.3-1 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: the device has the capabilities: (X) Video Capture, ( ) Audio, ( ) Tuner, ( ) Radio [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: supported I/O methods are: (X) Read/Write, (X) Streaming, ( ) Asynchronous [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: video input 0 (usb) has type: External analog input * [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: video standard 0 is: webcam [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device codec PWC2 (Raw Philips Webcam) not supported [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports chroma I420 [4:2:0, planar, Y-Cb-Cr, YU12] [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 160x120 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 320x240 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 640x480 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports chroma RV24 [RGB3, RGB3] [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 160x120 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 320x240 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 640x480 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports chroma RV24 [BGR3, BGR3] [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 160x120 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 320x240 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 640x480 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports chroma YV12 [YV12, YV12] [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 160x120 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 320x240 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: device supports size 640x480 [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access debug: '/dev/video0' is a video device [0xb655dc64] v4l2 access error: invalid tuner 0. [0xb655dc64] main access debug: no access module matching "v4l2" could be loaded [0xb655dc64] main access debug: TIMER module_need() : 767.166 ms - Total 767.166 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 767.166 ms) [0xb7300664] main input error: open of `v4l2:///dev/video0' failed: (null) [0xb7300664] main input debug: thread ended [0x8c4206c] main playlist debug: dead input [0x8c4206c] main playlist debug: changing item without a request (current 0/1) [0x8c4206c] main playlist debug: nothing to play [0x8c3e45c] qt4 interface debug: IM: Deleting the input

My webcam doesn't have a tuner, and none of the previous versions ever had a problem like this.

Any help greatly appreciated.

TIA

ken

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

What was your previous version.?

[daytooner]

What was your previous version.?

Not sure, since this was upgraded via yum. I'd have to try to rollback to the previous version.

I know that the v1.0.6 "Golden Eye" version worked. That version also works on an FC12 installation I have running. Apparently there is no update to "Luggage" for FC12. I don't know if there was any release - through the Fedora repositories - between that version and v1.1.9 "Luggage".

The "Invalid tuner" error was what caught my attention. I'd have thought that vlc (or v4l2) would have recognized that there was no tuner for webcams. (NOTE: I get the same error for several different webcams.)

Can't be any more specific at the moment, unless you have a suggestion.

ken

[daytooner]

I haven't gotten any more responses to this, and vlc still won't play any of my webcams.

Mplayer works fine.

An older version, on Fedora 12, works (v1.0.6 "Golden Eye"). This version, on Fedora 14, doesn't. Here is the opening verbose output:

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[ken@Bugs ~]$ vlc -vvv VLC media player 1.1.9 The Luggage (revision exported) [0x9a6f8fc] main libvlc debug: VLC media player - 1.1.9 The Luggage [0x9a6f8fc] main libvlc debug: Copyright © 1996-2011 the VideoLAN team [0x9a6f8fc] main libvlc debug: revision exported [0x9a6f8fc] main libvlc debug: configured with ./configure '--build=i686-pc-linux-gnu' '--host=i686-pc-linux-gnu' '--program-prefix=' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--sbindir=/usr/sbin' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--libdir=/usr/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec' '--localstatedir=/var' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--disable-dependency-tracking' '--with-pic' '--disable-rpath' '--with-binary-version=1.1.9' '--with-tuning=no' '--with-kde-solid=/usr/share/kde4/apps/solid/actions' '--enable-switcher' '--enable-lua' '--enable-live555' '--enable-dv' '--enable-opencv' '--enable-sftp' '--enable-pvr' '--enable-gnomevfs' '--enable-vcdx' '--enable-omxil' '--enable-faad' '--enable-twolame' '--enable-real' '--enable-realrtsp' '--enable-flac' '--enable-tremor' '--enable-speex' '--enable-theora' '--enable-dirac' '--enable-libass' '--enable-shout' '--enable-xcb' '--enable-svg' '--enable-snapshot' '--enable-svgalib' '--enable-directfb' '--enable-aa' '--enable-caca' '--enable-jack' '--enable-portaudio' '--enable-pulse' '--enable-ncurses' '--enable-fbosd' '--enable-lirc' '--enable-loader' '--enable-mozilla' 'build_alias=i686-pc-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=i686-pc-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' 'CXXFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m32 -march=i686 -mtune=atom -fasynchronous-unwind-tables' 'PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig'

For both webcams (Creative and Logitech), I still get this when trying to play:

[0xb6560d74] v4l2 access debug: '/dev/video0' is a video device
[0xb6560d74] v4l2 access error: invalid tuner 0.
[0xb6560d74] main access debug: no access module matching "v4l2" could be loaded
[0xb6560d74] main access debug: TIMER module_need() : 752.424 ms - Total 752.424 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 752.424 ms)
[0xb7400664] main input error: open of `v4l2:///dev/video0' failed: (null)
[0xb7400664] main input debug: thread ended

(see previous post for complete verbose output)

Is it just me having this problem? Does anyone else have a webcam running with this version?

Any help greatly appreciated.

TIA

ken

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

This message appears because you have configured a tuning frequency. You need to keep the frequency to zero if you have no tuner.

[daytooner]

This message appears because you have configured a tuning frequency. You need to keep the frequency to zero if you have no tuner.

First, thank you for the response. I do appreciate this and any other help I can get.

But... where do I configure a tuning frequency? Is that in vlc? I will presume so, since I do not have to do that for mplayer.

And how do I "keep the frequency to zero"?

I changed my vlcrc (.config/vlc/vlcrc) to the following:

# Tuner id (integer)
#v4l2-tuner=0

# Frequency (integer)
v4l2-tuner-frequency=0

but that made no difference.

On a side note: When I first installed Fedora 14, the version of vlc included with it at the time was very unstable on my system. It would randomly, but frequently. crash. Eventually, though, I could get it running and playing my webcams - with none of the above messages. Then vlc was updated - via Fedora rpm udpate repository - to this current version. While the instability issues were gone, this new problem showed up. Don't know what the previous version was, but this was sometime around the beginning of this year.

Hope that info helps some.

Thanks again.

ken

[hcbo]

Hi,

I have had the same problem with the latest version from git, but the problem is also present in the Debian squeeze standard vlc version (1.1.3).

I found a workaround, if not a solution. It Requires recompilation of the v4l2.c access module. Here is a
diff from git:

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diff --git a/modules/access/v4l2.c b/modules/access/v4l2.c index 108b7ec..f5160c7 100644 --- a/modules/access/v4l2.c +++ b/modules/access/v4l2.c @@ -1885,7 +1885,7 @@ static int OpenVideoDev( vlc_object_t *p_obj, demux_sys_t *p_sys, bool b_demux ) } /* Tune the tuner */ - if( p_sys->i_frequency >= 0 ) + if( p_sys->i_frequency >= 0 && (p_sys->dev_cap.capabilities & V4L2_CAP_TUNER) ) { if( p_sys->i_cur_tuner < 0 || p_sys->i_cur_tuner >= p_sys->i_tuner ) { @@ -1906,7 +1906,7 @@ static int OpenVideoDev( vlc_object_t *p_obj, demux_sys_t *p_sys, bool b_demux ) } /* Set the tuner's audio mode */ - if( p_sys->i_audio_mode >= 0 ) + if( p_sys->i_audio_mode >= 0 && (p_sys->dev_cap.capabilities & V4L2_CAP_TUNER)) { if( p_sys->i_cur_tuner < 0 || p_sys->i_cur_tuner >= p_sys->i_tuner ) {

The problem seems to be that tuner frequencies are attempted to be set even if the camera has no tuner capabilities. This is correctly recognised in the function that prints the device capabilities, but is ignored when opening the device.

Setting the frequency to a negative value could achieve the same effect, but I did not try.

Thanks for opening the thread, good to know if somebody else has the same problem. Good luck.

[kwizart]

If ever you need to downgrade to an older release, you can do:
yum downgrade vlc vlc-core

[daytooner]

Hi,

I have had the same problem with the latest version from git, but the problem is also present in the Debian squeeze standard vlc version (1.1.3).

I found a workaround, if not a solution. It Requires recompilation of the v4l2.c access module. Here is a
diff from git:
<...snip...>
The problem seems to be that tuner frequencies are attempted to be set even if the camera has no tuner capabilities. This is correctly recognised in the function that prints the device capabilities, but is ignored when opening the device.

Setting the frequency to a negative value could achieve the same effect, but I did not try.

Setting the tuner frequency to -1 doesn't work, since the first problem is that it is looking for tuner id 0, which doesn't exist.

As for recompiling, unfortunately for this version of Fedora (14), I don't have a build environment set up. Maybe if this was submitted as a bug, then, eventually, a fedora rpm would get built.

Thanks for opening the thread, good to know if somebody else has the same problem. Good luck.

FWIW: if you look at the date that I originally posted this, you can see that no one else was having this problem, or at least didn't care about it. I had submitted a bug report originally, but nothing ever came of it. I had posted the same problem on the Fedora forums, but didn't get a working answer (like yours). I had pretty much given up hope that this problem would ever get resolved. (gripe, gripe, gripe...).

So, thank you VERY much for finding this. I will post this as a bug, with your info, then see what happens. If I get an F14 build environment set up, I will also recompile vlc and try it.

Thanks again,

ken

[hcbo]

Setting the tuner frequency to -1 doesn't work, since the first problem is that it is looking for tuner id 0, which doesn't exist.

Not really... the error message is either generated in the code for setting the frequency or the audio mode of the tuner.
Both code blocks are skipped if the respective parameters for frequency and audio mode are negative. Setting the freq. to a negative value is no problem, but I do not know how to do it with the audio mode (in the control window is a pop-up menu with text entries). If you find that out, you might get it working yet without recompiling.

[daytooner]

Setting the tuner frequency to -1 doesn't work, since the first problem is that it is looking for tuner id 0, which doesn't exist.

Not really... the error message is either generated in the code for setting the frequency or the audio mode of the tuner.
Both code blocks are skipped if the respective parameters for frequency and audio mode are negative. Setting the freq. to a negative value is no problem, but I do not know how to do it with the audio mode (in the control window is a pop-up menu with text entries). If you find that out, you might get it working yet without recompiling.

I found it out:

:v4l2-tuner-frequency=-1 :v4l2-tuner-audio-mode=-1

which can be set via the gui or on the command lne. As you said, once the audio mode is set to -1, then everything should - and does - work!!!

Finally!.

I did post a bug report, pointing to your post.
Thank you SO VERY much! Now my webcams finally work (w/ vlc) again!

ken

[FabriceN]

I'm so happy to finaly find this page explaining my long during bug and how to tournaround it !
And it is even worse than you think: you already get it if you reset prefs to defaults, then go to prefs/all/inpus/acess/V4L2, and juste save prefs (after changing some value + restoring it immediatly just to force saving).

alas, I see that your discussion in 2011 is about a version of vlc that is already more recent than the 1.0.6 that is still the one proposed in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in 2013 !!!

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

This problem is already fixed in VLC 2.0.x and later.

[FabriceN]

Ok, but Ubuntu stick to the vlc version known at the moment of their release , so regular install is not possible. I did not found how I could install manually the newest version (provided it would work in an environment with old version of the other libs).

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

That's not true (anymore). VLC 2.0.5 is in Ubuntu 12.10 even though it was released after Ubuntu.

[FabriceN]

Good !
Anyway for the moment my various machines are under 10.04. How difficult is it to "install manually" VLC 2.0.5 ? (i.e. what to do ?)