<Solved - partially> Logitech USB Webcam crashes the desktop and kmix

[Nish]

This is the C110, cheapest one I could find- it was just for a Skype interview.  I haven't even gotten as far as Skype as KDE crashes when this is even plugged in.

First I tried plugging it in when KDE was up and running.  I immediately got a KDE crash handler dialog that said kmix crashed. So I rebooted with the webcam plugged in and the desktop loaded normally for a blink of an eye, it then went black screen but GKrellm monitor was still visible.

Webcam does not crash a windows laptop so I think I can rule that out.

If I have to do the interview on the old laptop, oh well.  But would be nice to see if I can get this going in linux.  

Searching for answers I see a lot about skype being problematic for some but nothing about this particular webcam itself.

Fully updated other than kernel is probably not latest 2.6.38.8-pclos1.bfs
- otherwise very stable install (32 bit). Home build on a biostar motherboard using onboard sound chip with an added nVidia graphics card disabling the onboard radeon. Let me know if particulars are needed.  No desktop effects are turned on.  

Not sure where to start troubleshooting this though probably will have to start to a command prompt if I keep losing the desktop.

[Just18]

You could try installing a newer kernel to see if that makes any difference .....  you can always revert back to the present one provided you do not uninstall it.

I don't recall this ever happening here - DE crash on insertion of camera - and I have used and tested maybe 20 different webcams. (presently I have two plugged in to USB ports as I was testing guvcview).

Do you have an opportunity to plug the camera into another PC with Linux on it?

If so then please get the ID of the webcam so we know the exact device number.

It seems from reading that the webcam is UVC compliant so there should be no problem with it at all.

I do note that the C200, C210 and the C300, C310 are listed as supported, but no mention of the C110 here
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

Is this the model you have?

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/435/8112

On this page it says that the above camera is not supported on Linux .....
http://logitech-en-amr.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/24406/session/L3RpbWUvMTMyODcwODgzOC9zaWQvY294V1phUWs=

"Your C110 webcam is supported by:
Windows XP 32/64
Windows Vista 32/64
Windows 7 32/64
NOTE: The C110 is not supported on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, UNIX or Linux operating systems."

Seems you might be out of luck with this one  


#########################

EDIT: *************  

The camera does work with the UVC driver!  So that is good news indeed!  See here

http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/hardware/471316-driver-logitech-webcam-c110.html

#############

So that leaves the crashing problem   ......  and cannot imagine what might be causing that .........  

[Nish]

Do you have an opportunity to plug the camera into another PC with Linux on it?

If so then please get the ID of the webcam so we know the exact device number.
<snip>
So that leaves the crashing problem   ......  and cannot imagine what might be causing that .........  

I booted the laptop to PCLOS and plugged in the webcam.  No crashing - assuming it would work if there is an app for checking that.  Not sure what you meant by ID but I went to configure hardware and this is what it says:
Identification
Vendor: ‎

Description: ‎Webcam C110
Media class: ‎Video|Video Control
Connection
Bus: ‎USB
Bus PCI #: ‎1
PCI device #: ‎4
Vendor ID: ‎0x046d
Device ID: ‎0x0829
Misc
Module: ‎uvcvideo

I have also tried the webcam out on the windows work laptop which has all the software and webcam definitely functional.  This seems to be a problem with my main desktop config or that install of PCLOS.  That is a slightly older install updated. I got this laptop around Christmas and it was the latest iso at the time and it is kernel 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs

I think next step is to boot the desktop to windows and see if the webcam crashes windows.  If it crashes windows too I might need a BIOS update or something.  That machine has been running stable over a year but I do have a second core unlocked on cpu.  It is stable in 32bit but when testing 64bit there was instability.  Webcam maybe tickles that second core in a way it doesn't like. 

[Just18]

Do you have an opportunity to plug the camera into another PC with Linux on it?

If so then please get the ID of the webcam so we know the exact device number.
<snip>
So that leaves the crashing problem   ......  and cannot imagine what might be causing that .........  

I booted the laptop to PCLOS and plugged in the webcam.  No crashing - assuming it would work if there is an app for checking that.  Not sure what you meant by ID but I went to configure hardware and this is what it says:
Identification
Vendor: ‎

Description: ‎Webcam C110
Media class: ‎Video|Video Control
Connection
Bus: ‎USB
Bus PCI #: ‎1
PCI device #: ‎4
Vendor ID: ‎0x046d
Device ID: ‎0x0829
Misc
Module: ‎uvcvideo

I have also tried the webcam out on the windows work laptop which has all the software and webcam definitely functional.  This seems to be a problem with my main desktop config or that install of PCLOS.  That is a slightly older install updated. I got this laptop around Christmas and it was the latest iso at the time and it is kernel 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs

I think next step is to boot the desktop to windows and see if the webcam crashes windows.  If it crashes windows too I might need a BIOS update or something.  That machine has been running stable over a year but I do have a second core unlocked on cpu.  It is stable in 32bit but when testing 64bit there was instability.  Webcam maybe tickles that second core in a way it doesn't like. 

VLC will display the webcam .....  open Device ....  as will apps such as Kamoso etc

Yes the ID I wanted to see was  Vendor ID: ‎0x046d Device ID: ‎0x0829 .....  just to be sure we knew what exact device was in question.

I think next step is to boot the desktop to windows and see if the webcam crashes windows.

I had misunderstood .....  I thought that had succeeded.

Is it possible that you are trying the webcam in a USB 1.1 and not a USB 2 port?

If it works in Windows on that machine then I would try an update to the kernel first ......   ye never know ....

[Nish]

Thank you for all your help, Just.  I don't think you have misunderstood, I just have a herd of boxen  

Here is where we are at:

My main machine, desktop
          PCLOS- the webcam will crash kmix if hotplugged and will crash the desktop if it is plugged in when booted
          Windows XP - no issues
          MODS PLEASE FORGIVE ME HERE - the test install of 64bit PCLOS KDE - exact same crash in KDE as with 32bit
          MODS PLEASE FORGIVE ME HERE AGAIN - the test of 64bit PCLOS LXDE - no issues.  Doesn't crash the desktop, installed Skype static (all I saw for this beginning with 6 and ending with 4 STRICTLY TESTING OS nice job still Neal;-) There was no one to call at the time but am having the same no audio issue in setup as with PCLOS in laptop.  Not bothering to research at this point.
        A Random Nameless beginning with S and ending with n KDE 64 bit linux distro.  Plugging in the webcam did not crash anything.  But I don't know this distro well enough to like use any application.  I just haven't gotten around to overwriting the partition yet.

Old lappy -
          PCLOS - webcam doesn't crash KDE.  I can bring up my video with kamosa, I installed skype (non-static) but have issues with the sound. I  think that is a known problem and just not going there now.
          Windows XP - no issues.  Installed and ran video chat on Skype successfully

PS - I had thought of the 2.0 issue and made sure to try this in the back ports which is definitely 2.0.  Not entirely sure and never pursued to see if my case's front ports are 2.0 compat.  Fairly new case so probably.  I would think if the mobo is 2.0 the pins for the front are 2.0 too.

[Just18]

My main machine, desktop
          PCLOS- the webcam will crash kmix if hotplugged and will crash the desktop if it is plugged in when booted
          Windows XP - no issues

After trying a different kernel I would try a liveCD/liveUSB (KDE) boot of the problem PC, and when up and running plug in the camera.

That should help narrow the problem down somewhat.

To get information about what happens when it is plugged in, try the following in a terminal

dmesg

The last number of lines will show what has happened ....  try it on the installed OS first maybe.

[Nish]

Here is dmesg, but I am little confused I disconnect external drive and plug in the webcam.  It shows me unplugging (address 2?) then the plugging in of the webcam is address 4?  Is this some like an IRQ conflict? And I don't know about the segfault before I do anything.  What is s2u?

s2u[1847]: segfault at 0 ip   (null) sp bfcbc90c error 4 in s2u[8048000+2000]
ld-linux.so.2[22691]: segfault at 69ba6315 ip 45e91be4 sp bf97dbc0 error 6 in ld-2.13.so[45e87000+1a000]
usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 2
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=0829
usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 1-3: Product: Webcam C110
usb 1-3: Manufacturer:
Linux video capture interface: v2.00
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Webcam C110 (046d:0829)
input: Webcam C110 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/input/input7
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
USB Video Class driver (v1.0.0)



This is the crash dialog that pops up:
Executable: kmix PID: 2965 Signal: Segmentation fault (11)

Off to update the kernel now.

[Just18]

Here is dmesg, but I am little confused I disconnect external drive and plug in the webcam.  It shows me unplugging (address 2?) then the plugging in of the webcam is address 4?  Is this some like an IRQ conflict? And I don't know about the segfault before I do anything.  What is s2u?

s2u[1847]: segfault at 0 ip   (null) sp bfcbc90c error 4 in s2u[8048000+2000]
ld-linux.so.2[22691]: segfault at 69ba6315 ip 45e91be4 sp bf97dbc0 error 6 in ld-2.13.so[45e87000+1a000]
usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 2
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=0829
usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 1-3: Product: Webcam C110
usb 1-3: Manufacturer:
Linux video capture interface: v2.00
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Webcam C110 (046d:0829)
input: Webcam C110 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/input/input7
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
USB Video Class driver (v1.0.0)



This is the crash dialog that pops up:
Executable: kmix PID: 2965 Signal: Segmentation fault (11)

Off to update the kernel now.

For clarity, before jumping to conclusions ......... you had an external HDD connected to the USB?
Is that powered from USB or does it have its own PSU?

Reboot without anything connected to the USB connectors (except maybe keyboard & mouse)

Plug in the camera first and run dmesg immediately, regardless what happens.

Unplug the camera, check dmesg, and plug in the external drive and check it again.

At first reading it appears the seg fault has occurred prior to plugging in the camera .....  but need to clarify this.

EDIT:  Forgot ......

System to user tools (S2U)
Use dbus to communicate between from the system to the users.

[AS]

Here is dmesg, but I am little confused I disconnect external drive and plug in the webcam.  It shows me unplugging (address 2?) then the plugging in of the webcam is address 4?  Is this some like an IRQ conflict? And I don't know about the segfault before I do anything.  What is s2u?

"System to user tools"
"Use dbus to communicate between from the system to the users."

s2u is currently broken, but I'm not sure it could be related to your issue.

Just reported in broken packages ... 
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,102463.0.html

AS

[Nish]

Ok, I updated kernel first to 2.6.38.8-pclos3.bfs
rebooted and watched the modules rebuilding (I need to post a separate thread about removing unneeded modules)

I plugged in webcam and got the usual crash.  Came here and saw your post so I unplugged all USB except for mouse and keyboard (in addition to my external drive which has its own PS, I had a printer plugged in)

Rebooted and plugged in the webcam - usual crash.  Here is the dmesg from USB events.  I didn't see any segfaults anywhere.  Not sure what I did with what to cause that other.

usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=0829
usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 1-3: Product: Webcam C110
usb 1-3: Manufacturer:
Linux video capture interface: v2.00
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Webcam C110 (046d:0829)
input: Webcam C110 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/input/input7
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
USB Video Class driver (v1.0.0)

and here is the swapping out the camera for the external drive

usb 1-3: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1100
usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
usb 1-3: Product: My Book
usb 1-3: Manufacturer: Western Digital
usb 1-3: SerialNumber: 57442D574341535530383138303935
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi6 : usb-storage 1-3:1.0
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
usbcore: registered new interface driver uas
scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       3200AAV External 1.65 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
 sdc: sdc1 sdc2
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

My next idea was to throw in a soundcard from another machine and disable the onboard.  That is what I would do in windows anyway, to rule out IRQ conflict sort of problems. What think you?

I will try a LiveCD too, any thing in particular?  Assuming a PCLOS flavor

[Just18]

I plugged in webcam and got the usual crash.  Came here and saw your post so I unplugged all USB except for mouse and keyboard (in addition to my external drive which has its own PS, I had a printer plugged in)

Rebooted and plugged in the webcam - usual crash.  Here is the dmesg from USB events.  I didn't see any segfaults anywhere.  Not sure what I did with what to cause that other.

Is this 'usual crash' only that Kmix is crashing now?

[Nish]

yes, the "usual crash" is kmix, only the PID changes

The camera has a built in mic and this crash is sound related - but what is different in kmix compared to whatever is handling it in my LXDE install?  

I have had sound issues before because of the HDMI on nVidia card and went through an install and config of pulse audio trying to get sound through TV/Monitor speakers but I uninstalled pulse when I found it too much trouble.

I should maybe change the thread title as the desktop only crashes if the webcam is already plugged in when I boot.  Hotplugging the webcam just crashed kmix.  I can continue working without it or restart kmix. 

[Nish]

Just booted up PCLOS LiveCD and plugged in the webcam.  There was no crash of kmix.  I installed kamoso and the webcam is working OK. I am out of ideas.  Maybe uninstall/reinstall KDE?

[Just18]

Just booted up PCLOS LiveCD and plugged in the webcam.  There was no crash of kmix.  I installed kamoso and the webcam is working OK. I am out of ideas.  Maybe uninstall/reinstall KDE?

I would think a reinstall of the OS is a rather drastic action to take if the only app that is causing trouble is Kmix.

First ....  is that install fully updated from a current mirror? ....  reload ....  mark all updates ....  and apply them.

If no updates then I would uninstall

kdemultimedia4-kmix

and reboot. Then try inserting the camera and also try rebooting with the camera inserted.

There may be some 'left-over' interference from Pulse Audio that is causing the Kmix problem.

There are also other mixers in the repository .....  such as the extensive Qas.

[Nish]

I would think a reinstall of the OS is a rather drastic action to take if the only app that is causing trouble is Kmix.

First ....  is that install fully updated from a current mirror? ....  reload ....  mark all updates ....  and apply them.

If no updates then I would uninstall

kdemultimedia4-kmix

and reboot. Then try inserting the camera and also try rebooting with the camera inserted.

There may be some 'left-over' interference from Pulse Audio that is causing the Kmix problem.

There are also other mixers in the repository .....  such as the extensive Qas.

I did mean just reinstall KDE, not a whole reinstall but you had a better idea with the reinstalling just multimedia.  I have been keeping updated from PASS and now from heanet since pass has been out (have to check on that).  I reinstalled multimedia and am now able to reboot with the webcam attached and the desktop doesn't crash.  I have a picture in kamoso and I even got the audio working in test skype though nobody to call to check vid.

Sadly, it still crashes kmix if I hotplug.  I just won't hotplug <wink>  will mark this partially solved. This could very well be leftover something from the pulse audio experimenting.  I had tried many different settings in advanced things when I was trying to get the sound out of the TV. Now it also immediately would crash the kmix on my TESTING 64bit install, not positive but I think I had pulse on that as well at some point.

This build's days are numbered anyway. I am being laid off any day now and either will be in a shelter with the old laptop or if I find gainful employment I will finally finish my new build whose parts I have here are sadly getting older by the minute    they weren't cutting edge to begin with lol and desktop PCs are supposed to be extinct soon, no

thank you