To adjust an old saying back into present “Those who have money and no time, they use Windows or Mac. Those that have time and no money, they use Linux”.
I had troubles getting the web cam to work for Skype using Ubuntu 12.04, after upgrading both the distribution as well as Skype. I am using the Microsoft LifeCam Cinema which is reported as fully supported.
I’ve tried all possible solutions (adding the user to the video group, the LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype trick, the chmod 777 /dev/video*, etc) until I realized that the trouble was not with the camera or Ubuntu as gstreamer-properties correctly showed the camera output.
Trouble was fixed by doing:
cd ~ rm -rf .Skype
and restarting Skype.
I guess Skype got confused with all the updates and so on, and an old configuration file prevented it from detecting the webcam properly (since “Enabling Skype Video” only showed “No devices detected”).
Yey, 2 hours lost.
I will give up Ubuntu and Skype, this is just a joke … For 10 years I wait for Ubuntu to reach the level Windows 98 was (basic audio / video, webcam, tv tuner, chat) to work seamlessly and still not getting there …
Leave a Reply