When using skype as a deb it didn’t either but we could work around as detailed well enough by https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/219 - I prefer Xubuntu but the advice provided worked (until they wrapped in nohup but that was beatable too) in most flavors and they were #1 for the query I just gave Goog.
I have managed to form the opinion that perhaps it can only be done at the source end of the snap arrangement, I would be grateful if anyone can help me form an opinion I like better.
Any tips I might pursue to get v4xxxxxx.so preloaded to the environment skype is going to run in, before it starts, or any decent attempt at a workaround that even sounds like it has the slightest chance of working will be applauded
Does this imply that it should easily be possible to get ld_preload= workarounds to work? I have been trying to place my ld_preload such that it might ‘engage’ between the webcam and skype - now I am contemplating if perhaps I should pursue the idea of making the v4xxxxxx.so file an appropriate part of the sequence leading from ‘power on’ to a ‘login prompt’ - would anybody advise me if they view this idea nutty?
Have a nuttier idea I might try?
Edit: The scripts running the forum do not cater the {/quote} tag not being on its own line, it would seem - apparently I broke it by deleting the carriage return between eof text in quote and tag.
Thank you Daniel, I am willing to rate your questions as considered better than I have considered my own previous input here regarding this issue, I am honestly grateful for your well considered prompt.
Skype works perfectly well. Image is merely missing. I am used to that as being the ‘basic issue’ with Skype for ever since I first bumped into the Linux version.
Of course it works in Cheese, VLC and all of the other applications which I rate as having been written by people who considered the webcam input angle better than anyone contributing to Skype has. I thought it implied by my imagining I think it should be possible to make it work with Skype (again) but I see the entirely reasonable notion of verifying this.
Did you consider clicking the link I provided in my original post? it only shows one of the .so ‘devices’ which very often worked back then, v4l1compat.so, the reason I wrote it as I have is because if that one didn’t work trying v4l2convert.so (which I may be a little off on the name of here, working from memory and not looking it up right now) instead usually ‘fixed’ it. I suspect you do not really need me to give you my take as to how these work, however if you so prompt I will risk exposing how much I have really checked them out by attempting to.
So far all attempts to place either of those in such a way they might manage their previous effect for Skype has failed me, perhaps I haven’t been imaginative enough, through not knowing enough, is a notion occurred before I did the OP thing here and I am still under that impression
Hmmm, I reconsider everything I ever post anywhere carefully before posting and then I can’t help considering it even more carefully because I realise somebody else might and they might spot me being silly and it would be a pity to miss out on a chance to laugh at myself.
Occurs I should check out as much info as I can about the exact operation and function of the v4l#cxxxxx.so files as doing so may reveal enough to me to satisfy my boss with regards to his darned webcam. Thanks @lucyllewy, you gave me an even better prompt that I initially thought.
ok, blank screen where the video should be suggests maybe the kernel driver for your webcam is presenting the camera differently than skype is expecting, which could be why the LD_PRELOAD can work around it, though I wonder how (which functionality they’re changing) those v4l so files are overriding the default skype behaviour.
Does skype list your webcam as a potential video source, in the preferences screen, even though it shows a blank screen? If it detects the camera, but still shows blackness when selected, then it might be that the camera is sending the video in a format that skype doesn’t understand, such as MJPEG (I don’t know for sure that skype doesn’t support MJPEG, that’s just a guess to illustrate the concept).
I think skype is set to classic mode so we should be able to discount any confinement issues that skype being snapped might incur if it was in strict mode.
Yes. Skype, as per usual, offers the webcam as if it should work.
But then the picture is black and I feel someone may be being a jerk.
(lol, soz, saw opportunity for poetry and I love a bit of poetry now and then - some great posits and an excellent question on your part again, thank you, i am considering you quite a good friend!)
Skype is, as assured by @Ads2000 as response to my mistake of mentioning skype in the cafe (I thought the quote crafted correctly but somehow they missed out on their due credit), is definitely using --classic, for myself I find this confirmed as far as the evidence I can find on display.
I have done my best to consider everything I am already aware of, I think fair chance that if I increase my awareness of exactly how it was that these .so files made a difference before, that I liked, perhaps I will see how to re-thread them or possibly even spot some other reasonable clue to contemplate.
It will far from surprise me if I study all I like and you beat me to a workable solution before you drop the mic
From googling, I’ve found that some older webcam models can be made to be compatible by using webcamoid application from https://webcamoid.github.io/. Alternatively there is a commandline equivalent using ffmpeg:
Your find is good, whatever the terms you used in Google, I initially wished I had thought of them but then I thought, that might have been a pity though, I would have missed out on some input I am still enjoying from you.
I deeply suspect that this all the lead I need, looking at the command line offered I might be surprised if cannot make this work - let you know either way, I hope you are having a really cool day.
(edit: typical, I become armed with something likely to work and my boss is busy with his computer lol, I am really quite keen to try the things I see implied very well by the command line - if I cannot get something you have offered to work I may actually be shocked rather than merely surprised.)
I tried all avenues indicated by your finds, Daniel, and in the end I told my boss that it looks like Microsoft were holding his webcam to ransom just because it is 13 years old - nothing I could do to get it going and efforts were becoming even more unreasonable to bother with.
As a joke: We paid Microsoft $59.- ransom and finally he has Skype working ~“as good” for him now as it ever did.
