HI! Newbie, and not a techie either. Since I updated to Mint 20.2 a couple of months ago, I can't find my camera and neither can Zoom. Help?

*****Sigh.
After it restarted, Cheese fired right up and my camera worked. I replied here, then went to Zoom to "test", and it did not work. I use firefox with duckduckgo and have been told on many platforms by "their' experts Firefox was my problem. So I opened the soul-stealing Google Chrome window and went to the Zoom test from there and it did not work there either. I went back and opened Cheese again, and now it says again: "No Device Found." WTF. Going back to Bios to see if I can see the camera now. Technology is great when it works. When it doesn't, especially when you know just enough to know you don't know enough (haha, if that makes sense), it's frustrating as hell.
 


Now, that is frustrating !
 
Yes, the camera is "on" in Bios. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and pay for an external camera before my therapist drops me because she is irritated with my computer. LOL. Not funny though. Unless anyone else has a suggestion--but I don't want to waste anyone's time any further with my old ass computer issues. I just realized when I was in Bios that his computer (though the hard drive is only 2 years old) will be 10 years old in April. But that camera has not had a lot of use. My speakers on the other hand are blown, because this girl likes her music LOUD!!! Every car speaker I have ever had has empathy for my computer speakers.
 
Well, we know there is not a fault in the hardware as it worked, so I am leaning to two thoughts possibly outdated bios [there was a problem with some older latitude bios] or more likely a software error [not my area of expertise] after you downloaded your mint and burnt the ISO to pen drive, did you check the SHA sum? Before you installed it.
 
My Del insperon is 2010 runs a treat, It basically has the same components as yours and everything works [it runs Mint, MX-linux, Parrot & Debian stable depending on which drive I have in.]
 
Ok. now this may take a while but do not disturb the computer whilst it runs

open a terminal, copy and paste sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y ,then enter put in your sudo password and enter then just let it run, it may take a while but it may fix fix the problem
 
If that hasn't worked one last try from me. Open grub menu [depending on grub version, it will be jiggle ESC or Shift whilst switching on], select mint/ubuntu advanced features, scroll down and select Repair broken packages it will run a list and say this will take up XXX space entre y [for yes] and let it continue, when its finished it will boot into default mode so just re-boot it again and see if that helped, I will be in and out today so may be a while getting back to you
 
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Well, we know there is not a fault in the hardware as it worked, so I am leaning to two thoughts possibly outdated bios [there was a problem with some older latitude bios] or more likely a software error [not my area of expertise] after you downloaded your mint and burnt the ISO to pen drive, did you check the SHA sum? Before you installed it.
Ummm... I think the guy I watched on Youtube who showed me how to install an updated version of Mint (20.2) was a tech guy and knew what he was doing. I did it step by step exactly as he did, I even went out and bought a second flash drive so that I could save data I wanted to keep on one and download the new version on the other. Funny thing---I had not purchased a flash drive for years, maybe even a decade, and I had no idea they were proprietary now. I just grabbed one like the good ol' days and got home and it would not work on my Linux. I swear, every time they "make things better or fancier," they screw some basic things up. So I don't know exactly what I did or to what you are referring regarding the "SHA sum" but if it was a requirement, then I am pretty sure I did it, because I was petrified to do this and followed his instructions. But I can't say for sure, because honestly, I did not even think about it. I was trying not to second guess anything or overthink it. I just did what the pretty man said. LOL
 
What a great guide Brickwizard. I wish I had it when I was doing my install in November. I do better with visual vs. audio instruction, though the guy who did the YT video showed us his screen as he went so that was a nice reassurance. He also recommended the Balena etcher and I used it. It sounds pretty step by step of what I did. It jogged my memory. It's funny, it seemed like there so many more steps, but that was probably just me being nervous and going back and reversing the video over and over to make sure I got it right, lol. Everything else works fine on my computer now. I am going to bookmark your page, so that when I do the next update, I can use it. Many thanks for all your help and a link to your guide. Linux had some instruction about the update, but I am not sure if most people who use Linux can imagine how much they need to dumb things down for people who are new and inexperienced. There's always tons of jargon, code language and other stuff I don't even know what to call it, that makes zero sense to me. I tried reading some stuff, but I zone out when they get too techie and lose me. Going to try the Grub Menu now. Over and out.
 
I forgot that some internal cameras can be enabled/disabled in the BIOS. Hmmm, so the camera is enabled. Sometimes cheese see's it, but other applications cannot.

Do you have uvccapture installed?
To find out, open a terminal and enter the following command:
Bash:
apt policy uvccapture

If the output from that has a version number after the word "Installed:" - e.g. "0.5-5+b1" then you have uvccapture installed and we've hit another dead end.

If it says "Installed: (none)", then try installing it using:
Bash:
sudo apt install uvccapture
Then try cheese again, before trying zoom in your browser.
Or perhaps try installing and running guvcview, which is an application that works with UVC cameras.

However - looking at some of the previous posts - because your webcam is internal - it's a little concerning that the webcam doesn't show up in the output of lsusb. Which indicates to me that perhaps it's more likely to be some kind of hardware failure - either the camera itself, or the USB bus it's connected to. Or it could be a kernel, or driver related bug. But that is probably less likely than a hardware failure.....
IDK!

Another possibility may be to look at the system logs to see if there are any error messages regarding the webcam, or the USB bus.....
Bash:
sudo dmesg | \grep -i video
sudo dmesg | \grep -i usb
And see if it mentions anything about your webcam...
 
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I think Brickwizard's Grub menu instructions fixed it! I have been in and out of Cheese like 5 times on video and it keeps going and going. In and out of Zoom's "test" page and it works and stays on. I am off to bed, I just hope it still works in the morning. I was just about to buy an external camera so I have it for my therapy appointment next Monday, but I am hoping this worked!

JasKinasis: If not, I will try your suggestions tomorrow. Thanks for the help All. Now I can have sweet dreams with hope, instead of frustrating worry. Yay! One win for the little guy...err..I mean, girl!!!
 
It sounds pretty step by step of what I did.
Well i did my best to make it as we say in the UK, plain English with minimal technospeak, as we so often get total newbies asking how do i install

enjoy your sleep
 
One last thing… Tomorrow, if all is still hunky-dory and working well, install timeshift and enable it

 
Hello to everybody.

So it's Thursday here in hazy California and after trying Brickwizard's tip of getting into the Grub Menu, I believe the problem is solved for real this time. I was able to open Cheese and keep the camera rolling on video and it worked. I was in and out of zoom doing the "Test" several times and I just left it open with the video on and it worked for quite a while (like 20 minutes). I went to bed and got up and the camera is running now with Cheese open, and it seems to be able to run for as long as needed.

However, I did want to mention one thing, only for the purpose of Brickwizard helping others and having success. I could not get into the Grub menu. I tried wiggling, jiggling, tapping, holding---both the Shift button and ESC and nothing. I did a little research and found some website where people were talking about getting into Grub with older versions of debian and ubuntu, and here is what they said and it worked:
tap the shift key until the screen shows the grub menu loading, then HOLD the shift button down until it finishes loading. This is what worked. And it seems to be consistent amongst distros because the comments I was reading were from 10 years ago. I got lucky in finding this website, I guess, I am usually never able to find answers to solve Linux problems online.
Also, when I got into the Grub menu, the choices were very different from Brickwizard's suggestions. I clicked on everything until I saw something you had referenced, Brickwizard, which was "Repair Broken Packages". I clicked it but I was in a very different place than you described and was worried I might mess something up. Also the list that populated after I selected "Repair...." and then had a different warning (not the one about disk space) that mentioned I might cause potential system problems. Since I had been everywhere else inside the Grub menu and knew there was nothing remotely close to what you had suggested beyond what I was looking at, I went ahead with the repair and then restarted and this seemed to have done the trick. Nothing else seems damaged, (computer started fine this morning, video/audio/mic all work, obviously the internet and Libre Office--which is what I use the most outside of the internet).
So, it's a long winded way of saying: It's fix! Thank you so very much everyone, I am so grateful. Thank you for humoring my ignorance, in a down-to-earth, understandable, kind and expert way.
 
Long time since I used grub repair, I may not have been fully up-to-date, but I am pleased you persevered and worked your way through it, with success, Well done
 

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