Webcam detected but not working on dell latitude 5290 2 in 1

[sebastian81it (Stefano B)]

Hello everybody.

I recently installed Fedora Workstation (first 39, then upgraded to 40) on a Dell Latitude 5290 2 in 1. Everything works perfectly, and the user experience is excellent. However, I have not been able to get the front and rear webcams to work (not in f39, nor in f40). The system detects them, but I’m unable to use them.

Currently, I’m using an external USB camera as a workaround, but it’s not the ideal solution. I’m not sure if those cams can work, I’m looking for advice before turning my workaround in a permanent solution.

The cameras on this laptop are similar to those on Surface devices, ipu3, in my case, model ov5670.

I’ve checked via dmesg that the drivers and firmware are being loaded.
modinfo returns a series of information about the driver, and lsmod shows the loaded modules, including those for v4l2 (through which, from my research, I understand it should work).
I’ve also installed libcamera, the framework I’ve understood to be necessary for managing these cameras when they work, but it doesn’t detect any camera.

On the other hand, Cheese detects the cameras, I can select them from the settings, but it gives me an error message about not being able to play video from the camera.

Has anyone had similar issues or is there any step I might have forgotten?
I tried to read older posts about similar issues (here and googling), but with no results.

I’ll paste the hw information with pastebin links at the end of this message.

Thank you in advance for help and advice.

lsmod | grep v4l

modinfo ov5670

libcam cam output

v4l2-ctl

dmesg | grep ipu3

uname -a

[hamrheadcorvette (hammerhead corvette)]

@sebastian81it In case you did not know, you can paste the text in a preformatted fashion. The bar on the top of the comments allows for this. It’s the </> icon.

lsmod | grep v4l
videobuf2_v4l2         40960  2 ipu3_cio2,ipu3_imgu
videobuf2_common       94208  5 ipu3_cio2,videobuf2_v4l2,videobuf2_dma_sg,ipu3_imgu,videobuf2_memops
v4l2_fwnode            32768  2 ipu3_cio2,ov5670
v4l2_async             32768  3 v4l2_fwnode,ipu3_cio2,ov5670
v4l2loopback           77824  0
videodev              393216  7 v4l2_async,v4l2_fwnode,ipu3_cio2,ov5670,videobuf2_v4l2,v4l2loopback,ipu3_imgu
mc                     94208  7 v4l2_async,videodev,ipu3_cio2,ov5670,videobuf2_v4l2,videobuf2_common,ipu3_imgu

modinfo ov5670
filename:       /lib/modules/6.8.5-301.fc40.x86_64/kernel/drivers/media/i2c/ov5670.ko.xz
license:        GPL v2
description:    Omnivision ov5670 sensor driver
author:         Yang, Hyungwoo
author:         Rapolu, Chiranjeevi
rhelversion:    9.99
alias:          acpi*:INT3479:*
alias:          of:N*T*Covti,ov5670C*
alias:          of:N*T*Covti,ov5670
depends:        videodev,v4l2-fwnode,mc,v4l2-async
retpoline:      Y
intree:         Y
name:           ov5670
vermagic:       6.8.5-301.fc40.x86_64 SMP preempt mod_unload 
sig_id:         PKCS#7
signer:         Fedora kernel signing key
sig_key:        7B:47:A7:39:70:20:CA:ED:E5:16:3D:14:AC:EA:3D:4E:95:CB:DA:36
sig_hashalgo:   sha256

cam --list
[1:38:59.491876383] [9981]  INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:284 libcamera v0.2.0
Available cameras:

sudo dmesg | grep ipu3
[sudo] password di [rimosso]: 
[    7.146083] ipu3_imgu: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
[    7.148794] ipu3-imgu 0000:00:05.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    7.149945] ipu3-imgu 0000:00:05.0: device 0x1919 (rev: 0x1)
[    7.150198] ipu3-imgu 0000:00:05.0: physical base address 0x00000000dc000000, 4194304 bytes
[    7.163683] ipu3-cio2 0000:00:14.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    7.163894] ipu3-cio2 0000:00:14.3: device 0x9d32 (rev: 0x1)
[    7.314223] ipu3-imgu 0000:00:05.0: loaded firmware version irci_irci_ecr-master_20161208_0213_20170112_1500, 17 binaries, 1212984 bytes

uname -a
Linux morpheus 6.8.5-301.fc40.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Apr 11 20:00:10 UTC 2024 x86_64 GNU/Linux

---

Can you please install the Cheese flatpak ? REmove the one you have installed as well. I think there are missing libraries.

Install Cheese on Linux | Flathub

[sebastian81it (Stefano B)]

@hamrheadcorvette thanks for the advice and for the answer, I’ll use the correct way to paste preformatted text in the future. I didn’t notice the icon, my bad.

I should have specified before: I’m already using the flatpak version of Cheese from flathub. The rpm one didn’t recognize the cams at all, so I removed it.

My installation is in Italian, but here you can see the devices showed in the drop down list. In the main window the error says: “An error occurred in playing the webcam video”

As additional info, I get the same errors even when I try tro stream the cam on VLC.

[hamrheadcorvette (hammerhead corvette)]

@sebastian81it

My installation is in Italian,

My italian is rusty, but I do speak/understand a lot. ( I speak several languages. . . )

@sebastian81it

I should have specified before: I’m already using the flatpak version of Cheese from flathub

Do you have Flatseal? Just in case permissions are slightly off.

@sebastian81it

In the main windows the error says: “An error occurred in playing the webcam video”

Do you have the all the codecs necessary? I still think it is a library issue. There were similar issues in the past with older versions of Fedora.

[sebastian81it (Stefano B)]

I didn’t think of flatseal. I tried but even allowing more permissions it didn’t work.

About the codecs: I installed all the gstreamer codecs and others with the -freeworld tag

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

@sebastian81it

I installed all the gstreamer codecs and others with the -freeworld tag

Did you install libavcodec-freeworld and/or ffmpeg?
Both those have addtional codecs that not all the others have.
Install them with dnf install libavcodec-freeworld ffmpeg --allowerasing

[apollo18]

Wondering if the webcam on the ThinkPad X1 Carbon with OLED works yet, either with Fedora 39 or 40.

[hamrheadcorvette (hammerhead corvette)]

@apollo18

ThinkPad X1 Carbon with OLED works yet, either with Fedora 39 or 40.

Apparently it works OOTB ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1af4kp6/x1_carbon_gen_11_works_very_well_out_of_the_box/

[apollo18]

The camera is different on the models with the OLED display. Something about the human presence detection was incompatible with Fedora. I dont know whether its been fixed.

[hamrheadcorvette (hammerhead corvette)]

@apollo18

The camera is different on the models with the OLED display.

Ok If you would like, Please open a new thread so we can address help for you specifically. This Post is not directly related to your issue, and that would make it easier to track and help.

[computersavvy (Jeff V)]

@hamrheadcorvette

Ok If you would like, Please open a new thread so we can address help for you specifically

I concur.
This thread is about the dell latitude and you are asking about a thinkpad X1 Carbon. Different hardware deserves a different approach and its own thread