webcam not working on lenovo x230

Question

I've got Ubuntu 12.04 running on my lenovo X230. I can't get the integrated webcam working with Google Talk plugin or with Cheese.

Answer 1

It seems your system is not loading the driver responsible to communicate with the webcam. Try executing this in one terminal

sudo modprobe uvcvideo

This should provide no output. If you get any error post it in the comments. Then try to use the webcam (with Cheese, by example).

If this solves your problem, you should add uvcvideo to /etc/modules file, to force the system to load it at boot time. The content of that file at the end should be

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.

loop
lp
rtc

uvcvideo

Answer 2

1. Install tool v4l2ucp (sudo apt-get install v4l2ucp)
2. Reset all values under it (brightness, Contrast, Saturation etc.) which are set to max by default.

Enjoy.

Answer 3

Fixed it. No camera was found.
lsmod | grep uvcvideo did show some propper output.
Camera did not work.

Solution was to activate camera on bios!

Here is where I got it running from: https://forums.lenovo.com/topic/findpost/1301/4385387/4385397