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I am using Google Chrome 39.0.2171.71 (64-bit) on 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04. My laptop is ASUS A52F.

The problem is that by default the webcam video is inverted everywhere (Skype, Hangouts). When launching Skype with

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype &

the Skype video gets corrected.

However, I can't make this work for Google Hangouts. I have tried this solution but I don't have the GoogleTalkPlugin in the mentioned path. How can I fix the Hangouts video or all the videos in general?

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  • You can't run the browser with LD_PRELOAD? You need to use the 64-bit version of the library for the browser though, unless you're using a 32-bit browser and plug-ins.
    – dobey
    Dec 5, 2014 at 15:56
  • my chrome is 64-bit... any idea how to use the 64-bit library instead?
    – gevra
    Dec 6, 2014 at 16:35
  • Replace the i386-linux-gnu in the path, with x86_64-linux-gnu assuming you have the 64-bit package which provides the library, already installed.
    – dobey
    Dec 6, 2014 at 19:11
  • thanks for the tip, the v4l1compat.so file was in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libv4l/ folder, but the trick didn't work and launching chrome with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so google-chrome & didn't work. Maybe some plugin must be launched with that...
    – gevra
    Dec 7, 2014 at 21:02
  • Yes, but running the browser with LD_PRELOAD in the environment should pass that along to the child processes for the plug-ins.
    – dobey
    Dec 7, 2014 at 22:21

2 Answers 2

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PS. If you still experience "upside down" video, even in Firefox, then the solution with GoogleTalkPlugin should work. You need to install it first (only Firefox still uses this plugin, Chrome has already switched to WebRTC video standard - no plugins needed there):

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin & firefox

Also check out this newer thread with more examples on how to use LD_PRELOAD in Ubuntu 16.04 and derivatives. Hope this helps. Cheers!

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Regarding fixing inverted/flipped laptop webcam video in Chrome/Chromium based browsers - V4L1 will not work with Chrome. V4L2 is needed for WebRTC video.

A few days ago I updated ASUS P52F laptop to Linux Mint 18 XFCE that is on par with Ubuntu 16.04.1 now. I faced "upside down" webcam video on hangouts and facebook using Chrome web browser only. Firefox works fine. Cheese also displays video properly.

After some googling I found this bug report. In the comment 22 you can see that 2 years ago there was a 0001-Use-libv4l2-for-Linux-V4L-grabber.patch proposed that fixes Chrome/Chromium behavior. For more then a year now libv4l2 is added to Chromium, but is not enabled for Linux. You can see the whole discussion in the bug report thread. Long story short it looks like they are not actively working on fixing this for almost a year now. However, there is some ugly workaround...

You can add Flip this extension to Chrome. It allows you to flip your webcam video or any other element of a webpage. It will flip it only locally, so people who you talk to via Chrome also need to use the same trick. It's not pretty, but it's working... well, kind of ; )

After all switching to Firefox may be a better and more comfortable solution as it looks like webcam video can't be permanently flipped "upside down" with Chrome until Google fix their Linux version. Firefox worked for me in LM18 without any additional hassle. I hope it will work for you as well.

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