USB camera is not detected anymore

Question

I have a USB camera which used to work just fine, as plug-and-play, on my Ubuntu (current version 18.04.4 LTS, Linux E480 4.15.0-88-generic #88-Ubuntu SMP). Now, for some months it hasn't detected.

After plugging the camera in, the tail of dmesg gives

[ 5862.596999] usb 1-3: new high-speed USB device number 15 using xhci_hcd
[ 5862.798746] usb 1-3: config 1 interface 1 altsetting 0 endpoint 0x82 has wMaxPacketSize 0, skipping
[ 5862.799144] usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1742, idProduct=0307
[ 5862.799149] usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 5862.799154] usb 1-3: Product: NCM03-V-02
[ 5862.799157] usb 1-3: Manufacturer: Nippon Chemi-Con Corporation
[ 5862.800479] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device NCM03-V-02 (1742:0307)
[ 5862.800516] uvcvideo: No streaming interface found for terminal 2.
[ 5862.800524] uvcvideo 1-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Extension 4 was not initialized!
[ 5862.800531] uvcvideo 1-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Processing 3 was not initialized!
[ 5862.800535] uvcvideo 1-3:1.0: Entity type for entity Camera 1 was not initialized!
[ 5862.801081] input: NCM03-V-02 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/input/input25

and lsusb shows this entry:

    Bus 001 Device 015: ID 1742:0307  

and lsusb -t these (under Bus 01):

    |__ Port 3: Dev 15, If 0, Class=Video, Driver=uvcvideo, 480M
    |__ Port 3: Dev 15, If 1, Class=Video, Driver=, 480M

However, the camera is not listed in /dev/v4l/* and hence not in /dev/video*. v4l2-ctl --list-devices doesn't show the camera.

I have tried to solve this by, e.g., re-installing v4l-utils and re-adding the modules uvcvideo and xhci_hcd.

I presume the messages "No streaming interface found for terminal" and "entity X was not initialized!" are not a good sign but Internet searches didn't help me.

I have a dual-boot (Linux / Windows) and the camera works on Windows.

Any help?

Answer 1

I encountered similar issues and the package uvcdynctrl resolved it.

$ sudo apt install uvcdynctrl

Answer 2

I encountered a similar problem and found the following message in dmesg

[  119.312320] usb 1-5: Product: HD WebCam
[  119.312322] usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Generic
[  119.312325] usb 1-5: SerialNumber: XXXXXXXXXXXX
[  119.314500] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device HD WebCam (0408:a060)
[  119.317874] uvcvideo 1-5:1.0: Entity type for entity Extension 4 was not initialized!
[  119.317880] uvcvideo 1-5:1.0: Entity type for entity Processing 2 was not initialized!
[  119.317885] uvcvideo 1-5:1.0: Entity type for entity Camera 1 was not initialized!

Came across this answer where it suggested reinstalling usbutils. After that my laptop started detecting my camera.