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On upgrading to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS from 20.04 LTS, the inbuilt Cheese application is not working properly.

On running it, it displays a blank black screen. When I capture a picture or video it also shows this error-message and gets stuck:

There was an error playing video from the webcam

enter image description here

What could be the reason? How could I fix this?

mpboden
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Vam
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  • Having the same issue, but also with other apps. Video driver issue in the new kernel perhaps? – sastorsl May 11 '22 at 13:18
  • actually before doing that Try lowering the settings like the photo and video resolution It might solve your problem – Mun Hong Chan Apr 24 '22 at 05:52
  • Same issue here in Ubuntu 22.04. Try to launch cheese in terminal. Took a photo and here is the error : (cheese:16465): cheese-WARNING **: 21:52:05.432: Output state was not configured: ../gst-libs/gst/video/gstvideoencoder.c(2281): gst_video_encoder_can_push_unlocked (): /GstCameraBin:camerabin/GstEncodeBin:image-encodebin/GstJpegEnc:jpegenc0 When I launch Cheese with sudo. It works ! But the picture is saved in /root/.gnome2/cheese I'm not sure to understand, and less sure how to fix it ! – Quentin May 23 '22 at 19:57
  • Had the same issue due to new kernel - I had to reinstall ubuntu-desktop because additionally the Software + Additional drivers were missing. Run sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop then open application "Additional Drivers" and activate the webcam there. – michael_s Dec 16 '24 at 14:31

3 Answers3

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In Cheese menu (the hamburger menu with 3 bars top-right), go to Preferences, then change the device webcam. That fixed issue on my side.

screenshot of Cheese's Preferences dialog

hc_dev
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Teodor
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Just a couple of suggestions It may or may not work:

First: Try lowering the settings like the photo and video resolution It might solve your problem. OR, try to increase the image/video resolution : this solved the problem in my case ( DELL Latitude E6130)

Second: have you install codecs yet? if not, just run

sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Third: If it still doesn't work try installing kamoso. as an alternative camera app

sudo apt install kamoso
OlivieR91
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Mun Hong Chan
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    For me the problem was the shutter was closed. Please see this: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-in/inspiron-14-5410-2-in-1-laptop/inspiron-5410-2-in-1-setup-and-specifications/using-the-privacy-shutter?guid=guid-514df42a-261e-493a-9ddb-08f3d2e3b8ab&lang=en-us – bhattraideb Jan 05 '24 at 13:36
  • Using a lower resolution fixes a similar issue for me, but I dont know why. My camera is capable of HD images and videos, and works fine in other applications that use the camera (Teams, Slack etc), but for some reason Cheese just glitches out with any resolution above 800x448. Seems like a bug with the application – devklick Jun 05 '24 at 08:11
  • cheese freeze video after recent ubuntu update. I install kamoso that works fine (and I can set destination folders !)… and remove cheese ! Thanks – bcag2 Jun 05 '24 at 15:12
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I was having problems with cheese crashing on a fresh install of ubuntu 22.04 and discovered at ubuntu software center that there is a snap store's cheese. Removed the distribution one and tried the snap store one and it worked

Bruno Cabral
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  • What a pity to use snap such a lightweight soft ! As I commented in @Mun-Hong-Chan post, Kamoso do the job, and is light too ! – bcag2 Jun 05 '24 at 15:14