I had Mandrake 7.2 and webcam working great. I installed Mandrake 8.0 and now when webcam goes to u/l (via ftp) the image it catches it fails.

If set debug=1 in the .webcamrc file, it basically looks like the 'communciation' between webcam and ftp is extremely slow... with the command being send from webcam not being recieved at the right times by ftp and thus ftp not being able to establish a connection.

Anyone else experienced this or have any idea on a solution?

ftp when I run it myself seems to work find. I'm pretty sure it's something with webcam and ftp's interaction.



I really would like to have my webcam back...

Thanks,

Which software do you use for this (and where can I download it ?)

I'm running Mandrake 8.0 also and I have a webcam. Maybe I'll find something.

Basically I installed (using rpmdrake) xawtv package that come on my Mandrake 8.0 CD. I then created a .webcamrc file according the the instructions in the NHF file for Easy Webcam @ http://www.linuxnewbie.org

It worked fine while I had 7.2 installed, when I moved to 8.0 it all of a sudden stoped working...

I've done the same setup on my local computer using a local ftp server and a local web server and it seems to work smoothly.

What you should try is to pull the problem into pieces.

1/ Is the webcam program able to capture the file ?
Setup a local ftp server, send the picture to that server.

2/ Is the ftp itself the problem ?
Send the file manually to the ftp server.

3/ Is it a problem with name resolving (DNS) ?
Send the file to an IP-address in stead of to a hostname.

webcam captures image to local file fine.

ftp all by itself appears to work fine, sending the file manually is fine.

Sending the file to an IP-address instead of to a hostname still has problems... Here's an example output with .webcamrc debug=1:


reading config file: ~/.webcamrc
video4linux webcam v1.3 - (c) 1998-2000 Gerd Knorr
grabber config: size 352x240, input 1, norm 1, jpeg quality 75
rotate=0, top=0, left=0, bottom=240, right=352
ftp config:
user@my.isp.com:serversubdir/capturedimages
tmp.jpeg => mywebcam.jpeg
<< ftp>
<< [Kftp>
>> close
<< c
<<
<< [Kftp> c
>> open my.isp.com
<< l
<<
<< [Kftp> cl
ftp: connect failed, sleeping 5 sec
>> close
<< o
[Kftp> clos
[Kftp> close
[Kftp> close
>> open my.isp.com
<< Not connected.
<< ftp>
[Kftp> o
[Kftp> op
[Kftp> ope
[Kftp> open
[Kftp> open
[Kftp> open n
[Kftp> open no
[Kftp> open nor
[Kftp> open nort
[Kftp> open norto
[Kftp> open my
[Kftp> open my
[Kftp> open my.
[Kftp> open my.i
[Kftp> open my.is
[Kftp> open my.isp.
[Kftp> open my.isp.
[Kftp> open my.isp.c
[Kftp> open my.isp.co
[Kftp> open my.isp.com
[Kftp> open my.isp.com
ftp: connect failed, sleeping 10 sec

I've even d/led v3.40's source build an RPM on my system, and installed that RPM and the above still happens...

I am having the same type of problem.

I am running Drake 8.0 with xawtv-3.38 and webcam v1.3



Being a total newbie at xawtv I can only tell you what I see.

webcam is not properly replying to the ftp site when prompted for the user name and password. inface it looks as if it isn't even addressing the site properly.

a ftp request takes this form from webcam

username@ftp.site.com



when I ftp usually I connect this way

ftp://ftpsite.name.com at port 21

when prompted for username that is sent

when password is requested it is sent.



with webcam the reply I see is "ftp: login incorrect"

I also see that webcam says it is trying to send the jpg before it is ever connected.



The FTP site my image is uploaded to is runnig a BSD based FTP server.

I know that it works because my ChillCam (windoz) worked properly for 8 months, now finally having a Hauppauge (video4Linux supported card) WinTV card I am trying to get it playing 100% Linux and say good by to Microsoft forever. The image is at least 50% better than what I was getting from my ELSA Victroy Erazor (no video4Linux support it's based on a RIVA-128) getting it to the ftp site and on to my site is the problem.



I am going to take a look at /usr/bin/webcam and see what I can find.

it could be something simple, beter be cause I don't know enuf to do anything but get in trouble.


I will let you know what I find, I found this site and post after a google search.

Yep. You are about the 3rd person (including me) that has ran into this. I think it has something to do with interprocess communications, or piping/pipes that's done to have webcam "talk" to ftp. I've just finished d/ling Mandrake 8.1 Beta, I'm going to try installing to soon and see if it fixes the problem.

I'll let you know if I come-up with anything. I'm still extremely interested if you come-up with something.

(I added this after I had originally posted)
I just thought of something. I the correct modules (installed at boot or with modprobe) are not installed you could have all sorts of trouble. Correct?
webcam in my /.webcamrc device = /dev/video0 well what if it's not /dev/video0
and it's something else? Mandrakes automagic may be stepping on the correct function of this it could actually be /dev/video something else?

Thoughts?

(original post starts here)

Ok I have installed 7.2 and everytihing is working excpet the jpg I am trying to ftp is a bad scan. Like a bad TV tv picture with horizontal lines of color and no other data. This is regardless of the source Television or Composite1 (NTSC.) someting with the grab function is messed up.





In Drake 8.0 I could get the composite video working but never the tuner. The FTP


was totally broken. Same thing in Slackware 8.0





The ordering of the /.webcamrc file seems to be unimportant in the Drake 7.2 install.


I reversed the [grab] and [FTP] sections so I have a picture to upload before I make the ftp connection and the FTP functions.





The ftp issue in 8.0 maybe do to changes in the basic ftp program called under the 2.4.X kernel is one thought I have had. webcam never establishes a ftp session all though the picture grabbed is perfect.





It would be wonderful to have so decent man pages or docs for xawtv but they are very poor. Are changes have been made to the xawtv suite not reflected in what information which out there? I have a suspicision that may be the case.





I feel lucky I have a spare computer to test this on. So I haven't messed up my working boxes. I have found by looking at the Hauppauge website that many of their cards have issues with VIA chipsets, SIS chipsets and severl different brands of video cards.





I think the biggest problem is that the people many who write many apps and modules for Linux don't tell you want they got it working on configuration wise. What works so perfectly for them and a few friends may not function at all for many others.


Letting us know the Hardware config is as important as listing dependencies it think.





The Box I have been testing on is a IBM Aptiva with 64 megs of memory, a on board


crystal audio card and and ATI Parge II with at RTL8139 pci network card and a Hauppauger WinTV GO running Mandrake Linux 7.2 with a AMD K-6 II 200mhz.





I am still looking for a Linux replacement for my Win98 box running ChillCam to serve My Web-Cam single jpg images every 5 seconds. But after 2 days of solid tweaking and testing with about 10 hours sleep I don't see this happenig soon. Frustrating. I don't see this happening soon. Linux can't do what Win98 can with a simple app.



I am going to keep pluggin at this.

I'll keep you posted.

Yeah that would be a problem. I don't think that's the case (at least not in my case). I can get webcam to function prefectly in every mode but 'ftp publish' mode. I can get it to produce an local file without problems, which wouldn't work IF the problem was an module / dev file like you describe above.

Really... The 'work-around' for me is to have webcam do it's thing for a local file, then have some-other 'automated' program do the uploading of the file.

I haven't had time to get that all worked out... I've been busy with other things (my webcam is for leisure and not a huge piority), but I'm hoping with Mandrake 8.1 I will find it isn't broken anymore and I'll be able to pick-up where I left off. I'll let you know. Again, if you come-up with something I'd be very interested.

I finally broke down and went to qa.mandrake.com to see if someone had reported this problem (and or solutions/fixes)

If you do a search for webcam you'll find a 2 bug reports about it. One is on this problem exactly. The bug report # is 3059.

In that report is this comment:

------- Additional Comments From roberto.12@osu.edu 04/10/01 05:05 -------
this seems to be fixed with version 3.43 -- check the xawtv web page and changelog, and please build a new one

I haven't tried it yet... But I did go out when I first discovered this problem to the xawtv page and try to compile the latest version there. It didn't compile. I'll have to try again, maybe that'll fix the problem.

Incidentally it appears that Mandrake hasn't bothered to check into this bug report, so you might login to qa.mandrake.com and add your comment/support that this bug needs fixing in the next version of Mandrake.

HTH,

You could, also, trying using a program called camstream from Mandrake 8.0 It appears to not have problems and should come 'stock' with Mandrake 8.0