Hello,
I have installed Fedora 9 on my Acer Aspire 4720 laptop. It
has a Crystal Eye Webcam. But with Fedora 9 I cant use it. It is
working fine with Windows XP. It is detected properly but doesn't
work. I installed cheese and skype but the webcam doesn't work in
either of them.
gstreamer-properties shows the default video input plugin as v4l2 and
device as Acer CrystalEye webcam but the test for the webcam fails.


gstreamer-properties-Message: Error running pipeline 'Video for Linux
2 (v4l2)': Error starting streaming capture from device '/dev/video0'.
[v4l2src_calls.c(1392): gst_v4l2src_capture_start ():
/pipeline0/v4l2src3:
system error: Protocol error]

Also cheese gives this error :

(cheese:9072): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: gst_element_set_state: assertion
`GST_IS_ELEMENT (element)' failed

(cheese:9072): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: gst_object_unref: assertion
`object != NULL' failed

(cheese:9072): GStreamer-CRITICAL **: gst_object_unref: assertion
`object != NULL' failed

Output of lsmod :

/sbin/lsmod
Module Size Used by
ipt_REJECT 6784 2
xt_tcpudp 6656 1
nf_conntrack_ipv4 11396 2
xt_state 5888 2
nf_conntrack 49748 2 nf_conntrack_ipv4,xt_state
iptable_filter 6528 1
ip_tables 13840 1 iptable_filter
x_tables 15236 4 ipt_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,xt_state,ip_tables
cpufreq_ondemand 10124 1
acpi_cpufreq 11532 2
fuse 41116 2
vfat 13056 3
fat 42784 1 vfat
loop 16772 0
dm_multipath 18056 0
ipv6 221660 10
sr_mod 17064 0
cdrom 32796 1 sr_mod
snd_hda_intel 336928 1
arc4 5760 2
ecb 6528 2
snd_seq_dummy 6660 0
snd_seq_oss 30364 0
crypto_blkcipher 17924 1 ecb
snd_seq_midi_event 9600 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 48448 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
pata_acpi 8320 0
i915 85636 2
snd_seq_device 10124 3 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 42496 0
uvcvideo 49416 0
drm 145508 3 i915
firewire_ohci 21636 0
snd_mixer_oss 16768 1 snd_pcm_oss
sdhci 16908 0
mmc_core 40604 1 sdhci
firewire_core 34464 1 firewire_ohci
snd_pcm 67076 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
ricoh_mmc 7552 0
snd_timer 21640 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
i2c_algo_bit 8964 1 i915
compat_ioctl32 5120 1 uvcvideo
iwl3945 146140 0
snd_page_alloc 11400 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
ata_piix 20228 0
video 20368 0
crc_itu_t 5760 1 firewire_core
output 6656 1 video
tg3 103812 0
acer_wmi 12596 0
videodev 30208 1 uvcvideo
i2c_i801 11920 0
iTCO_wdt 13476 0
v4l1_compat 15364 2 uvcvideo,videodev
pcspkr 6272 0
serio_raw 8708 0
iTCO_vendor_support 6916 1 iTCO_wdt
battery 14084 0
ac 8068 0
snd_hwdep 10500 1 snd_hda_intel
mac80211 181992 1 iwl3945
ata_generic 9092 0
i2c_core 20628 4 i915,drm,i2c_algo_bit,i2c_i801
wmi 9640 1 acer_wmi
button 10000 0
joydev 12608 0
snd 48312 12
snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd _timer,snd_hwdep
cfg80211 25096 2 iwl3945,mac80211
soundcore 9288 1 snd
sg 31028 0
dm_snapshot 18468 0
dm_zero 5632 0
dm_mirror 26116 0
dm_mod 48980 9 dm_multipath,dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror
ahci 26760 6
libata 127328 4 pata_acpi,ata_piix,ata_generic,ahci
sd_mod 25624 7
scsi_mod 120948 4 sr_mod,sg,libata,sd_mod
ext3 108552 2
jbd 40852 1 ext3
mbcache 10116 1 ext3
uhci_hcd 22928 0
ohci_hcd 22404 0
ehci_hcd 32268 0

I guess uvcvideo is the driver for my webcam. But it won't work.

I tried to reload the driver as modprobe uvcvideo but still it doesn't work.

Also the output of dmesg :

dmesg | grep uvcvideo
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Acer CrystalEye webcam (064e:a101)
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
usbcore: deregistering interface driver uvcvideo
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Acer CrystalEye webcam (064e:a101)
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo

I installed linux-uvc driver through :

svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk
The driver installed successfully but still the web-cam is not working....Only the webcam light comes on but cant see anything...how do I make it work?

Try with digikam. If it fails, then send your post to the developers list too.
Btw did you check with the compatibility with your kernel version?

On my Acer Aspire 4520, it did work with Kubuntu-7.10
I will be upgrading it some time

I have the same problem with my Crystal eye webcam not working. My Linux system is OpenSuse 11.0 with KDE 3.5.10


I tried to do exactly what you did (udating uvcvideo compiled from svn) with the same negativeresult

I just noticed that the webcam is working with Kopete


Have you found a solution since your last post in July?

I have not found a solution. In my case the web-cam fails to work even with ekiga and kopete.
I had installed Ubuntu 8.04 where it worked sometimes and not at other times. The feature list of Fedora 10 says better support for web-cams. So we need to just wait and watch.

I also went to a Skype forum ( http://forum.skype.com/) and was told to contact the uvc-devel list

I just got an answer from them. They say that if it works with Kopete the problem is not with uvc but with Skype, so in other words they cannot do anything for me

I tried to contact the Acer people but they do not want to help. They say that the Crystal Eye webcam was installed under the Windows operating system and that they provide assistance for problems under that system only ... a shame really as I know that they are now selling small Acer computers with an integrated webcam under Linux.

As you said we just have to wait and see

In the meantime I plugged an other webcam I had (Logitech Quickcam Pro) and it works fine, but why should I have to use an external webcam when I have an integrated one?

I finally contacted the Skype support group. After a few days they indicated that they are aware of the problem and that it should be corrected in the next Skype version. They also asked me to send them a couple of log files to help them.

I must say I am rather pleased by their reaction which is quite professional and different from the one I got from the Acer support group

So after so many months did you make any progress? Any replies from skype team?