Digikam does not start after connecting camera
 

Hi, I have been using digikam for some time and until now have had no problems setting it up to work as user.

KDE info centre, USB, shows canon S50. Camera is recognized by digikam under the "Settings menu, Configure Digikam, Cameras" and works correctly as root.

Recently, after upgrading to Slackware Current and KDE 3.4.1, digikam (0.72) will not start after hotplugging my camera. If I start digikam as user from the desktop and then select camera from the Camera menu - digikam error is as follows.

"Failed to connect to camera. Please make sure its connected properly and turned on. Would you like to try again"?

relevant dmesg output is as follows: after plugging and unplugging several times.

usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 2
usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
usb 4-2: USB disconnect, address 3
usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4

/var/log/messages is as follows.

Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [3] usbcam (0.3.2): Creating lockfile /tmp/usbcam.lock.
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [3] usbcam (0.3.2): USB device /proc/bus/usb/004/005 found trying to start /etc/hotplug/usb/digikam-hotplug.
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [2] usbcam (0.3.2): There seems to be no desktop available, script will not be started!
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [3] usbcam (0.3.2): ps -ef |grep kdeinit..kdesktop: !
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [3] usbcam (0.3.2): Started, action: add
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [2] usbcam (0.3.2): /tmp/usbcam.lock detected, checking age of file!
Jul 2 08:29:59 mx [2] usbcam (0.3.2): /tmp/usbcam.lock is 0 seconds old; exiting.

Any ideas as to the problem. Is it a desktop permissions problem. I am sure that the installation of digikam is correct i.e. /opt/kde and I am sure that the usbcam and digikam hotplug scripts are also correctly set up. As mentioned previously I have been using digikam without a problem for about 12 months and therefore am familiar with the setup requirements.

I have played around with all the hotplug and desktop settings without success and cannot find a solution to this problem.

Much appreciate any advice or assistance.

Chesh.

Did you try to delete the lock?

Looks like your machine went down once, or you killed
X while the cam was active to me.


Cheers,
Tink

I deleted the lock file just now, but it is regenerated with each usbcam event.

No change to the machine that I observed.

Thanks for your reply.

I will keep looking for clues.

Chesh.

All fixed. Downgraded to Slack 10.1 KDE 3.3.2 and deleted old user account then set up new user.

Worked immediately.

Thanks.

I realize that this is an old thread - I am posting here because I had the same exact problem, but managed to find a better solution. I did a google search for 'usbcam no desktop available' (no desktop available being one of the lines in /var/log/messages) and ran into this post. It was one of very few with the same problem.

My specs:

Slackware 10.1 w/ KDE 3.4.2 on kernel 2.6.12.1. Note that I did not have this problem with earlier versions of kde.

There is a line in the usbcam script (which I got from the digikam web site, it should be in /etc/hotplug/usb/) that looks like (or similar to) this:

USER=`ps -ef |grep "kdeinit: kdesktop" |grep -v grep |awk '{print $1}'`

This line is there to check which user is currently logged in and running KDE and the USER variable is used later throughout the script. This line fails with KDE 3.4.2 and needs to be changed in order to output correctly. Changing it to:

USER=`ps -ef | grep kdeinit | grep kdesktop | awk '{print $1}'`

works correctly for me.

I hope someone finds this useful. Again, sorry for resurecting an old thread.

slight

Thanks, sorry I didn't reply sooner. Just upgraded to slack 10.2. Digikam is working fine after following your instructions. Greatly appreciated and fewer headaches.

Chesh.