Hi everyone, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I’ve got an Arducam 64MP on a Raspberry Pi and libcamera-still suddenly stopped detecting the camera altogether. I did a complete reinstall from scratch and logged every command and its output — I’ve attached the full txt so you can see exactly what was done. After the reinstall the camera is detected again, but autofocus still doesn’t do anything and the --lens-position flag is completely ignored. Changing the value makes no visible difference to focus at all.
Thanks for attaching the full log, that helps a lot. A couple of quick checks to narrow things down: can you run libcamera-hello --list-cameras and paste the output? Also, which Raspberry Pi OS image and libcamera version are you on now? And when you say autofocus does nothing, are you passing --autofocus-mode continuous and watching for the lens to physically move, or just judging by the image?
I’m on Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye (32-bit), libcamera from apt. --list-cameras does show the Arducam 64MP and I can capture stills fine, so detection is back. I tried --autofocus-mode continuous — the lens doesn’t move at all, and the image stays out of focus. Same with --lens-position 5.0, no error, no movement, nothing. It’s like the focus motor isn’t being driven at all.
Okay, let’s check whether the lens driver is actually responding rather than just the imaging pipeline. Try: libcamera-still --autofocus-mode continuous --lens-position 1.0 --info-text 'focus=%focus' -o focus_test.jpg. Watch the on-screen focus value while it runs — does it stay at 0.000 the whole time? Also run dmesg | grep -i arducam and paste anything lens-related. That’ll tell us whether the focus controller is even being talked to.
Ran that command. The focus value in the info text stays stuck at 0.000 the entire time, never changes. dmesg | grep -i arducam shows the sensor probe messages but nothing about the lens or focus controller. I’ve also opened the Pi up for remote access in case it’s easier for you to poke around directly — I’ll send the connection details over in a private message rather than posting them here.
Got your private message with the access details, thanks. I’ll send you a session invite privately so we can go through it live. In the meantime, one more hardware thing worth ruling out: check the ribbon cable to the board and the small flex connector to the lens module itself. It’s possible for the image sensor to work fine while the focus coil isn’t connected if that flex is slightly out.
Reseated the main ribbon and the lens flex connector, powered back up, same result. Still no lens movement and --lens-position still does nothing. Focus value still pinned at 0.000.
Thanks for double-checking. To sum up where we are: the sensor enumerates correctly and stills capture works, so the reinstall fixed the detection issue. But the lens driver isn’t responding to focus commands at all — no errors, no movement, and the focus value never moves off 0.000. Root cause isn’t pinned down yet; it’s looking like the focus controller isn’t being driven, but we need the live session to confirm whether it’s a software/driver problem or something on the module side. I’ll dig into it with you remotely and post the findings back here. If anyone else has seen the Arducam 64MP ignore --lens-position after a fresh libcamera install, please chime in.