Hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. I’ve got an Arducam Quad-camera bundle kit (8MP IMX219) on a Raspberry Pi 4. At first I skipped the Pivariety section in the docs and ran libcamera-still --list-cameras — it listed the imx219 just fine. Then I went back and ran the rest of the Pivariety commands, and now nothing shows up. Running libcamera-still --list-cameras returns “No cameras available!” and libcamera-still -t 5000 -n -o ~/Desktop/test.jpg gives me ERROR: *** no cameras available ***. I’ve tried both dtoverlay=imx219 and dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in config.txt. Any idea what broke?
Thanks for the details. The fact that it was detected before you ran the Pivariety steps and broke right after makes me think this is a device-tree overlay conflict rather than a hardware fault. Can you paste the contents of your /boot/config.txt, specifically any dtoverlay= lines?
Sure. Here’s my setup: Raspberry Pi 4, Arducam 8MP IMX219 quad camera kit, libcamera v0.0.0+4226-8689dd6b. I also have OpenCV and a few Python packages installed. The full log line shows:
[0:04:59.297607027] [1864] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:299 libcamera v0.0.0+4226-8689dd6b
then ERROR: *** no cameras available ***.
I’ll grab the config.txt contents in a sec.
While you’re in there, check whether config.txt has more than one dtoverlay line enabled at the same time. If there’s more than one enabling statement in there, they can conflict and prevent the camera from being detected at all. That would match exactly what you’re seeing.
Okay, I checked, and there are definitely multiple dtoverlay lines sitting in the file. I was swapping between dtoverlay=imx219 and dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety but it looks like both might have ended up present at once. Also, my IT folks won’t let me install remote support tools on this machine, but I’m happy to run any commands you give me and share my screen if needed.
No problem — we can work through it right here so you can run everything yourself. First step: make sure only ONE dtoverlay line is active. Comment out everything else by putting a # at the start of the line, then reboot and run libcamera-still --list-cameras again. Keep dtoverlay=imx219 active for now.
Before I do that, I should mention I also have the IMX519 quad-camera kit and some Pivariety camera modules here. I had issues with a couple of other modules earlier (black screen / no image output). Would it be worth testing those on the Pi 4 too, to narrow down whether it’s the module or the config?
Yes, definitely worth testing to isolate the problem. For the IMX519 kit, follow the IMX519 multi-camera quick-start guide; for the Pivariety modules, use the Pivariety quick-start guide. The key thing in all cases is the same: only ONE enabling statement in config.txt. Multiple statements cause exactly the kind of conflict you’re describing.
Honestly, the steps I got earlier were basically the same as what we already covered on the call. I’ll go through the single-dtoverlay change and test the other kits. I can share a VNC session into the Pi if that helps, but I can’t sit on a call for hours.
That works. Let’s stick to this sequence: comment out all but one dtoverlay line, reboot, then run libcamera-still --list-cameras. If the IMX219 still fails with a single overlay active, swap to the IMX519 kit with its single overlay and repeat. Paste the output back here and I’ll help interpret it.
Alright, I removed the extra dtoverlay lines so only dtoverlay=imx219 is active, rebooted, and it still shows “No cameras available!”. Then I tried the IMX519 kit with its single overlay, and that’s not being detected either. Could this be something other than the config?
Hmm, if a second kit also fails, that points to either the overlay not being applied or a connection/ribbon issue. Can you run sudo dmesg | grep -i camera and vcgencmd get_camera right after boot, then paste the output? Also double-check the commented lines really have # in front — a missing # still counts as active.
Here’s the dmesg output:
[ 4.213214] imx219: probe of 10-0010 failed with error -5
and vcgencmd get_camera returns:
supported=0 detected=0
Thanks, that’s useful. The detected=0 confirms the overlays aren’t bringing the sensor up correctly. To sum up where we are: this looks like a config/overlay conflict rather than dead hardware — the camera was detected before the Pivariety steps and broke right after. The workaround right now is to keep exactly one dtoverlay line in config.txt (comment out everything else), reboot, and verify with vcgencmd get_camera. If it still reports detected=0 with a single overlay, the next step is testing the IMX519/Pivariety kits the same way. I’d also avoid mixing the Pivariety commands with the standard IMX219 overlay — running both is likely what triggered the conflict in the first place.