Hey everyone, hoping someone can point me in the right direction here. I just picked up an Arducam B0444 to use with my Raspberry Pi 5, but I can’t get the thing to show up at all.
When I run any camera-related commands, I just get “no cameras available” in the terminal. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Installed the Arducam drivers from their repo
Did a full sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Verified the camera sensor itself seems alive (the shutter clicks and the sensor responds when I probe it)
But still nothing. The Pi 5 just refuses to see any camera connected.
I’m starting to wonder if this is a cable issue. The Pi 5 has that newer 22-pin CSI connector instead of the old 15-pin one. The cable that came in the box with the B0444 — is it actually compatible with the 22-pin connector on the Pi 5? Or do I need a different cable? If so, which one?
Would appreciate any pointers before I go down the rabbit hole of debugging this further.
Hi there, thanks for the detailed post. Before we jump to conclusions about the cable, let’s gather some more data so we can see what’s actually going on.
Could you provide the following:
1. Photos of your connections
Take clear, well-lit photos showing both ends of the ribbon cable — the connection to the camera board and the connection to the Raspberry Pi 5’s CSI port. Sometimes the seating is the culprit and it’s easy to spot visually.
2. Diagnostic log
Run these commands in order on your Pi 5:
This will generate a file called arducam-bug-report.txt in your current directory. It grabs all the relevant system info — OS version, kernel, camera subsystem status, config files, etc. — which will save us a lot of back-and-forth.
Attach that text file and the photos to your reply and we’ll go from there.
I’ve double-checked everything — drivers reinstalled, system fully updated, camera sensor and shutter are physically responding — but the Pi just won’t acknowledge anything is connected. Let me know if anything jumps out from the logs or the photos.
Thanks for uploading those. I’ve gone through the photos and the bug report.
The ribbon cable connections look properly seated on both ends from what I can see, and the system report shows the OS and kernel are up to date. Nothing obviously misconfigured in the config files either.
That said, I’m seeing some indications in the log that the CSI host controller on the Pi 5 side isn’t enumerating anything on that port at all — it’s not even getting far enough to identify the sensor. This could point to a signaling or pinout mismatch between the B0444’s flex cable and the Pi 5’s 22-pin interface. The Pi 5’s CSI connector has a different pin assignment compared to the older 15-pin models, and not all camera cables map those correctly out of the box.
At this stage I’d suggest reaching out to Arducam directly with the same photos and bug report. They’ll have the most authoritative info on whether the B0444 cable included in the box is validated for the Pi 5’s 22-pin CSI port, or if a specific adapter/cable revision is needed. If you hear back from them, please update the thread — it’ll help anyone else running into the same thing.
Quick update for anyone following — I ended up contacting Arducam support directly with the diagnostics and photos, and they were able to get it sorted out. The camera is working now on my Pi 5.
I don’t have the exact technical details on what the fix was on their end, but if you’re hitting the same “no cameras available” wall with a B0444 on a Pi 5, I’d recommend going straight to Arducam with your setup info. They clearly know their hardware and were able to resolve it pretty quickly.
Thanks for the help, Dion — the diagnostic tool made it way easier to hand everything over to them in one go.