Hi, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I have an Arducam camera that my Raspberry Pi simply will not recognize — nothing shows up as a camera at all, no matter what I do. I already swapped the ribbon cable for a different one and it made zero difference, still not detected. Setup is: Raspberry Pi + the Arducam camera + ribbon cable. The board boots fine and everything else on it works. Where should I start troubleshooting?
Welcome! Let’s narrow this down. A couple of quick things first: which exact Arducam model and which Raspberry Pi model are you running? Then can you run these two commands and paste the output:
vcgencmd get_camera
dmesg | grep -i -E 'camera|unicam'
Also double-check the camera interface is actually enabled (in raspi-config, or the start_x / camera_auto_detect lines in config.txt). One more thing worth doing: unplug and firmly re-seat the ribbon at BOTH ends — the contact side faces a specific direction, and a slightly loose or backwards cable gives exactly this “not detected” symptom.
Thanks. I’m not great at reading this stuff, but here’s what I get:
$ vcgencmd get_camera
supported=1 detected=0, libcamera interfaces=0
And dmesg | grep -i camera doesn’t really print anything useful — nothing about a camera being found. I checked raspi-config and the camera interface is enabled. I’ve re-seated the ribbon maybe four or five times now. Still nothing.
Sorry, should add — it does the same thing with the second ribbon cable I bought, so I don’t think it’s the cable. Is there a way to tell if it’s the camera itself or the Pi?
Good question, and yes there is. The cleanest isolation test is to put a known-working camera on the same Raspberry Pi. If you can get hold of a standard Pi camera, connect it (leave everything else the same) and see whether the Pi detects it.
If the Pi camera works fine, that tells us the Pi, its camera port, and your software configuration are all good — which would point the finger at the Arducam unit instead. Meanwhile, could you also confirm whether the ribbon is fully inserted and oriented correctly on the Arducam side? A partially seated connector on just one end will still give detected=0.
Okay, I got the chance to test this. A friend let me connect a standard Pi camera on my Raspberry Pi yesterday, and it worked without any problem — detected straight away, no fuss.
So that rules the Pi out I guess? The Arducam on the same board with a different ribbon still isn’t recognized at all.
That’s a really useful result. So to summarize the evidence so far:
- A standard Pi camera on your Raspberry Pi works fine → the Pi, its camera connector, and the software config are all healthy.
- You tested another ribbon cable with the Arducam, and it was still not recognized → the cable isn’t the problem either.
That narrows it down quite a lot — the most likely culprit is the Arducam camera unit itself rather than your Pi or wiring. Let me check on this for you and follow up.
That would make sense. It’s frustrating because I’ve spent hours on the config thinking I was doing something wrong. Let me know what you find out — happy to try anything else you want me to test in the meantime.
Thanks for your patience, and for running those tests — they really helped. Based on everything:
- Pi camera works on the same Raspberry Pi → Pi and its software config are fine.
- Swapping the ribbon cable didn’t change anything → cable ruled out.
- Arducam still not detected (
vcgencmd get_camerashowsdetected=0)
So the evidence points to the Arducam unit itself being the faulty part rather than the Pi or the cable. I’ve sent you a replacement camera and the follow-up details through private message — please check your messages and try that unit when it arrives. If the new one is detected properly, that will confirm the diagnosis. We’ll keep looking into the exact root cause on our side in the meantime, so just post back here with the result.