Having a really frustrating time with an Arducam OV5647 autofocus camera that has never worked since I got it. I’m on a Raspberry Pi 4B+ and I’ve tried Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm, Manjaro XFCE (on a spare SD card), and Manjaro Mate (on an SSD) — same result every time.
The main blocker is that raspi-config no longer has the KMS video driver option, and the camera module port activation option is gone too. Every set of instructions I can find — the manual, YouTube videos, the support forum — all reference those old options, so I can’t follow them. When I try the install scripts anyway, they never complete: I get ‘Permission Denied’ errors partway through, plus device errors and timeout errors.
Any idea what I should be doing differently? I’ve been going in circles with this.
Thanks for laying all that out. One thing that explains a lot: on newer Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm), the legacy KMS video driver option and the camera module port activation in raspi-config have been removed or changed. That’s why the old manual/YouTube/forum steps don’t match what you’re seeing — they’re all written for older setups.
The ‘Permission Denied’, device, and timeout errors from the install scripts are worth digging into as well, since device/timeout errors often mean the system isn’t seeing the camera at all.
I don’t have a root cause yet. To move forward, could you send me two things?
Clear photos of the hardware connection — one at the Raspberry Pi end (ribbon in the camera connector) and one at the camera end.
A system bug report so we can see the current camera/system state.
Make it executable:
chmod +x ./arducam-camera-bug-report
Run it:
./arducam-camera-bug-report
That will write an ‘arducam-bug-report.txt’ file in the current directory. Send that file over together with the photos and we’ll take a look at what the system is reporting.
It produced arducam-bug-report.txt without any issues. I’ve sent you the bug report and the photos of both ends of the ribbon cable in a private message. Let me know what you find — I’ve been stuck on this for a while.
Thanks, I’ve received the photos and the arducam-bug-report.txt. I’m going through the report now. No confirmed root cause yet, but given the Bookworm changes and the errors you hit with the install scripts, I want to check what the system is actually reporting for the camera before we try anything else. I’ll follow up once I’ve finished reviewing everything.