Arducam-pivariety.json not found, pylibcamera fails on Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Cameras
1

Hey everyone, I’m running pylibcamera with indiserver on a Raspberry Pi 5 and I’m getting this error whenever I try to use the camera:

2025-08-20T08:42:35: Driver indi_pylibcamera: [0:13:44.803119255] [2066] ERROR IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:171 Configuration file 'arducam-pivariety.json' not found for IPA module 'rpi/pisp'

I’ve searched the entire filesystem for arducam-pivariety.json and it’s just not there anywhere. Does anyone know where this file is supposed to live, or how I can get it? The camera seems to be detected but this error keeps popping up.

2

This is a known situation with the Pivariety driver stack. The IPA module rpi/pisp is looking for a camera tuning file called arducam-pivariety.json that isn’t bundled with the default installation.

There’s a forum discussion over on the Arducam forum that covers where the tuning file should be placed and how to get it. Take a look here:

That should point you in the right direction.

3

Thanks for the link. Before I go down that rabbit hole though — can I just ask: is this IPAProxy error actually fatal? Like, does the missing arducam-pivariety.json file stop the camera from working, or can I safely ignore it for now? I’d rather not mess around with tuning files if it’s not strictly necessary.

4

You can safely ignore it — it’s a non-fatal warning. The missing configuration file won’t prevent the camera from operating. The IPA module will just fall back to its built-in defaults.

So that Configuration file arducam-pivariety.json not found for IPA module rpi/pisp error is benign. You’ll still see it in the logs, but it’s not the cause of any functional problems you might run into.

5

Alright, good to know the IPAProxy thing is harmless — though I have to say it’s pretty annoying that it spits out an ERROR-level log message for something that’s supposedly benign.

Anyway, I’ve got a much bigger problem now. My B0444 camera module isn’t working at all. Here’s the setup:

  • Raspberry Pi 5
  • B0444 camera module connected to CAM 1 port
  • /dev/video4

I’m getting device timeouts and buffer queue failures:

ERROR: Device timeout detected, attempting a restart!!!
[0:01:08.118382731] [2246] ERROR V4L2 v4l2_videodevice.cpp:1825 /dev/video4[13:cap]: Failed to queue buffer 1: Remote I/O error
[0:01:08.118402262] [2246] ERROR RPISTREAM rpi_stream.cpp:276 Failed to queue buffer for CFE Image
[0:01:08.120015082] [2246] ERROR V4L2 v4l2_videodevice.cpp:1825 /dev/video4[13:cap]: Failed to queue buffer 2: Remote I/O error
[0:01:08.120031466] [2246] ERROR RPISTREAM rpi_stream.cpp:276 Failed to queue buffer for CFE Image
[0:01:08.122351365] [2246] ERROR V4L2 v4l2_videodevice.cpp:1825 /dev/video4[13:cap]: Failed to queue buffer 3: Remote I/O error
[0:01:08.122367471] [2246] ERROR RPISTREAM rpi_stream.cpp:276 Failed to queue buffer for CFE Image
[0:01:08.126468250] [2246] ERROR V4L2 v4l2_videodevice.cpp:1825 /dev/video4[13:cap]: Failed to queue buffer 0: Remote I/O error
[0:01:08.126493150] [2246] ERROR RPISTREAM rpi_stream.cpp:276 Failed to queue buffer for CFE Image

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

  • dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in config.txt → camera not detected at all
  • dtoverlay=imx462 → camera partially detected but produces the buffer queue errors above
  • Swapped out the camera module for another B0444 — same result
  • Tried different FFC cables — no change
  • Tried different Raspberry Pi 5 boards — same errors
  • Tried a fresh OS install — no difference

Meanwhile, my IMX708 module works perfectly fine on the exact same hardware. So the Pi, the cable, and the port are all good. This seems specific to the B0444.

6

Thanks for the detailed logs and troubleshooting — that actually makes the root cause pretty clear.

Looking at your error chain, the B0444 uses the Pivariety camera driver and must have dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in config.txt. Using dtoverlay=imx462 is the wrong overlay entirely — the IMX462 is a different sensor, and forcing that overlay onto a B0444 is exactly what causes the V4L2 buffer queue failures and device timeouts you’re seeing. The driver and sensor are mismatched.

Now, you mentioned that when you tried dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety the camera wasn’t detected. Based on the screenshot you shared, I think the issue there is the physical connection. The B0444 on a Pi 5 must be connected to the CAM 1 port — not CAM 0. CAM 0 on the Pi 5 is a 4-lane MIPI interface, and the Pivariety driver expects the camera on the CAM 1 (2-lane) port.

So to summarise:

  1. Set dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety in your config.txt (remove the imx462 line)
  2. Make sure the B0444 is physically connected to the CAM 1 port on the Raspberry Pi 5

That combination should get the camera detected and streaming properly. The full error chain — from the device timeout through all the Failed to queue buffer and Remote I/O error messages — all trace back to the overlay mismatch.

7

That did it! Moved the camera to CAM 1 with dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety and it’s detected and working now. Thanks for clearing that up.

However, I’m seeing two weird behaviours with exposures that I wanted to ask about:

  1. First exposure is immediate, second one has a long delay. If I take a 10-second exposure, the first frame comes back right away. But if I immediately take another 10-second exposure right after, there’s a considerable pause before the image is available. It’s like something in the driver is inserting a cooldown period between sequential long exposures.

  2. Can’t get past 15 seconds. No matter what I set the exposure time to, it seems to cap out at around 15 seconds. Anything longer than that just doesn’t work.

I’m starting to wonder if the driver has some built-in delay between frames that trips up sequential long exposures, and maybe a hard limit on maximum exposure duration. Has anyone else run into this with the B0444?