Hey everyone, I’m trying to set up an Arducam IMX477 camera with my Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and I’m hitting a wall. The goal is to use this as a remote security camera I can view from anywhere over WiFi, but the camera doesn’t seem to power on at all when I try using the standard rpi camera libraries. I’ve checked the basics — the Pi itself boots fine, WiFi works, but the camera is just… dead. No response from libcamera or raspistill. Anyone run into this with the IMX477 on a Zero 2W?
Let’s start with the physical layer before we dive into software. Could you post a couple of clear, well-lit photos? I want to see: 1) where the ribbon cable connects to the camera board itself, and 2) where the ribbon cable connects to the Pi Zero 2W’s CSI port. Also confirm you’re using the correct cable — the Zero 2W has a mini CSI connector, not the full-size one, so make sure you’ve got the right adapter cable in play.
Yeah, I’m using the smaller ribbon cable that came with the Arducam kit — it’s got the narrow connector on one end for the Pi Zero CSI port and the wider one on the other for the camera board. I’ll grab some photos now and post them. Give me a few minutes. In the meantime, anything else I should check? I already tried reseating the cable a couple times on both ends.
Good that you’ve already tried reseating. While you’re getting those photos together, I also need a software diagnostic from your Pi. I’ve put together a small bug-report script that pulls all the relevant info — i2c bus status, loaded kernel modules, camera detection, dmesg snippets, the works. I’ve sent you the download link and instructions through a private message here on the forum. Go ahead and grab that, run it on the Pi, and it’ll spit out a file called arducam-bug-report.txt. Attach that along with the photos once you’ve got everything.
Received the PM, thanks. I’ll SSH into the Pi and run the tool now. Just to be clear — I should reboot first, then download and execute the script, right? Following the instructions you sent.
Exactly — sudo reboot first, then download the tool, chmod +x it, and run it. The reboot ensures we’re starting from a clean state so the diagnostic captures a fresh boot sequence. Once you’ve got both the photos and the arducam-bug-report.txt file, attach them here and I’ll dig into what’s going on. The report will tell me whether the camera is even being detected on the i2c bus, if the imx477 driver is loading properly, and if there are any kernel-level errors we need to address. No point speculating until we see that data.