ImportError: cannot import name 'ControlType' from 'libcamera'(unknown location)

Raspberry Pi Cameras libcamera
1

I got a new Arducam IMX519 Autofocus camera and I have been fighting for weeks to try and get it to work within Python. Out of the box within minutes I was able to get it working with libcamera so I know the camera itself works, but I’ve followed literally 50 tutorials and I can’t find any way to make it work in Python. The latest attempt has been to go back to the Arducam site and follow the instructions provided here: Picamera2 with Arducam V1/V2/HQ/16MP-AF/64MP-AF/Pivariety Cameras (Guide) - Arducam

Everything is installed with no errors. Then when I try to run any of the samples provided in the Github repo: GitHub - raspberrypi/picamera2: New libcamera based python library I always get the same error:

ImportError: cannot import name ‘ControlType’ from ‘libcamera’ (unknown location)

Or more sepcifically

trezero@raspberrypi:~/Applications/picamera2/examples $ python3 easy_capture.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/trezero/Applications/picamera2/examples/easy_capture.py", line 3, in <module>
    from picamera2 import Picamera2
  File "/home/trezero/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/picamera2/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from .configuration import CameraConfiguration, StreamConfiguration
  File "/home/trezero/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/picamera2/configuration.py", line 1, in <module>
    from .controls import Controls
  File "/home/trezero/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/picamera2/controls.py", line 4, in <module>
    from libcamera import ControlType, Size, Rectangle
ImportError: cannot import name 'ControlType' from 'libcamera' (unknown location)

This is running an extremely simple app which is this:

#!/usr/bin/python3

from picamera2 import Picamera2

picam2 = Picamera2()

# Capture one image with the default configurations.
picam2.start_and_capture_file("test.jpg")

# Capture 3 images. Use a 0.5 second delay after the first image.
picam2.start_and_capture_files("test{:d}.jpg", num_files=3, delay=0.5)

Can someone please help me understand how to get past this error?

2

@trezero

Try uninstall libcamera

python3 -m pip uninstall libcamera

and then try the Picamera2 again.

3

Unfortunately I just re-imaged to a 64 bit Raspberry Pi image based on reading some other sites. Can you confirm if this should work on the 64Bit Raspberry Pi OS?

4

@trezero

Re-burning the system can also solve the same problem.

The reason is that you installed our previous libcamera python library, the idea to solve it is to delete the dependency.

5

Following the instructions provided here exactly ended up being the thing that finally worked

6

@trezero

This is really the key to solving this problem.

Did the same thinking as I did.

7

@Edward One last thing though. After following this, the one thing that no longer works that always worked before is autofocus. When I try this now I get this error:

libcamera-still -t 0 --viewfinder-width 2328 --viewfinder-height 1748 --autofocus
Closing Libcamera application(frames displayed 0, dropped 0)
Camera stopped!
Tearing down requests, buffers and configuration
Camera closed
ERROR: *** unrecognised option ‘–autofocus’ ***

Any ideas? Is there something missing that I need to install for Autofocus to work? Also, how do I use Autofocus within Python? I couldn’t find anything about it with Picamera2.

I really appreciate all your help!

8

@Edward any ideas here? I’m still really stuck. No matter what I do it seems impossible to get autofocus to work within Python while running Picamera2

9

@trezero

Take a look at the information about libcamera

sudo dpkg -l | grep libcamera