Hi everyone, I’m running into a frustrating issue with my Arducam IMX477 Motorized Focus High Quality Camera and hoping someone can help.
My setup:
NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX SOM (16GB)
Aetina AN810 XavierNX Devkit carrier board
Ubuntu 20.04 with JetPack 5.1.5
Problem: The camera works intermittently. It streams fine for a short while, but after a certain interval the stream just freezes and gets stuck. I’ve been following the online documentation trying to get the IMX477 driver installed. I tried using the .deb file from the GitHub link, and I’ve also attempted flashing different JetPack versions, but I cannot get the driver to install properly. The camera is detected sometimes but it’s never stable.
Has anyone else experienced this on the Orin NX with a third-party carrier? Any pointers would be appreciated.
Thanks for reaching out. Before we dive into driver troubleshooting, could you share a couple of pictures of your Jetson Orin NX module? One from the top and one from the back would be helpful — I want to make sure we’re looking at the right hardware configuration first.
Thanks for those. The module looks fine — could you also send over some pictures of the carrier board? I’d like to take a closer look at that side of the setup. The carrier board can sometimes be the culprit with these kinds of intermittent streaming issues.
Here you go — photos of the full setup including the carrier board:
Just to confirm, the carrier board is the Aetina AN810 XavierNX Devkit. So to recap:
Arducam IMX477 Motorized Focus High Quality Camera
Jetson Orin NX 16GB SOM on the Aetina AN810 XavierNX Devkit carrier
Ubuntu 20.04 / JetPack 5.1.5
I’ve tried the .deb driver from GitHub and also tested across different JetPack versions — the imx477 driver installation keeps failing, and even when the camera does work briefly, the stream freezes after some time.
Thanks for the detailed information. After reviewing the photos, I can see you’re using the Aetina AN810 XavierNX Devkit — that’s a third-party carrier board, not an official NVIDIA development kit.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen compatibility issues with third-party carrier boards before, and I can’t confidently determine whether the fault lies with the camera or the third-party hardware in this configuration. The intermittent behavior and stream freezing could very well be caused by signal integrity or power delivery differences on the Aetina board.
Here’s what I’d recommend as a next step:
Test the Arducam IMX477 on an official NVIDIA development kit (not the third-party Aetina AN810).
If the camera streams reliably on the official devkit, then the issue is likely with the Aetina carrier board.
If it still fails on the official devkit, reach back out and we can dig deeper into the camera itself.
This is really the only way to isolate the problem right now.
I appreciate the response, but I have to push back a bit here — this camera was actually working previously on this exact same Aetina AN810 setup. It streams correctly at first, but then the video freezes and streaming stops automatically after some time. So it’s not a flat-out incompatibility.
Also, the Aetina carrier board follows the same CSI pinout and hardware design specifications as the official NVIDIA development kit. The interface should not be the problem.
A few things I’d really like clarity on:
Is there a recommended driver or device-tree configuration that needs to be applied specifically for stable streaming with the IMX477 on Jetson Orin NX? If so, could you walk me through how to install or apply the correct driver?
Are there any timing parameters or MIPI lane configuration requirements specific to the IMX477 module that I should be checking?
I’m trying to isolate whether this is a software/driver issue, a device-tree misconfiguration, or something at the hardware interface level. The camera clearly works — it just doesn’t stay working. Any guidance on the driver and device-tree side would be really helpful.
