Hi all, I’m stuck with an OV5647 (B0033) camera module on a Raspberry Pi B running Raspberry Pi OS 11 Bullseye. libcamera reports v0.0.4+22-923f5d70. The camera has never worked — I can’t get any preview window at all. When I run libcamera I get this:
[0:08:27.059676931] [1032] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:299 libcamera v0.0.4+22-923f5d70
ERROR: *** no cameras available ***
Has anyone seen this before? I’m not sure if it’s a hardware or config issue.
That error means libcamera isn’t detecting the sensor at all — it’s not a preview problem, the camera simply isn’t showing up. Before we go further, what have you tried so far, and have you made any changes to /boot/config.txt?
Quite a bit. I enabled Glamor in the config and changed the overlay so config.txt now has dtoverlay=ov5647. I also formatted the card and re-installed a fresh Bullseye image, and followed the official Raspberry Pi camera software docs. I’ve tried two different cameras and two different cables — still the same error every time.
Got it. The fact that it’s not detected at all by libcamera v0.0.4+22-923f5d70 on Bullseye points to either a connection/hardware fault or the overlay/config still not being right. A fresh image plus dtoverlay=ov5647 should normally cover the software side, so let’s pull some diagnostics.
First, reboot the device. Then grab the bug report tool:
wget -O arducam-camera-bug-report https://github.com/ketai-dhr/arducam-camera-bug-report/releases/download/tools/arducam-camera-bug-report
chmod +x ./arducam-camera-bug-report
./arducam-camera-bug-report
That will create an arducam-bug-report.txt file in the current directory. Please send that file over private message so I can look at it. Also double-check your camera setup against this page: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/camera_software.html
I rebooted and ran the tool — it produced arducam-bug-report.txt. I’ve sent the file over private message. I also took some photos of the connection at both ends (camera side and Pi side) and sent those too.
Thanks, I’ve had a look at the bug report. It confirms the camera still isn’t being detected, which matches your earlier libcamera error. Your config shows the ov5647 overlay is set, so I’m leaning toward a connection/hardware issue rather than software. The photos look like the cable is seated, but it’s hard to be 100% sure from pictures. Do you have another white flex cable you could swap in? Sometimes the ribbon is the culprit even when it looks fine.
I already swapped between the two cables I have and it made no difference. I don’t have a third one lying around unfortunately.
Understood. To sum up where we are: fresh Bullseye install, dtoverlay=ov5647 set, Glamor enabled, two cameras and two cables tried, and the bug report still shows no camera detected. At this point it really looks like a hardware fault on the camera module or the flex cable. If you can borrow a known-good cable that would be the last thing to rule out, but otherwise this one isn’t going to be fixed from the software side.