Hi everyone. I’m stuck with a camera setup and hoping someone has ideas. My setup: Raspberry Pi 4B, Raspberry Pi OS Buster, the Raspberry Pi Multi Camera Adapter Module V2.2, and four NOIR Camera v2.1 modules. I’m using the picamera library. I flashed the firmware that was provided for the V2.2 adapter, but the cameras aren’t detected at all. Nothing shows up. Is there something obvious I’m missing?
Thanks for the details. Can you run vcgencmd get_camera and paste the output here? Also, which firmware version did you flash? I’ve sent you the latest firmware package for the V2.2 adapter through private message - please check your messages and try that update if you haven’t already.
I checked and flashed the firmware you sent via PM. vcgencmd get_camera still reports supported=0 detected=0 for the cameras. Here’s a screenshot of what I’m seeing:
Thanks for the screenshot. Let’s rule out the physical layer first. Can you confirm all four cameras are fully seated on the adapter and the FFC cables are locked in? Also, try booting with just one camera on channel A and run the detection command again - that will tell us whether the adapter itself is being seen.
Okay, I reseated the cables and tested with a single camera on channel A - now the cameras show up in vcgencmd get_camera. But I’ve hit another problem. When I use picamera to capture from all channels one by one, the Pi hangs at channel C. Sometimes it doesn’t hang, but the saved images are distorted.
That’s useful. Can you share the capture script you’re using? When it hangs at channel C, does it eventually recover or do you have to power-cycle the Pi? Also try capturing A, B, C, and D individually so we can see whether channel C itself is the problem or whether it’s the loop across channels.
I isolated it a bit. Channel C on its own also causes the hang. Distorted images still happen intermittently on the other channels too. Before I go further down this path, can someone confirm whether the V2.2 adapter is actually supported on Buster OS? And are there example scripts specifically for Buster? Everything I’ve found seems written for other OS versions.
To be honest, we can’t provide much extra help for using this module on Buster OS. Just to recap what you’ve described so far: Pi 4B on Buster, V2.2 adapter with the picamera library, hangs at channel C or occasionally writes distorted images, and earlier the cameras weren’t detected at all with the provided firmware. Let me check the OS support status internally and get back to you.
Thanks. Yes, that summary is accurate - Buster OS, V2.2 adapter, picamera, capturing all channels one by one. It hangs at channel C or stores distorted images. And earlier the cameras weren’t being detected at all until I reseated everything.
I got an update from our team. Raspberry Pi moved to the Bullseye system, and we’ve dropped support for Buster on this camera module - all our effort is now focused on Bullseye. Buster OS is no longer supported for the V2.2 adapter, which explains the detection problems and the channel C hangs you’re seeing.
Ah, that explains a lot. So is there any workaround on Buster, or do I need to move the whole project to Bullseye?
You’ll need to switch/port your code from Buster to Bullseye OS. One important thing to know: Bullseye ships with libcamera and picamera2 for development, not the legacy picamera library. So your existing picamera-based scripts will need to be reworked against picamera2. For configuring the Pi, follow this Raspberry Pi forum thread: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=342058
Got it, that’s a bigger change than I hoped but at least the direction is clear. I’ll flash Bullseye and start porting to picamera2. Thanks for the help.
To sum it up for anyone else who finds this thread: use Bullseye OS with libcamera and picamera2 rather than Buster OS with the legacy picamera library for the Raspberry Pi Multi Camera Adapter Module V2.2. The hangs at channel C and distorted images are consistent with the unsupported Buster setup, so moving to Bullseye should be the first step.