Hi everyone, I’m having trouble getting my Arducam IMX219 CamArray HAT to work with my Raspberry Pi 4 running Bookworm OS. None of the cameras are being detected at all.
I followed the setup guide at the Arducam docs page (the CamArray quick start for switch composition mode), installed all the required packages and applied every configuration step they listed. But still nothing. Anyone know what I might be missing here?
That’s frustrating, let’s dig into this. Could you help me with a couple things?
First, can you post photos of your hardware connections — both the Raspberry Pi side and the camera connections on the HAT? Sometimes it’s a cabling issue that’s easy to spot visually.
Second, I’d like to see a full diagnostic report. Here’s how to generate one:
Thanks for the quick reply. I’ve uploaded the photos (IMG_0814 and IMG_0815 showing the Pi and camera connections) and ran the bug report tool — I’ve attached the arducam-bug-report.txt here. Let me know what you find.
Alright, I went through your bug report and the photos. Found two issues:
1. Not all cameras are plugged in. Looking at your photos, you don’t have all four cameras connected to the CamArray HAT. The HAT requires all four to be physically connected for proper operation — it won’t detect anything if any slots are empty.
2. Conflicting device tree overlay. In your config.txt, I can see this line:
dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety
That overlay is for a different Arducam product and it’s conflicting with the IMX219 CamArray HAT configuration. It needs to go.
Here’s what to do:
Connect all four cameras to the HAT.
Remove the dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety line from config.txt. On Bookworm, this file might be at /boot/config.txt or /boot/firmware/config.txt — check both.
Before I proceed — one question. Is my specific Raspberry Pi board actually compatible with the CamArray HAT? I’m using the board shown in the photos I sent earlier. Just want to make sure I’m not chasing a software fix when the hardware itself won’t work.
Good catch asking that, because looking more closely at your specific Pi board — there’s actually a hardware-level incompatibility here. Your particular board revision requires two specific resistors to be swapped out for it to work properly with the CamArray HAT.
I want to be upfront: Arducam does not recommend doing this resistor swap yourself. It’s delicate surface-mount work and there’s a high risk of permanently damaging the board. We don’t provide DIY instructions for it.
Your options are essentially to use a different Pi that’s compatible, or have the modification done by someone with proper SMD rework equipment and experience. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I’d rather be honest than have you brick your board.
Hmm, that’s rough. But before I go down the hardware replacement route, I went ahead and applied the software fix anyway — removed dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety from config.txt and connected all four cameras. Unfortunately, still no luck with detection.
I did notice one change though: rpicam-app actually shows up now, which it didn’t before, so the overlay removal definitely did something. Also an interesting thing — if I flip one of the camera ribbon cables around, I get an “input/output error” instead of the usual “no cameras” message.
I’ve generated another fresh bug report and attached it here. Is there anything else we can try before I give up on this board?
Thanks for the update and the new bug report. The fact that rpicam-app is now showing up and you’re getting different errors when flipping cables suggests we’re making progress — the software side is likely correct now, but the hardware compatibility issue is probably what’s still blocking things.
Rather than going back and forth with config tweaks that may not help, I think the fastest way forward is for me to take a look at your system directly. I’ve sent you details via private message for setting up a remote support session using TeamViewer on your Pi. That way I can check the live system state, verify all the overlays, and see what the kernel is actually reporting.
Please check your messages — I’ve included the download link for TeamViewer for Raspberry Pi and instructions for scheduling a session. Just a heads up: our support team is on UTC+8, and the 22:00 slot on the scheduling page is sales-only, so pick an earlier time if you can.
Once you’ve got TeamViewer running, send me the ID and password through private message and we’ll get this sorted.