Hey everyone, I’m completely stuck here. I wiped my Raspberry Pi 4B and did a fresh install with all the latest updates, and now my camera just says “error: no cameras available” whenever I try to use it. The camera worked perfectly before the wipe, so the hardware itself is fine. I followed the online documentation step by step and I’ve plugged and unplugged everything probably a hundred times now. Nothing seems to help. Any ideas on what could be going wrong?
Thanks for the details. Since the camera was working before the wipe, this could be a few different things, but the first diagnostic step is to collect an Arducam camera bug report so we can see what the system is actually detecting.
Reboot your Pi first, then run these commands one at a time:
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 your current directory. Send that file over and I’ll take a look at what’s going on.
Okay, done. I ran the tool and it generated the report. I’ve sent the arducam-bug-report.txt file to you through private message since it contains a bunch of system info. Let me know what you find in there.
Thanks, I’ve had a look at the report. Quick question before we go further — was the previous Raspberry Pi kernel version on this Pi 5.15.84 or below?
The reason I ask is there’s a known bug: on Raspberry Pi 4B rev 1.5 boards, when you flash kernel 6.1.21, Pivariety cameras simply won’t be detected by the Pi. If that’s what happened here, the fix is to flash kernel 5.15.84 and then follow the Pivariety Camera Quick Start Guide from scratch:
https://docs.arducam.com/Raspberry-Pi-Camera/Pivariety-Camera/Quick-Start-Guide/#pivariety-cameras
I’ve wiped and reflashed again and it’s still not working. I honestly don’t know what kernel I had before, but the camera is from around August 2022 and it definitely worked back then. I’m using the Raspberry Pi Imager to flash. At this point I’d rather just get a known working image. Where do I even find kernel 5.15.84? Or is there a complete image I can just flash onto the SD card?
I’ve attached a photo of my hardware connection so you can see the setup.
Looking at that photo, it actually looks like you have the HAT kit there, not the 16MP-IMX298 module we were just talking about. That’s important, because the configuration and troubleshooting steps are different depending on which module you’re actually using. Can you confirm exactly which camera module you have in front of you?
It’s the 4 camera 16 megapixel one.
Here, this one — I’ve sent you a screenshot of the product listing through private message so you can see exactly what I bought.
Got it, that’s the IMX519-based kit. That changes things. In your /boot/config.txt you need to change the device tree overlay. You probably currently have “dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety” in there. Change it to “dtoverlay=imx519”, save it, then reboot your Raspberry Pi so the change takes effect.
Quick question — does this dtoverlay change apply on the newest Pi OS image? I want to make sure I’m flashing the right thing before I wipe this thing yet again.
Yes, use the latest Bullseye OS. That corresponds to kernel version 6.1.21, and the dtoverlay=imx519 change applies there.
Okay, I’m setting this Pi up strictly to use these 4 cameras — that’s its whole job. I’ve wiped it about 20 times now trying to get them working. Should I still be following the quick start guide? Can someone please just give me all the steps in order so I stop going around in circles?
Understood, let’s get you on a clean ordered path. Follow the IMX519 Multi-Camera Kit quick start guide here:
And then use the libcamera guide for getting started:
https://docs.arducam.com/Raspberry-Pi-Camera/Native-camera/Libcamera-User-Guide/#getting-started
The key thing to remember is that these cameras are accessed using the libcamera command, not the older raspistill/raspivid tools. Make sure your config.txt has dtoverlay=imx519 and that the cameras are connected to the correct ports for the multi-camera kit. Give that a try and let us know how it goes.