Raspberry Pi 4B reboots after 20-30 seconds streaming camera with libcamera-vid on Bullseye

Raspberry Pi Cameras
1

Hi all, I’m running into a strange reboot issue with a Raspberry Pi 4B and a camera. I’m on the latest Raspberry Pi OS bullseye image. When I start streaming using:

libcamera-vid -t 0 --inline --listen -o tcp://0.0.0.0:8887

the Pi streams for about 20-30 seconds and then just reboots. There’s no kernel panic or error on screen, it just cuts out and comes back. The camera is one I got from Amazon (Amazon.com: Arducam Day-Night Vision for Raspberry Pi Camera, Automatic IR-Cut Switching All-Day Image All-Model Support, IR LED for Low Light and Night Vision, M12 Lens Interchangeable, OV5647 5MP 1080P : Electronics). Not sure if this is the camera, the Pi, or my power supply.

2

Thanks for the details. A reboot after 20-30 seconds of streaming often points to a hardware, power, or Pi-specific issue rather than a universal camera fault. Do you have another Raspberry Pi available? If so, could you try the same camera on that Pi with the same command? That should help isolate whether the problem follows the camera or stays with the Pi.

3

Quick update: I tested the same camera on a Raspberry Pi Zero W, also running the latest bullseye image, using the exact same command. It reboots there too after roughly 20-30 seconds. So it’s not just the Pi 4B. Both the Pi 4B and the Zero W reboot with this camera.

4

Thanks for testing that. For what it’s worth, I tried the same camera on a Pi 4 here with the same command:

libcamera-vid -t 0 --inline --listen -o tcp://0.0.0.0:8887

It ran for about an hour until I manually stopped the libcamera-vid service. So I can’t reproduce the reboot on my side. Given that your Pi 4B and Pi Zero W both reboot while the same camera and command work here, it seems more likely to be something specific to your setup, such as power supply, cabling, environment, or configuration, rather than a clear camera defect. I don’t have a definitive fix to give at this point. I’d suggest posting this problem on the Raspberry Pi forum with the command and your cross-test results, since the root cause is still not determined.