Hi, I recently picked up an 8MP autofocus camera (IMX219) and I’ve been trying for a while to get it running on my Raspberry Pi Zero W. I followed the directions in the PDF that came with the camera but they just don’t work. The Pi doesn’t seem to detect the camera at all. I’m running Python cp39, linux_armv7l platform. Hoping someone here can help me get this going.
Hi! Let’s see if we can sort this out. A couple of things I’d like to know first:
- Which OS/image are you running on the Zero W (Bullseye, Bookworm, something else)?
- What exact steps did you follow from the manual, and where does it fail?
- Can you paste the exact error text you get when it breaks?
The more detail you give, the easier it’ll be to narrow down whether this is a camera detection issue or just the software install side.
Sure. I followed the directions in the attached PDF here: B0393_Manual.pdf (https://cdn.arducam.com/forum/254ab146fa07160fd731e362c0c35874/B0393_Manual.pdf).
The part that fails is installing the libcamera wheel. When I run pip install on it I get:
ERROR: libcamera-1.0.2-cp39-cp39-linux_armv7l.whl is not a supported wheel on this platform.
I tried both of the suggested wheels mentioned in the guide and both return that same unsupported wheel error. I also posted details on the forum a while back (Raspberry Pi Zero W Not Detecting 8MP Autofocus Camera (imx219)) but didn’t get any help there.
Thanks, that error is a good clue. “not a supported wheel on this platform” means pip is refusing to install because it thinks the wheel’s platform tag doesn’t match your system. That can happen for a few reasons - wrong wheel for your Python version, wrong architecture tag, or pip being too old to recognise a valid tag.
Can you run the following and paste the output?
uname -a
python3 --version
pip --version
pip debug --verbose | head -n 30
ls /dev/ | grep video
Also, can you confirm the exact filenames of the two wheels you tried?
Here’s what I get:
$ uname -a
Linux raspberrypi 5.10.63+ #1459 ... armv6l GNU/Linux
$ python3 --version
Python 3.9.2
$ pip --version
pip 20.3.4 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip (python 3.9)
$ ls /dev/ | grep video
(nothing)
The two wheels were the ones the guide points to, both named like libcamera-1.0.2-cp39-cp39-linux_armv7l.whl. Neither installs. And yeah, no /dev/video devices show up.
Also worth mentioning - even before the wheel issue, the camera itself never shows up. So I’m not sure if the detection problem and the wheel problem are the same thing or two separate problems. Which should I focus on first?
Good question - let’s gather a bit of detection info before assuming they’re the same problem. Can you run these and share the output?
vcgencmd get_camera
libcamera-hello --list-cameras 2>&1
cat /proc/cpuinfo | tail -n 5
Also please double-check the ribbon cable while you’re at it - reseat both ends, and make sure the contacts face the right way and the connector clip is fully closed. On a Zero W the camera connector is easy to get half-seated. Note that the Zero W uses an armv6 CPU, so the armv7l wheel tag is another thing we’ll need to look at.
Reseated the cable a couple of times, it looks properly seated now. Still nothing detected.
$ vcgencmd get_camera
supported=0 detected=0
$ libcamera-hello --list-cameras
No cameras available!
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | tail -n 5
Hardware : BCM2835
Revision : 9000c1
Model : Raspberry Pi Zero W Rev 1.1
So the camera is definitely not being seen. The wheel error is still there too.
Okay, that’s helpful - supported=0 detected=0 confirms the OS isn’t seeing the camera at the interface level, and the wheel rejection is a separate install-side issue. Before I can narrow this down further I need a full diagnostic dump of the device.
Please do this:
Step 1: Reboot the Pi.
Step 2: Run these commands:
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
This will produce an arducam-bug-report.txt in the current directory.
Step 3: Attach that arducam-bug-report.txt file here so I can look at it.
Ran the tool. It took a bit but it finished and I have arducam-bug-report.txt in my home directory now. Attaching it to this post. There’s a fair amount in there - kernel info, dmesg, config, the lot. Let me know if you need anything else.
Got the report, thanks - that’s exactly what I needed.
Quick summary of where we stand so we don’t chase the wrong thing:
- The camera isn’t being detected at the OS level (vcgencmd reports supported=0 detected=0, libcamera sees no cameras, no /dev/video* nodes).
- Separately, the libcamera-1.0.2-cp39-cp39-linux_armv7l wheel is being rejected as an unsupported platform. Note the Pi Zero W reports armv6l in uname, which is likely related to why the armv7l wheel won’t install - just something to keep in mind for later.
At this point I don’t want to guess at a root cause for either problem until the report is fully reviewed. The bug-report output will tell us whether the camera overlay/driver is even being loaded and how the camera interface is configured. I’ll dig into the attached report and follow up with the next steps. In the meantime, no need to reinstall anything - just leave the device as-is so the diagnostics stay valid.