Ubuntu – My webcam is not working with Google+ Hangout, can I make it work

11.04google-plusgoogle-talkwebcam

I just got an invitation for Google+, the video conference feature "hangout" is the first feature I checked out, and unfortunately the webcam is not working, the mic and speakers work ok.
When I started it, it recquired me to install a new version of Google Talk plugin 2.1.7.0.

  • It seems that now the gmail chat and the chat within empathy( that used to work) does not work either.

  • in the settings of the webcam in google hangout window my only option, is gspca driver.

    • Notice that my cam had problems with skype, and I had to go around it by

      env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l2convert.so skype

How can I make it work?

Best Answer

I have wrote this little script according the instructions suggested by @suli8.

If you save it to a file (lets call it apply-googletalk-v4l1-workaround.sh, but can be anything), then you could apply it by:

sudo bash apply-googletalk-v4l1-workaround.sh

This might help in avoiding small mistakes.

#!/bin/bash

plugin_location=/opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin

mv $plugin_location $plugin_location.real

cat > $plugin_location <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so $plugin_location.real
EOF

chmod +x $plugin_location

killall GoogleTalkPlugin

I have seen in an above comment that the workaround made Google Talk stop working in Gmail. I guess it was because of some small error in executing the steps. Using this script might avoid that error.

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