1753348 - Firefox no video on Z05 USB Camera for FB Messenger videocalls

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1286945

(Core :: WebRTC: Audio/Video, defect, P3)

Description

[cyberwaki]

Attachment: Settings/Preference Menu during a Messenger Videocall

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:100.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/100.0

Steps to reproduce:

Firefox Nightly Version 98.0a1 (2022-02-01) (64-bit)

1. Go to Messenger.com
2. Engage in a videocall

Actual results:

USB Camera is detected in preferences, but there is no video feed. It just shows a black screen.

Expected results:

The video camera feed should've shown me, instead of just a black screen. I have tried other webcam tests online and they worked, but this didn't. I tried it on other Chromium-based browsers and it worked for them.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::WebRTC: Audio/Video' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[Nico Grunbaum [:ng, @chew:mozilla.org]]

cyberwaki, thanks for filing this bug! In order to look into this we need some more information. Which Camera is this? Does the camera work in Firefox on other sites? You could try https://meet.jit.si/ . If that doesn't work with Firefox, could you try using Firefox Nightly downloaded from here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release . You should find Firefox Nightly listed under the first drop down.

Comment 3

[cyberwaki]

Hi! I have tried online conferencing sites such as meet.jit.si and meet.google via Firefox Nightly 98.0a1, and both sites show a black screen when I use my Z05 USB Camera unless I rapid-click toggle it a couple of times (though this technique doesn't work for Meet) then that is the only time that it shows my feed properly.

Comment 4

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

Hi cyberwaki, does it work here or here?

unless I rapid-click toggle it a couple of times

Hmm, sounds like it's finicky., which might suggest a driver issue. Have you tried updating drivers?

Finally, would you mind trying again in the latest Nightly 99.0a1 (2022-02-15) or newer? We recently landed a fix in bug 1744807 that might help here.

Comment 5

[cyberwaki]

I am currently in the latest Nightly 99.0a1 (2022-02-15) build, FB Messenger still shows a black screen video for my USB Camera device, and not even the rapid-click toggle works for FB Messenger.

My USB Camera device does work in the above hyperlinks!

I have tried updating the USB Camera drivers via Device Manager and even reinstalling and such, but no dice!

Comment 6

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

Did this used to work in Firefox 95 do you know? We're getting some similar reports of a regression.

Comment 7

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

On closer examination, that other issue may not be related (self-view appears to work there).

Comment 8

[cyberwaki]

Hello! I installed a Firefox 95 build just to see and unfortunately, it does produce the same result; still no camera feed. Just as before on Nightly 99.0a1... Hope there's a solution to this! Thank you!

Comment 9

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:jib, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 10

[cyberwaki]

Hello! Sorry for bumping! I mostly use messenger.com and its videocall regularly, but I don't wanna quit using Firefox in exchange for Chromium. Hope this can be looked into, thanks!

Comment 11

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

sites such as meet.jit.si and meet.google via Firefox Nightly 98.0a1, and both sites show a black screen when I use my Z05 USB Camera unless I rapid-click toggle it a couple of times (though this technique doesn't work for Meet)

I had trouble locating "Z05 USB Camera" in the US. I tested this camera which is the top hit for "Z05 USB camera", and which visually looks similar to other searches for that name. Does this look like your camera? If so, do you have the 480P or the 1080p version?

The latter camera works for me with the sites you mention on macOS and Windows 10 (where it shows as USB CAMERA like yours) — once in Meet I got the wrong aspect and some repeating of the vertical frame, likely a driver bug, but all other times it worked, and I never got black — Device Manager on Windows 10 wasn't informative (just showing a Microsoft driver), but a System Report on macOS showed this info:

USB PHY 2.0:
  Product ID:	0x2a25
  Vendor ID:	0x1224
  Version:	1.00
  Speed:	Up to 480 Mb/s
  Manufacturer:	Jieli Technology
  Location ID:	0x14400000 / 2
  Current Available (mA):	500
  Current Required (mA):	500
  Extra Operating Current (mA):	0

If yours has different info that you're able to find please let me know. But regardless, it sounds like this is specific to a certain (older?) camera model, which might mean a low priority unfortunately, especially since it sounds from comment 8 that this is NOT a regression in Firefox.

My USB Camera device does work in the above hyperlinks!

This is some good news I suppose, though confusing! Not sure what's going on here, but it's possible some of these sites require specific resolutions, and that bug 1286945 might help. it might be interesting to try this fiddle in Firefox or Chrome (hit Go and then drag the slider down) to explore which native resolutions it supports (I got 1920x1080 (Chrome), 1280x720, 640x480, 640x360, but moving the slider around more caused the camera to freeze in both browsers, which isn't a good sign). It may be that Chrome is using a different camera back-end on Windows, which we might want to look into, but it may also be a poorly supported camera model.

Comment 12

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:jib, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 13

[Nico Grunbaum [:ng, @chew:mozilla.org]]

cyberwaki, could you try the fiddle Jan-Ivar recommended in comment #11 ?

Comment 14

[cyberwaki]

Hello, I apologize for the late reply but yes that is the spitting image of my Z05 USB camera! I have tried the fiddle and found out that it had supported all of those resolutions too. Respectively 1080, 720, 480, and 360, although my USB CAMERA did initially register as 640x480. I also experienced some freezing while adjusting it too.

If yours has different info that you're able to find please let me know.
I don't have a Mac PC but my Windows device drivers also show the generic Microsoft driver "USB CAMERA"... Is there any way for me to find out that kind of info with a Windows PC? Thanks!

Comment 15

[Jan-Ivar Bruaroey [:jib] (needinfo? me)]

Thanks cyberwaki, it sounds like you have the 1080p model as well, which means I cannot reproduce the no video problem. The freezing and occasional frame noise suggests driver issues to me, since they seem isolated to this particular camera.

Based on comment 5 which shows the problem is limited to certain sites and their constraints, my best guess is this situation may be improved by bug 1286945. Sorry I don't have better news.