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Can't activate Quickcam Sphere AF
By: DungT
Rank: Newbie
Topics: 3
From: n/a
Added: 03/06/2008 - 09:06 AM

I tried to configure the Quickcam Sphere AF. At the first run, it worked fine (both Cam and PTZ), but at the next start, after initialization, the program just says "....waiting" and gets stuck. After 5-10 minutes, it reports that the cam can't be activeted. I noticed that the small LED on the cam lighted up for few seconds then went off.
After closing the AbelCam, the logitech program still can recognize the cam and work normally.
I'm using the latest AbelCam version and Quickcam driver (11.5) on Windows XP MCE 2005.
I tried to use different USB ports, and reinstall both QC driver and AbelCam, but the result is the same.
What is wrong ?

Thanks,
DungT
By: MelvinG
Rank: Magna Cum Laude
Topics: 661
From: Los Angeles, USA
Added: 03/07/2008 - 03:35 AM

I run the same camera/driver/AbelCam combination here and I assure you that it can run reliably. I do, however, run XP Pro, not MCE.

A lot of my cam failures can be blamed on power issues. Specifically, when AbelCam starts up a Sphere, it also commands the PTZ motors to go to Home. If you are using a long cable (extender) or a non-powered USB hub - or even if you've just got a lot of USB stuff connected at once - the PTZ motors can cause the +5 volts to "dip" just enough to cause the cam to reset itself. That will cause AbelCam to hang up for a while and eventually give up.

So the first thing to try is to unplug all your USB stuff (except kbd and mouse of course!) and plug the Sphere striaght into the computer. If that solves the problem then you'll need to work out the power problem with a powered hub or something. If that doesn't help then I'm not entirely sure what to try next.
By: DungT
Rank: Newbie
Topics: 3
From: n/a
Added: 03/07/2008 - 03:23 PM

Thanks for the advice! Acutally I don't use many USB devices, except the IMON. I will try to unplug it, but I'm not sure it will help, since the cam can be moved without any problem by Logitech sw.
Yesterday I tried to uninstall the QC 11.50 and install QC 11.10 instead. It worked quite well after that, but this morning it got stuck again after the PC wake up from standby.
Other thing what I noticed is when the program says "...waiting", I can't close it, neither with Task Manager. If I reboot the machine, then after booting the cam looks like unplugged, neither program recognizes it.
Waiting for further suggestions...

Thanks,
DungT
By: DanielD
Rank: Newbie
Topics: 2
From: n/a
Added: 03/08/2008 - 11:09 PM

I experienced the same sort of issues using windows xp pro. So I started up ablecam without the camera confitured and then add it. I am consistently getting the "many errors while frame capturing" and then ablecam deactivates the logitech orbit. As long as the logitech orbit is connected the ablecam software stays unresponsive. when I disconnect the webcam the ablecam software will start responding.

14:02:26 Server starting
14:02:26 Started webserver on port 8080
14:02:42 Searching for devices...
14:02:46 Adding QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1
14:02:57 One Device active
14:02:57 QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1 move home
14:03:10 Cam QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1 many errors while frame capturing...
14:03:21 Cam QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1 many errors while frame capturing...
14:03:32 Cam QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1 many errors while frame capturing...
14:03:33 Deactivating QuickCam Orbit/Sphere AF-1, too many errors...
14:04:00 One Devic
By: MelvinG
Rank: Magna Cum Laude
Topics: 661
From: Los Angeles, USA
Added: 03/09/2008 - 06:38 AM

Hopefully somebody else has some ideas because I don't have anything left except some wild guesses Embarrassed

1) I sort of recall that on one of my systems the 11.50 drivers caused trouble but the 11.10 drivers were okay. Sorry I can't remember the details anymore, at the time it was just one of those "oh, Logitech broke the drivers again, let's go back to the old ones" situations. And yet on my "main" XP box 11.50 is working okay.

2) Standby: I don't let any of my webcam boxes go into standby. Neither the cam drivers nor AbelCam have ever - in my experience - handled coming out of standby. I also disable the screen saver because some versions have had trouble with some screen savers. Not sure if current drivers or AbelCam have screen saver issues or not.

3) VideoCapX.ocx file: if you've been installing and removing experimental AbelCam releases (from the ISSUE TRACKER) for a while, there's a slight chance you have the wrong version - or several different versions - of VideoCapX on you system. There should be only one, and if you check the version (by way of right-click in Explorer) it should be ver. 6.1.0.4223. (strangely, if I check the OCX version from inside AbelCam it reports it as 6.1.0.4222 - not sure why)
By: DungT
Rank: Newbie
Topics: 3
From: n/a
Added: 03/11/2008 - 12:42 PM

It seems my problem was solved. As I reported, after installing QC driver 11.10, AbelCam works fine, except after resume from standby (S3). Later on I noticed that the problem didn't happen only with the webcam, but also with the Microsoft MCE IR receiver (connected to USB) as well. So I realized that it might be a HW problem. Then I tried to configure the motherboard to enable wake-up from USB from standby S3 mode. It seems with this setting, the motherboard may give stronger current to USB devices. After that all work fine so far, even after standby (touch wood).

Just a comment to Daniel: I faced a similar problem somewhen, but then it disappeared. I don't remember what I did. Maybe a reinstallation fixed it.

Thanks,
DungT
By: MelvinG
Rank: Magna Cum Laude
Topics: 661
From: Los Angeles, USA
Added: 03/12/2008 - 05:53 PM

DungT, thanks for reporting back. Lots of people don't bother, in which case nobody knows how (if) problems got solved.

That's interesting about how you changed the S3 wake-up settings. I will have to give that a try on one of my systems when I get a chance, since as I mentioned before I've always experienced cam/driver death when the system goes into standby.
By: DanielD
Rank: Newbie
Topics: 2
From: n/a
Added: 03/24/2008 - 12:24 AM

Right now I have the logitech orbit working as long as I keep the input at 320x240 and the quality at 41. Once I start changing the input resolution and the quality settings is when I start getting the errors and the camera gets shutdown. I would definitely like to use 640x480 input with the camers.


By: JoergR
Rank: Frequent User
Topics: 34
From: Germany
Added: 07/26/2008 - 02:14 PM

Message has been edited, click here to see original content
I seem to have the same problem with 11.5 driver on XP. After some (!) problems with many errors while file capturing now I am not able to start the camera anymore although I didn´t change anything on my system except removing and adding the camera from the list a lot of times. (sphere AF) What I did the last time the cam was usable is: I switched videoserver on in 320x240. After this all worked I wanted to reactivate motion jpeg in 640x480 and after switching off video server I noticed that the resolution in motion jpeg also had changed to 320x240. Changing that back to 640x480 killed the installation kompletely. Removing the cam and adding it again didn't help anymore. (it did before ) After uninstalling everything I wonder which drivers will work at all... Huh?
___________________________________

Jörg
By: JoergR
Rank: Frequent User
Topics: 34
From: Germany
Added: 07/26/2008 - 07:21 PM

After a failiure of Installation with 11.7 driver and Abelcam 2.3.3 beta I again removed everything from logitech and Abel and started from scratch with 11.1 Logitech driver and Quick cam soft, and with Abelcam 2.2.4.

The problem remains, identically like I was using 11.5 driver.
After closing abelcam, removing USB-cable, shutdown and reboot,

Logitec soft starts automatically in tray like it always does.
I plugin USB cable( directly into Netbook, nothing else plugged in ) , the cam is recognized, moves to start position, after some time I start Abelcam and I get the "many errors while file capturing" and cam is deactivated.

Only workaround is remove cam - add cam but after doing that very often in the "11.5 driver times" in combination with setting up video-server I ended in complete offline status.

Considering that the logitech software never had any problems with capturing the same resolutions and considering that with webcam2000 I have a problem-free webcam-server (sadly without PTZ),
I am somewhat disappointed.

By: MelvinG
Rank: Magna Cum Laude
Topics: 661
From: Los Angeles, USA
Added: 07/27/2008 - 02:02 PM

That's strange. I have serveral Orbit/Sphere cameras running with AbelCam 24/7 and they work fine. AbelCam 2.3.3 beta on XP, driver 11.7. I have seen the "too many errors" failure before but not for a very long time.

You already tried most of the things I would have suggested to try. You said you plugged the cam directly into the notebook - that is good, because many Orbit problems seem to be the caused by power drop across hubs or long cables.

You might want to try disabling the Quick Cam program that sits in the tray. I don't know why it would cause a conflict with AbelCam but not with WC-2000, but it's worth a try. On my systems I've always used the Drivers Only option when installing from a Logitech CD or download. Perhaps this makes a difference somehow?