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I'm using Ubuntu 9.10, and a usb webcam that is shown as 'Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0ac8:3450 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp.' by lsusb.

The problem is that on connecting the cam, it just works with the first program I start (skype, tokbox, messenger), and if I disconnect it or switch to another program, it stops to work and I have to restart my computer to make it work again.

Has anyone else noticed this behaviour? Is there some good solution to reset the camera without rebooting to make it work again?

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belongs on superuser.com – ChristopheD Mar 5 '10 at 11:28
Sounds like v4l, or perhaps your applications, are powering down the webcam. External HDDs have similar issues, and I don't think there's a work-around. – Wesley Rice Dec 12 '10 at 3:55
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Mar 5 '10 at 11:28

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This exact thing is happening to me on my laptop (built in webcam). Though, I am on Windows 7. This is so annoying. Just for more detail (I know this is a old post), after the first application uses the webcam, everything works fine until you close the app and try again with either the same app or a different one. When I try a second time I get this:

enter image description here

And then it proceeds to the program (after you click whatever) in which the cam screen is just black.

Hope maybe that some of this can help someone fix this.

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