Integrated webcam not working on Ubuntu 10.x/11.x

Question

I have the solution for this, but since it is problem that has occurred on two versions of Ubuntu I thought I'd share it.

Sometimes my integrated webcam is not functioning, I try to load cheese or skype and they tell me that no device is available.

I run dmesg and get:

 dmesg  | grep video
[    0.326451] pci 0000:01:00.0: Boot video device
[   20.999208] [Firmware Bug]: Duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, please try module parameter "video.allow_duplicates=1"if the current driver doesn't work.
[   21.608294] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[   21.610059] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Laptop Integrated Webcam (05a9:2640)
[   21.612608] uvcvideo: UVC non compliance - GET_DEF(PROBE) not supported. Enabling workaround.
[   21.612692] uvcvideo: Failed to query (129) UVC probe control : -32 (exp. 26).
[   21.612696] uvcvideo: Failed to initialize the device (-5).
[   21.613004] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo

Answer 1

During boot there is intermittent timing issue that causes the problem.

Simple solution is to remove and reload the relevant module through upstart.

Create a file named webcam_fix.conf in the /etc/init directory.

Content of webcam_fix.conf -

# Webcam fix 

description     "rmmod uvcvideo, modprobe uvcvideo"
author          "Bryan"

start on (net-device-up
          and local-filesystems
      and runlevel [2345])
stop on runlevel [016]

script
    rmmod uvcvideo || true  
    modprobe uvcvideo

end script

console output