Videconference freezes computer
#1
Hello,

I just got my rockpro64 and I intend to use it as my main desktop computer. Things have worked ok except when I try to have a video call.I have tried to used meet jitsi and the nextcoud videconference.

When I start the call the camera seems to work fine and I am able to see myself. But then after some time it freezes the operating system. The time it takes for the computer to freezes varies between a few seconds and a little more than a minute.

It happens with both firefox and chromium and with the hardware acceleration activated or deactivated.

I have reproduced the problem in the following OSes: armbian buster desktop, armbian focal desktop, mrfixit image and ayufans bionic stable image.

The webcam I am using is a very old one and it is supported by the linux kernel out of the box, it is a microsoft LifeCam VX-3000. It works fine on a x86_64 laptop I have running devuan.

Does anyone know what could cause the problem or what are the logs I should be looking to?

Thanks!
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#2
Sounds like you are exhausting some resource? I would suggest tracking CPU usage, RAM usage and network usage whilst you make the attempt by running some script that logs to disk these values in a tight loop. My initial guess is either a missing call to free() and you run out of RAM, or some bad memory access and you get some kernel lockup.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they all appear to be Debian based - perhaps they all run the same kernel. I would suggest to also try an Arch kernel that tends to be more upstream: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/ROCKPr...MC_Boot.5D

My guess is that you have a kernel bug.
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#3
I also think it is a kernel issue. The camera is old and it uses the gspca driver, so I thought it migth be a problem with that family of drivers for the aarch64 architecture.

I decided to try with a camera using the uvcvideo driver. I got one and it works properly, I am able to have proper videocalls with that one.
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#4
Interesting, then that does suggest a kernel/driver issue. Unfortunately I don't have the hardware to replicate it Sad
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