How to get webcam working with skype on Ubuntu 13.04?

Question

In the past I was able to get my webcam working with Skype using the fix described here:

Skype video not working after upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04

It meant starting skype with:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

This worked well on Ubuntu 12.04, but doesn't work anymore on Ubuntu 13.04. Probably because the executable file in /usr/bin/skype is replaced by a script that says:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Tip in https://launchpad.net/bugs/1002187, comment #31
#
# Bug filed against Skype: https://jira.skype.com/browse/SCL-980
#
export LD_PRELOAD="/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1${LD_PRELOAD:+:}$LD_PRELOAD"
exec /usr/lib/skype/skype "$@"

It seems that this script is needed to work around a bug to start Skype on Ubuntu 13.04 but it is probably also overriding my own webcam fix and I guess that's the reason it is not working anymore.

So I need to add my webcam fix to this script, but I have a hard time finding out how? Any help with this?

Solution 1

I fixed this by creating the file /usr/local/bin/skype with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/lib/skype/skype

And making it executable:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype

I had a fresh Raring install so I also needed to install the 32bit libs.

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Solution 2

Just fixed it! There is a new version of Skype, version 4.2 You can install it from the Skype website. They didn't fix the long standing issues that a lot of people have with their webcams, but it seems they did fix the segfaulting issue. So /usr/bin/skype is not a script with some LD_PRELOAD magic anymore but an executable file.

This makes the webcam fix from: Skype video not working after upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 also working again. Great!

Comments

[user161811]

try out this link askubuntu.com/questions/300060/skype-no-video-in-13-04

[joris]

Nice that this fix works for you on Ubuntu 13.04! But it isn't working for me, because Skype crashes with a segmentation fault. Most likely because of bug bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/1002187 That's why the package maintainer of Skype replaced the executable in /usr/bin/skype with a script that does some LD_PRELOAD magic and I need that fix for Skype to start, but I would also like to get my camera working.

[gacrux]

Right, yeah, I must not be affected by the other bug.