Microsft LifeCam Cinema & YAWCAM problem - help please

[Solorize]

I have recently set up my Microsft LifeCam Cinema with YAWCAM.

The problem I have is that every morning my camera is not detected
and I have to unplug and replug in the USB to get it to recognise the
camera again.

I have YAWCAM set up to schedule the camera on and off.
i.e ON during the day and OFF at night.

I thought that it could be something to do with the camera
turning off, i.e when the schedule tells it to go OFF and then
it not being able to turn back ON, when the scheduler tells
it to turn back on in the morning. But am not sure if and why
this would cause a problem.

When I set up the camera I installed the software that came
on the CD with the LifeCam, but did not install all the other
microsoft essentials (i think that was the name of it, it was
a load of other programs that I would not use).
And once that loaded I got a circular icon in my taskbar, that
allowed me to configure/adjust the image. Which I set up
and then ran YAWCAm and selected the Mircrosoft life cam device
and it all worked fine.... until the morning when it said device not connected.

I am now unsure why this is happening, the only thing I can think of
is that when YAWCAM is scheduled to turn OFF the camera over night,
that the Microsoft driver unloads it's self, as the curcular icon is not shown
in the taskbar in the morining.

One thing I may try is to set the YAWCAM scheduler to be allways ON
i.e. not turn off and see if that helps.

Has anyone else had this problem or is there a setting or something I am
not doing that I should to make it all work correcty.

Also, has anyone got the LifeCam Cinema running with YAWCAM
with it scheduled to turn off and on and not having a problem like mine?


FYI. OS is Windows XP

[hills]

Do you use a USB extension lead?

I sometimes get the same problem, but not every morning. I schedule it up upload pics during the day and then set motion detection to turn on after dark. I think my issue is that I have it on a USB extension lead and therefore there is a connector in the ceiling which gets dusty and therefore it does actually intermittently lose contact. If I give it a clean the problem seems to go away for a period. I'm going to put heat shrink over the connector next time it happens.

[Solorize]

Hi Hills,

I do have it connected to a 1.8m USB extension lead,
which I previously had my Playstation Eye webcam
(using it as a weathercam), connected to and did not
have any problems with. (The USB lead is only a couple of months old).

It's only just started to drop connection with the new MS LifeCam Cinema.
Which only seems to happen in the morning.

[hills]

Yeah I have a second low res cam also using YAWCAM on a 10m extension cable connected via a USB hub and it never seems to have any issues, yet the LifeCam is on a 5m cable directly attached to a USB port on the PC, so it might be the higher res of the LifeCam is pushing USB2 to its limits.

Try blowing any dust out of the connection and if you can try another USB port and just see if that changes the pattern of disconnects. If not then that blows my theory for my cam anyway.

[Solorize]

Hills,

I set YAWCAM up as you have done, last night.

i.e
ON durning daylight hours, then Motion Detection at night

When I checked this morning it seems to all be working OK

So *fingerscrossed*, this may have sorted the problem out,
as now the camera is not turned off, and will always be active.

I will let you know how I get on over the next couple of days.
If it happens again I will give the connections a blow and see if
that helps.

[hills]

Excellent, now you might catch some good lightning shots like this one

EDIT: Bugga!! just looked at your site and see that its gone again.

[Solorize]

Damn !

I thought I might have sorted this problem out

There is nothing worse than having something only half working.

I have borrowed a gold plated USB extension lead that I will
swap over with my current extension lead and also try it in
a different USB port on my server and see if that helps.

After that if it still messes up I will re-install the MS LifeCam Cinema
drivers and see if that helps.

If it still keeps dropping out then I may be forced to have to put
the PS3 eye back in as at least that worked, but am loathed to
do so after buying this HD cam as the image quality is far superior.

btw. That's a cracking image you captured of the lightning! was that a single image
capture or was it from a 5 image burst capture?

[RayProudfoot]

Just a thought about this USB problem. If you bring up Device Manager and examine the relevant USB Root Hub properties there is a Power Management tab. Ensure "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" is deselected. It may be that it's going into sleep mode after a certain time.

[Solorize]

Hi Ray,

Thanks for the advice.

I will see if switching the USB leads stops the problem, so will keep my eye
on it over tonight and tomorrow. If it drops out again I will then try deselecting
the Power Management on the USB Root Hub, to see if that cures it.

I will just have to keep trying one tweak / change at a time to see if I can
isolate the problem.

Cheers.

Mark

[RayProudfoot]

Hi Mark,

I only became aware of that issue when I was 'flying' in Microsoft Flight Simulator and having left the aircraft on autopilot for a while the yoke didn't come alive when it was eventually moved. Switching off the power saving option cured the problem.

Trying one thing at a time is definitely the right way.

Hope it works for you.

[hills]

I set my camera up a long time ago, but that change Ray detailed rings a bell, I think I had to do that as well.

Thanks, it was just a single shot, I have motion detection set to automatically upload the picture then a php script automatically includes it in the slideshow, so I only want to take one image for that reason, but I might try doing a burst and see what that looks like. Thanks for the idea!

[Solorize]

I dont want to talk to soon, but it looks like switching the USB cable
has worked and I have had no problems since.

I guess you get what you pay for when buying cables, as I went
for a cheap one at 1st which I thibk was the problem. Even tho
the cable was a fast I guess it was not fast enough.

But the newer one with gold plated connectors seems to have done
the trick.

[hills]

Excellent!!

Nice blue sky over there at the moment!

[RayProudfoot]

Nice one, well done. That's a nice camera. Who does your web hosting? That's a fair amount of bandwidth you're using.

[Solorize]

Typical. I go away to visit my brother and my webcam stops working just when I thought it was all sorted. Looks like I will have to see if disabling the usb power saver helps. Otherwise I will have to see what else it could be, but running out of ideas