Did you check to see if it has permissions
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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As far as I can tell it does. I looked in Firefox settings. Is there anywhere else I should look?
No that's really the only place. Does it work with other browsers? That will tell you if ff is the culprit
Thanks. I just realized I did not try a different browser...mainly because I don't have a different browser haha. When I get back home I will download one and (hopefully) report back.
Try pavucontrol GUI app. I needed it to get teama audio connected. Just had to go into the input tab and drag the sliders/ select the drop down etc. Somehow that wakes things up.
Thanks, I'll look at it. for now disabling chameleon worked
Disable all your extensions and see if it works. I remember having a similar issue a while back due to a vpn extension being installed. Even when the vpn wasnโt in use, google meet didnโt work until I disabled the extension.
Thanks, turns out I still had chameleon enabled (as chrome, ironically) and it didn't like that.
Awww yeah!
Is some other app already using them?
Not during the meeting, no
Updox
So, basically, using a different website, same browser, you get a popup window from Firefox reading "Allow to use your microphone and camera?" and it lists your camera and microphone, but when you do the same on Zoom, you also get the popup, just without any microphone and camera in the menu?
If not, what do you actually experience on each website?
Mostly correct - the website that doesn't work is Google Meet.
So for clarity, I edited your comment:
So, basically, using a different website, same browser, you get a popup window from Firefox reading "Allow <site> to use your microphone and camera?" and it lists your camera and microphone, but when you do the same on **Google Meet**, you also get the popup, just without any microphone and camera in the menu?
Oh, sorry, gotcha.
Well, yeah, that I have a hard time finding a plausible explanation for, unless Firefox has per-device, per-site permissions. I assume that it only has per-site permissions.
I'd maybe run something like:
$ sudo lsof -n|grep /dev/video
...prior to going to the page that does this, to see whether any other software has the device open. I don't know if that could produce that behavior, but that's the only thing that I could think of at the OS level. Otherwise, gotta be something at the Firefox level.
Maybe you have multiple tabs or windows open that are using the camera, and Firefox constrains only one to concurrently use the thing?
EDIT: Maybe check, using cheese or some similar app, or another website right then that you can use the camera at that point? I mean, I can maybe imagine the camera or its driver or something having an issue, and the failure mode being for the device not to be visible at the Firefox menu level. I mean, I've seen, say, Bluetooth or controllers that get into a wonky state after unsuspending and for the result to be that they aren't visible to applications. Reboot clears it up, but maybe you could have just been unlucky that the time you tried using Google Meet was the time that you had the issue?
Hi, thank you for spending so much time on this. I feel foolish because I just had to disable chameleon. But I really appreciate it as I am still learning Linux and I think it makes me forget the simple stuff.