Can't compile mediamtx-rpicamera with Arducam's libcamera_dev on Bullseye

[SamDecrock]

Question

I have an ArduCam 16MP IMX519 and want the autofocus to work in MediaMTX.

I'm trying to build mediamtx-rpicamera with the libcamera_dev installed from these instructions: https://docs.arducam.com/Raspberry-Pi-Camera/Native-camera/16MP-IMX519/#software-guide-for-imx519-autofocus-camera

I'm on Bullseye (tried Bookworm but couldn't get the camera to function).

When compiling mediamtx-rpicamera, I get this error:

[106/114] Compiling C++ object mtxrpicam.p/camera.cpp.o
FAILED: mtxrpicam.p/camera.cpp.o 
c++ -Imtxrpicam.p -I. -I.. -Isubprojects/x264 -I../subprojects/x264 -Isubprojects/libjpeg-turbo-2.1.5.1 -I../subprojects/libjpeg-turbo-2.1.5.1 -I/usr/include/libcamera -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng16 -fdiagnostics-color=always -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -Wall -Winvalid-pch -std=c++17 -O3 -Ofast -Werror -Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-unused-result -MD -MQ mtxrpicam.p/camera.cpp.o -MF mtxrpicam.p/camera.cpp.o.d -o mtxrpicam.p/camera.cpp.o -c ../camera.cpp
../camera.cpp:32:18: error: 'Orientation' has not been declared in 'libcamera'
   32 | using libcamera::Orientation;
      |                  ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp: In function 'bool camera_create(const parameters_t*, camera_frame_cb, camera_error_cb, camera_t**)':
../camera.cpp:250:11: error: 'class libcamera::CameraConfiguration' has no member named 'orientation'
  250 |     conf->orientation = Orientation::Rotate0;
      |           ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:250:25: error: 'Orientation' has not been declared
  250 |     conf->orientation = Orientation::Rotate0;
      |                         ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:252:15: error: 'class libcamera::CameraConfiguration' has no member named 'orientation'
  252 |         conf->orientation = conf->orientation * Transform::HFlip;
      |               ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:252:35: error: 'class libcamera::CameraConfiguration' has no member named 'orientation'
  252 |         conf->orientation = conf->orientation * Transform::HFlip;
      |                                   ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:255:15: error: 'class libcamera::CameraConfiguration' has no member named 'orientation'
  255 |         conf->orientation = conf->orientation * Transform::VFlip;
      |               ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:255:35: error: 'class libcamera::CameraConfiguration' has no member named 'orientation'
  255 |         conf->orientation = conf->orientation * Transform::VFlip;
      |                                   ^~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp: In function 'void fill_dynamic_controls(libcamera::ControlList*, const parameters_t*)':
../camera.cpp:432:30: error: 'AeFlickerMode' is not a member of 'controls'
  432 |         ctrls->set(controls::AeFlickerMode, controls::FlickerManual);
      |                              ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:432:55: error: 'FlickerManual' is not a member of 'controls'
  432 |         ctrls->set(controls::AeFlickerMode, controls::FlickerManual);
      |                                                       ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:433:30: error: 'AeFlickerPeriod' is not a member of 'controls'
  433 |         ctrls->set(controls::AeFlickerPeriod, params->flicker_period);
      |                              ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:435:30: error: 'AeFlickerMode' is not a member of 'controls'
  435 |         ctrls->set(controls::AeFlickerMode, controls::FlickerOff);
      |                              ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
../camera.cpp:435:55: error: 'FlickerOff' is not a member of 'controls'
  435 |         ctrls->set(controls::AeFlickerMode, controls::FlickerOff);
      |                                                       ^~~~~~~~~~
[108/114] Compiling C object subprojects/libjpeg-turbo-2.1.5.1/libjpeg.a.p/jchuff.c.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

Could it be that one of these libraries (this library or ArduCam's libcamera_dev) need updating?

Thanks,
Sam

[tve]

I'm trying to unravel this stuff too...
I have an Arducam IMX462. I followed their quick-start which says to run install_pivariety_pkgs.sh two times to install libcamera and libcamera_apps. After that I could download the mediamtx-rpicamera repo and using meson setup --wrap-mode=default build it actually built fine. (Ignore, I confused myself)

Now I'm trying to get mediamtx to use my compiled mediamtx-rpicamera but it looks like I have to rebuild mediamtx from source, which makes no sense to me since mediamtx-rpicamera is a separate executable. Sigh.

Also, I believe the pivariety support is in libcamera 0.5.0, but I'm not sure, it's all rather confusing.

[tve]

> libcamera-vid --list-cameras
Available cameras
-----------------
0 : arducam-pivariety [1920x1080 10-bit RGGB] (/base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/arducam_pivariety@c)
    Modes: 'SRGGB10_CSI2P' : 1920x1080 [60.00 fps - (0, 0)/1920x1080 crop]

[tve]

If I run the mediamtx executable I built I get:

> ./mediamtx 
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF MediaMTX v1.12.2-16-b48a0098
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF configuration loaded from /home/tve/mediamtx-source/mediamtx.yml
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [path cam5fps] [RPI Camera source] started
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [RTSP] listener opened on :8554 (TCP), :8000 (UDP/RTP), :8001 (UDP/RTCP)
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [RTMP] listener opened on :1935
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [HLS] listener opened on :8888
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [WebRTC] listener opened on :8889 (HTTP), :8189 (ICE/UDP)
2025/05/14 17:54:45 INF [SRT] listener opened on :8890 (UDP)
[5:33:02.072102476] [7624]  INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:326 libcamera v0.5.0+59-d83ff0a4-dirty (2025-05-10T09:15:59UTC)
[5:33:02.090939373] [7625]  WARN CameraSensorProperties camera_sensor_properties.cpp:473 No static properties available for 'arducam-pivariety'
[5:33:02.091064893] [7625]  WARN CameraSensorProperties camera_sensor_properties.cpp:475 Please consider updating the camera sensor properties database
[5:33:02.103600898] [7625] ERROR IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:171 Configuration file 'arducam-pivariety.json' not found for IPA module 'rpi/vc4'
[5:33:02.108477165] [7625] ERROR IPARPI ipa_base.cpp:150 Could not create camera helper for arducam-pivariety
[5:33:02.108613831] [7625] ERROR RPI pipeline_base.cpp:814 Failed to load a suitable IPA library
[5:33:02.108678414] [7625] ERROR RPI vc4.cpp:216 Failed to register camera arducam-pivariety 10-000c: -22
2025/05/14 17:54:46 ERR [path cam5fps] [RPI Camera source] camera_create(): selected camera is not available

The libcamera v0.5.0+59-d83ff0a4-dirty shows that I got the mediamtx-rpicamera that I built 'cause the normal built-in one says libcamera v0.4.0+53-29156679-dirty. However it's still a no-go. Here's another data point:

> rpicam-vid --version
rpicam-apps build: v1.7.0 ddacad9f864a-dirty 06-05-2025 (03:21:30)
rpicam-apps capabilites: egl:1 qt:1 drm:1 libav:1
libcamera build: v0.5.0+84-79f583c3-dirty (2025-05-06T03:02:16BST)

(rpicam-vid is the new name for libcamera-vid, both are symlinked together I believe)
So it looks like when I build mediamtx-rpicamera I end up getting a slightly different libcamera. Prob the official version vs. the arducam version. So now I have to figure out how to get the latter...

[tve]

Aha, this works:

> ./mediamtx 
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF MediaMTX v1.12.2-16-b48a0098
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF configuration loaded from /home/tve/mediamtx-source/mediamtx.yml
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [path cam5fps] [RPI Camera source] started
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [RTSP] listener opened on :8554 (TCP), :8000 (UDP/RTP), :8001 (UDP/RTCP)
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [RTMP] listener opened on :1935
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [HLS] listener opened on :8888
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [WebRTC] listener opened on :8889 (HTTP), :8189 (ICE/UDP)
2025/05/14 18:28:37 INF [SRT] listener opened on :8890 (UDP)
[6:06:53.895349756] [9510]  INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:326 libcamera v0.5.0+84-79f583c3-dirty (2025-05-06T03:02:16BST)
[6:06:54.032929656] [9512] ERROR IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:171 Configuration file 'arducam-pivariety.json' not found for IPA module 'rpi/vc4'
[6:06:54.355466339] [9512]  WARN RPiSdn sdn.cpp:40 Using legacy SDN tuning - please consider moving SDN inside rpi.denoise
[6:06:54.358833084] [9512]  INFO RPI vc4.cpp:455 Registered camera /base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/arducam_pivariety@c to Unicam device /dev/media2 and ISP device /dev/media0
[6:06:54.359638234] [9510]  INFO Camera camera.cpp:1205 configuring streams: (0) 1920x1080-YUV420
[6:06:54.422455156] [9512]  INFO RPI vc4.cpp:630 Sensor: /base/soc/i2c0mux/i2c@1/arducam_pivariety@c - Selected sensor format: 1920x1080-SRGGB10_1X10 - Selected unicam format: 1920x1080-pRAA
using hardware H264 encoder
2025/05/14 18:28:39 INF [path cam5fps] [RPI Camera source] ready: 1 track (H264)
2025/05/14 18:30:13 INF [WebRTC] [session e05589b7] created by 192.168.0.4:35014
2025/05/14 18:30:14 INF [WebRTC] [session e05589b7] peer connection established, local candidate: host/udp/127.0.0.1/8189, remote candidate: prflx/udp/192.168.0.4/37364
2025/05/14 18:30:14 INF [WebRTC] [session e05589b7] is reading from path 'cam5fps', 1 track (H264)

So when I went though the "quick start" stuff it left a bunch of .deb archives in the working dir:

444 -rw-r--r-- 1 tve  tve  453024 May  6 00:38 libcamera0.5_0.5.0+rpt20250506-4_armhf.deb
 36 -rw-r--r-- 1 tve  tve   32932 May  6 00:38 libcamera-dev_0.5.0+rpt20250506-4_armhf.deb
496 -rw-r--r-- 1 tve  tve  506108 May  6 00:38 libcamera-ipa_0.5.0+rpt20250506-4_armhf.deb

What I did is to dpkg -i libcam*.deb (install them). And then rebuild mediamtx-rpicamera and mediamtx. That seems to work in the end. With all the back and forth I'm not sure what the straight path from a vanilla rPi OS install to a working mediamtx is, but right now I need to move on...

Update: at the end cd /usr/share/libcamera/ipa/rpi/vc4; sudo cp imx462.json arducam-pivariety.json gets rid of the error message. Dunno whether it improves image quality or not...

[aler9]

Trouble (if there's any trouble which doesn't seem to me) reported by @tve is completely unrelated from the original question.

[tve]

How is it unrelated? The title of this question is about compiling mediamtx-rpicamera on bookworm with the arducam libcamera. That's exactly what I addressed.

[aler9]

@SamDecrock the custom libcamera they are providing for the IMX519 is an older one (< 0.3.0) with an API which is different from the one of newer versions. We can try to adapt our code in order to provide compatibility with both APIs, but the best option is contacting Arducam and tell them to bump the library.

[tve]

The link provided in the original question has instructions that install the latest 0.5.0 based libcamera as far as I can tell, doesn't it?

[aler9]

@SamDecrock in the arducam-pivariety driver repository you can find this notice:

Note: Since 5.15.38, the arducam-pivariety driver has been merged into the Raspberry Pi kernel and the name of the device tree is changed to arducam-pivariety, so dtoverlay=arducam-pivariety is required to set the overlay

Therefore, a custom libcamera should not be necessary anymore. Furthermore, the libcamera present in the arducam-pivariety repository has not been updated in 3 years. Therefore:

• check whether the camera and autofocus work with the standard libcamera-still
• if they don't, contact Arducam.
• if they do, they should work with MediaMTX too.
• if they do not work with MediaMTX, try recompiling MediaMTX against the libcamera installed on your Raspberry (do not use the pivariety one).

[tve]

Therefore, a custom libcamera should not be necessary anymore.

That's not my experience. The pivariety driver has been merged into the kernel, but the userspace libcamera still needs modifications, apparently. While their libcamera repo hasn't been updated, if you follow the quick start instructions you do end up with a 0.5.0-based libcamera and the one that comes with the latest bookworm install doesn't work. I have not dug deeper into what's going on...

[SamDecrock]

Turns out my IMX519 module was broken. I got a new and now it works.