Zoom/webcam on FreeBSD

C

csgordon

How have folks been using Zoom on FreeBSD, *recently*. When I first picked up FreeBSD in earnest a couple years ago, Zoom's Linux client used to work under Linux compat, but that stopped working quite a while ago. So I switched to running it in the browser. But recently my camera no longer works this way, and no longer seems to work correctly at all with a number of programs.
  • In Firefox, it sees my camera, and I get the image, but there is a progressively increasing lag between when I do something and when it shows up. Initially a momentary delay, then a 2 second delay, then 5 seconds, then more than 10 seconds...
  • On Chrome, even though I've granted camera permission and it behaves as if it's getting a camera feed, the camera feed is just black.
  • When I try cheese, it reports "There was an error playing video from the webcam" and the console contains a message (cheese:8839): cheese-WARNING **: 10:25:25.922: Failed to allocate required memory.: ../sys/v4l2/gstv4l2src.c(978): gst_v4l2src_decide_allocation (): /GstCameraBin:camerabin/GstWrapperCameraBinSrc:camera_source/GstBin:bin35/GstV4l2Src:v4l2src1:Buffer pool activation failed
However, the camera works just fine with pwcview, with zero lag.

I just did the upgrade to 14.0-RELEASE last night (I did follow the step to upgrade pkgs), but these issues were showing up on 13.2-RELEASE-p4. Things worked on an earlier 13.2 patch, and I don't think I changed anything relevant.

Has anyone else had issues with their webcam ceasing to work properly with browsers and/or cheese, when it previously worked just fine?
 
Ah, of course🤦‍♂️ thanks.

Works totally fine on that site in Firefox at 720p (its native resolution), curiously only at 480p in Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium, but a clear picture and no lag in any of them, so I guess this is 2-3 issues: Zoom-specific issues in Firefox and Chromium (maybe the same, maybe different), and apparently an issue with cheese (which I'm not so concerned about).

Does Zoom work for anyone else in Firefox or Chromium?
 
csgordon said:
Ah, of course🤦‍♂️ thanks.

Works totally fine on that site in Firefox at 720p (its native resolution), curiously only at 480p in Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium, but a clear picture and no lag in any of them, so I guess this is 2-3 issues: Zoom-specific issues in Firefox and Chromium (maybe the same, maybe different), and apparently an issue with cheese (which I'm not so concerned about).

Does Zoom work for anyone else in Firefox or Chromium?
Click to expand...
I'm new to freebsd and was also looking for zoom. I can only run it in a browser like everyone else. I'm not worried about quality that's just me. I'm just glad it's working!
 
The Zoom Web client and BigBlueButton have always worked impeccably for me in Firefox, as do Skype and MS Teams (occasionally required for work – :mad:) in Chromium. I am on 13.2-RELEASE-p5.

If anyone is looking to run a native Zoom/Skype client on a desktop and has a free PCIe slot, the best way I have found is bhyve with a passthrough'd USB 3.0 extension card and X-forwarding. The only downside is no screensharing from host (correct me if this is possible).
 
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