Ubuntu

Webcam opens without my control!

Asked by Sinan Ural

Hi,
I'm using an Asus Laptop and it has a built-in webcam. When it is active, a green light is on. For the last couple of days the webcam started to open a lot even though I did not want it to. It even started when I run absolutely no program at all, I just started the computer, a few minutes later, the webcam is on.

I installed Camera Monitor, it is a program that one can use to monitor the webcam. But it does not even start; when I look it up at System Monitor, there is a process named cameramonitor but no tray icon or anything.

I tried to install EasyCam but since it does not work with Ubuntu 9.04, I couldn't do it.

I thought it might be a prank so I tried using my computer with and without internet connection/bluetooth and I use Firestarter(a firewall).

I recently switched from Windows therefore I don't really know much about linux, so please answer accordingly,

Thank you

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Marc D. (koshy) said : 		#1

fuser /dev/video*

…will show you the process IDs of all processes accessing any video device. Start from there.

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Sinan Ural (sinanural) said : 		#2

Thanks for answering, the problem stopped for a while so I could not try your advice. Now(Jul 30) it started again. I opened a terminal and wrote that command but nothing happened. Not even an error message of some kind, it acts like I didn't write anything.

I realized something after this problem first occured(Jul 16), when I try to shut down, hibernate or restart, before I can see the Ubuntu logo I hear a couple of beeps from speakers(just like the BIOS error beeps), sometimes 2 sometimes 3 beeps. Of course it says something(an error message of some kind) but it moves so quickly, I can't figure out what it is. Before this weird webcam thing something like this never happened and it continues to happen even though webcam was closed the whole session.
Is there something to stop the shut down process, or make the screen stay so I can read what is the error message?

Revision history for this message
Marc D. (koshy) said : 		#3

On Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 21:45:46 (-0000), Sinan Ural wrote:
> Thanks for answering, the problem stopped for a while so I could not try
> your advice. Now(Jul 30) it started again. I opened a terminal and wrote
> that command but nothing happened. Not even an error message of some
> kind, it acts like I didn't write anything.

Good.

This means that video devices exist, but no process is currently using
them.

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Sinan Ural for more information if necessary.

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