Checking which cameras are detected by Camera Server

• stop the background service for camera server if it is running

systemctl stop voxl-camera-server

• run the command to list detected cameras

voxl2:/$ voxl-camera-server -l
DEBUG:   Attempting to open the hal module
DEBUG:   SUCCESS: Camera module opened on attempt 0
DEBUG:   ----------- Number of cameras: 3

DEBUG:   Cam idx: 0, Cam slot: 0, Slave Address: 0x0020, Sensor Id: 0x0214
DEBUG:   Cam idx: 1, Cam slot: 1, Slave Address: 0x0030, Sensor Id: 0x0356
DEBUG:   Cam idx: 2, Cam slot: 2, Slave Address: 0x0034, Sensor Id: 0x0577
DEBUG:   Note: This list comes from the HAL module and may not be indicative
DEBUG:   	of configurations that have full pipelines

DEBUG:   Number of cameras: 3

Running Camera Server in the foreground with verbose logging

When cameras are detected but streams do not come up, run the camera server in the foreground with the debug level set to verbose so every step of the startup sequence is printed: config file parsing, the HAL module open, per-camera gain limits, and the start or failure of each camera pipeline.

• stop the background service first, otherwise the foreground instance will kill it and the logs get interleaved

systemctl stop voxl-camera-server

• run the server with -d0

voxl-camera-server -d0

The -d (--debug-level) flag selects the minimum log level that is printed. The default is 2, so warnings and errors are shown but the informational startup messages are not.

Two related flags are useful while debugging:

• -l (--list) prints the cameras the HAL reports, their slot, I2C address, sensor ID and supported resolutions, then exits. This is the command used in the section above.
• -s (--self-identify) ignores /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf and instead builds a configuration from whatever the HAL detects. Use it to confirm the hardware works before suspecting the config file.

Run voxl-camera-server -h for the full option list. The argument parsing and help text live in src/main.cpp in the voxl-camera-server repository, which is the reference for what each flag does in the SDK version you are running.

Press Ctrl+C to stop the foreground instance, then restart the service with systemctl start voxl-camera-server.

Diagnosing a missing camera issue

• check whether the number of detected cameras is correct (from step above)
• match the Sensor Id to Sensor Type (see below) and verify that cameras have been correctly identified in their respective slots
  • see https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-camera-configs/#overview for the mapping from physical connector to slot number
• if there is a camera that is not detected but appears to be plugged in
  • troubleshoot physical / connection issue:
    • double check physical connections
    • try to user a different flex cable if possible
    • try to use a different camera of the same type if possible
    • re-run the above camera detection test
  • troubleshoot camera driver configuration issue
    • for every camera, there needs to be a sensormodule driver present in /usr/lib/camera/
    • every sensormodule file has a slot number at the end, which needs to match the actual slot number that the camera is connected to
    • all of the sensormodule drivers are stored in /usr/share/modalai/chi-cdk and can be manually copied to /usr/lib/camera when doing manual camera setup
    • for example, if we have IMX214 plugged into slot 0, AR0144 in slot 1 and IMX412 in slot 2, the following sensormodules should be present in /usr/lib/camera

      com.qti.sensormodule.imx214_0.bin
      com.qti.sensormodule.ar0144_1.bin
      com.qti.sensormodule.imx412_2.bin
      

    • removing unused sensormodules is recommended to avoid confusion (not required)

Sensor Id to Sensor Type Mapping

- 0x7750 : OV7251
- 0x9281 : OV9782 / OV9281 / OV9282
- 0x6442 : OV64B40
- 0x0214 : IMX214
- 0x0356 : AR0144
- 0x0577 : IMX412
- 0x0600 : IMX664 (this is a workaround for WHOAMI register reading 0)
- 0xA602 : IMX678
- 0x003D : IRS1645 (TOF V1)
- 0x2975 : IRS2975 (TOF V2)
- 0x00FF : Boson (this is a workaround)

Diagnosing incorrect Camera Server config

• camera server configuration is stored in /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf
• the camera id in the config file should match the camera id of each camera detected using voxl-camera-server -l
• if there is a missing camera, the camera server will still attempt to run but it may incorrectly guess which camera is missing, resulting in wrong camera name assigned to a stream
• make sure that requested resolution does not exceed the maximum resolution of each camera (supported resolutions are also listed in output of voxl-camera-serverl -l)