Howdy: Unable to get test to work with IR camera on Lenovo P1

[clegett]

Using the command gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video2 num-buffers=10 ! image/jpeg ! multifilesink location="frame-%02d.jpg" works, yielding a number of 640x480 black and white images saved to disk. This also causes the IR/red LEDs to flash next to the camera. The same does not happen in cheese or in sudo howdy test when that device is selected. Cheese and sudo howdy test instead yield a very noisy green speckled image that vaguely resembles the anticipated scene and the IR/red LEDs stay off.

I have tried setting the width and height in the config.ini file to both 640x480 and the cheese-detected 400x480 as well as leaving them set to -1.

[boltgolt]

Could you try setting force_mjpeg to true?

[clegett]

The behavior is the same with force_mjpeg=true and force_mjpeg=false

[boltgolt]

Could you try to switch to the FFmpeg recorder? Not 100% sure what the problem is.

[clegett]

How would I go about trying that? I don't see an appropriate setting in the config.ini file.

[boltgolt]

If you're on the Debian or Fedora releases there should be a recording_plugin config option. If you're on Arch you will need to update to 2.5.0 which isn't officially updated yet. There are a few comments explaining how to update on the AUR page.

[clegett]

Ah thanks for that. I upgraded, but once I do so and set the recorder to ffmpeg I get the following when running sudo howdy test:

$ sudo howdy test
Howdy has been configured to use a recorder which doesn't support the test command yet
Aborting

Simply testing with the default recorder yields the following image. The IR LEDs still do not illuminate.

The test and face detection works with /dev/video0 which is the normal webcam, but not the IR camera on /dev/video2.

[boltgolt]

Do the emitters light up when running sudo howdy add with the FFmpeg recorder and the IR camera as device?

[clegett]

No. It yields the following error:

$ sudo howdy add
Adding face model for the user clegett
Enter a label for this new model [Initial model] (max 24 characters): 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/howdy", line 89, in <module>
    import cli.add
  File "/usr/lib/security/howdy/cli/add.py", line 129, in <module>
    video_capture.grab()
  File "/usr/lib/security/howdy/recorders/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 132, in grab
    self.read()
  File "/usr/lib/security/howdy/recorders/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 105, in read
    self.record(self.numframes)
  File "/usr/lib/security/howdy/recorders/ffmpeg_reader.py", line 89, in record
    .run(capture_stdout=True, quiet=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/site-packages/ffmpeg/_run.py", line 305, in run
    raise Error('ffmpeg', out, err)
ffmpeg._run.Error: ffmpeg error (see stderr output for detail)

[mattyokan]

Are you running the latest BIOS version? I also have a P1 and I saw something about IR camera fixes in the most recent BIOS update, so that's worth checking.

[clegett]

I'm on BIOS N2EET36W 1.18. Everything works fine under Windows and when using the gst-launch command above. It appears to be a problem with howdy somewhere, but I don't know how to track it down myself.

[nomtat]

I'm also having this issue on the Thinkpad X1 Extreme, BiOS version 1.19. After installing howdy as per the instructions, the IR blasters don't turn on when I use the 'add' command.

[clegett]

@nomtat This is still unresolved for me as well.

[boltgolt]

Could one of you run v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --list-formats? Make sure /dev/video2 is your IR webcam

[clegett]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

$ v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video2 --list-formats
ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT
    Type: Video Capture

    [0]: 'MJPG' (Motion-JPEG, compressed)
    [1]: 'YUYV' (YUYV 4:2:2)

/dev/video2 is the IR webscam

[kageurufu]

I'm using a Thinkpad P1 as well, you have to use 400x400 frame size for /dev/video2

Heres my current config

[core]
detection_notice = false
no_confirmation = false
suppress_unknown = false
ignore_ssh = true
ignore_closed_lid = true
disabled = false
use_cnn = false

[video]
certainty = 3.5
timeout = 4
device_path = /dev/video2
max_height = 400
frame_width = 400
frame_height = 400
dark_threshold = 50
recording_plugin = opencv
device_format = v4l2
force_mjpeg = false
exposure = -1

[debug]
end_report = false

[clegett]

This worked for me. I had to set dark_threshold to 100, but otherwise that fixed the problem. Thanks!

[kageurufu]

Glad to help! What issues were you having with the dark threshold at 50? I'm not sure if I need to adjust the setting myself

[boltgolt]

Having to up dark_threshold usually means all incoming frames are quite dark. This could be caused by the wrong exposure settings or just mean you're further away from the camera. Setting dark_threshold to 100 effectively disables dark frame skipping.

[clegett]

With the default setting of 50 howdy add never finished. It just sat there blinking at me. I tried 25 which still didn't work, then 100. Setting it to 100 worked right away.