Strange iCam behavior on a Mac Mini

[emsingel]

I have a Macally Sirius USB2.0 camera connected to a new model Mac Mini (there is no built-in camera) running OS10.5. I am running iCamsource 1.3.6 (but I also had this problem with the last version). When I turn iCamsource on, it seems to take a still frame picture, then freeze. A minute or so later, it disconnects. A minute or so after that, it comes back on again with another frozen picture, and then the cycle repeats endlessly. On the iPhone, if iCS is in the "on" mode of the cycle, I get the still image, then when it turns off, I get a source disconnected message. It doesn't reconnect when iCS goes back into the on mode, but turning iCam off and then back on gets it back (again, only for a few seconds with a frozen image).

I have used two other Mac laptops with built-in cameras without any problems.

I also noticed that on the Mini, when the iCS software is running, but stopped, iChat won't recognize the camera. I have to quit iCS to get iChat to work, but then it works perfectly, including motion. On the laptops, stopping iCS is sufficient to get iChat to work properly.

Clearly there is some incompatibility or settings problem here, but I can't figure out what to look for to explain this weird behavior. Any ideas?

[Stefan]

The iChat issue sounds like an issue of the two applications "fighting over" control of the camera. I know that I can run the iCamSource and iChat both accessing the same webcam when I use either an external FireWire iSight or the USB Logitech Pro 9000 in Snow Leopard everything works fine, so it may have something to do with Leopard vs. Snow Leopard or your particular webcam's hardware interface or drivers.

As for the iCamSource taking a single snap-shot and then timing out, does the CPU usage of the Mac mini (and the iCamSource process in particular) spike up greatly in the Applications > Utilties > Activity Monitor? What % CPU does the iCamSource take when running? I have a fairly-new Intel Mac mini that does fine with either the USB or FireWire webcam, although an older PPC mini does choke somewhat when connecting with the FireWire camera.

[emsingel]

Thanks for the suggestions. I checked the activity monitor and found some additional strangeness. When iCS comes on, the CPU activity briefly spikes to anywhere from the high 40's% to the 80's%, then falls to about 15-16% and stays there until it turns off, when it drops to 0. When on, the number of threads goes to 15 or 16, but drops to 9 when it turns off. This cycle repeats endlessly, with some variation in the initial spike, but is otherwise consistent. When I look at performance on one of my laptops that runs iCS fine, it skips the initial spike and settles quickly to 15% and 15 threads, and stays there.

Something that may be more significant is that in the activity monitor under "kind" the Mini says the type is "PowerPC", whereas on the laptop it says "Intel". Both computers are of course Intel. I believe that I downloaded the app directly onto the Mini, so I don't know how I could have gotten a PowerPC app, or why in that case it would work at all. I will try deleting the app and downloading and reinstalling it to see if that makes a difference.

[emsingel]

Further update: Based on the things shown in the activity monitor, I tried comparing the Get Info box for the applications on two computers. I discovered that on the Mini, the "Open in Rosetta" box was checked, while it was not checked on the working laptop. I unchecked this box and restarted the app, and now it seems to be working fine.

I don't know how the Rosetta box got checked, I didn't deliberately do it, but that seems to have been the problem.

Thanks again for the tip about the activity monitor. Without that, I don't know that I would ever have found this.

[Stefan]

Very interesting ... I never would have thought of that being the cause of the issue, but thanks for posting the update!