picamera.exc.PiCameraMMALError: Failed to create MMAL component b'vc.camera_info': I/O error

[Thebeefed]

I'm using Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

vcgencmd get_camera gives me supported=1 detected=1

raspistill -o test.jpg gives me the test.jpg file but also gives this message

mmal: mmal_vc_shm_init: could not initialize vc shared memory service
mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to initialise shm for 'vc.camera_info' (7:EIO)
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.camera_info' (7)
mmal: Failed to create camera_info component

Then, I try to run this python code below, but it gives me this error message

from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()

Error:

mmal: mmal_vc_shm_init: could not initialize vc shared memory service
mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to initialise shm for 'vc.camera_info' (7:EIO)
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.camera_info' (7)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py", line 367, in __init__
    with mo.MMALCameraInfo() as camera_info:
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py", line 2346, in __init__
    super(MMALCameraInfo, self).__init__()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py", line 633, in __init__
    prefix="Failed to create MMAL component %s" % self.component_type)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/exc.py", line 184, in mmal_check
    raise PiCameraMMALError(status, prefix)
picamera.exc.PiCameraMMALError: Failed to create MMAL component b'vc.camera_info': I/O error

[Esser50K]

did you enable the camera yet? you can use raspi-config for that. The info is in the documentation though

[nsayer]

I have this same problem, but instead of I/O error, I get Function not implemented. This was with a fully working script. apt-get upgrade broke it. I've opened another issue for this.

[helioloureiro]

I upgrade to bullseye and got in the same situation. Unfortunately it doesn't promising to get fixed soon.

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/132145/software-upgrade-broke-camera

[helioloureiro]

My error is slightly different:

pi@raspberrypi3:~ $ ipython3
Python 3.9.2 (default, Mar 12 2021, 04:06:34)
Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information
IPython 7.20.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: from picamera import PiCamera

In [2]: cam = PiCamera()
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not find component 'vc.camera_info'

PiCameraMMALError Traceback (most recent call last)
in
----> 1 cam = PiCamera()

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py in init(self, camera_num, stereo_mode, stereo_decimate, resolution, framerate, sensor_mode, led_pin, clock_mode, framerate_range)
365 self._raw_format = 'yuv'
366 self._image_effect_params = None
--> 367 with mo.MMALCameraInfo() as camera_info:
368 info = camera_info.control.params[mmal.MMAL_PARAMETER_CAMERA_INFO]
369 self._revision = 'ov5647'

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py in init(self)
2344
2345 def init(self):
-> 2346 super(MMALCameraInfo, self).init()
2347 if PARAM_TYPES[mmal.MMAL_PARAMETER_CAMERA_INFO] is None:
2348 found = False

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py in init(self)
629 super(MMALBaseComponent, self).init()
630 self._component = ct.POINTER(mmal.MMAL_COMPONENT_T)()
--> 631 mmal_check(
632 mmal.mmal_component_create(self.component_type, self._component),
633 prefix="Failed to create MMAL component %s" % self.component_type)

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/exc.py in mmal_check(status, prefix)
182 """
183 if status != mmal.MMAL_SUCCESS:
--> 184 raise PiCameraMMALError(status, prefix)
185

PiCameraMMALError: Failed to create MMAL component b'vc.camera_info': Function not implemented

[6by9]

With regard Bullseye (released on 7th November, so TOTALLY unrelated to this issue), the blog post about the release is fairly plain.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-os-debian-bullseye/

New camera driver

The driver used by Raspberry Pi to access camera modules has now been replaced with libcamera, a standard Linux API. As with the video driver change, this means less closed-source proprietary code, and makes it easier for third parties to develop new camera hardware and software.

For anyone who has written camera-based applications in the past, this is a very significant change, and is too large to be covered here. There will be a blog post dedicated to the new camera driver published soon, so watch this space!

[helioloureiro]

@6by9 I was going to mention that I got it working after install libcamera-tools and libcamera-apps.

So the picamera package has wrong dependencies.

[6by9]

libcamera-tools and libcamera-apps have no relation to picamera - they will not reinstall the MMAL dependencies which picamera relies on.

The legacy camera stack (including picamera) is not officially supported on Bullseye.

[helioloureiro]

So @6by9 what would be fix for that? I may missed that point. It works via libcamera-tools, but remains complaining w/ "'vc.camera_info': Function not implemented".

I can see it is defined at header files:

$ grep -r camera_info /usr/include/interface/mmal/
/usr/include/interface/mmal/util/mmal_default_components.h:# define MMAL_COMPONENT_DEFAULT_CAMERA_INFO "camera_info"
/usr/include/interface/mmal/util/mmal_default_components.h:# define MMAL_COMPONENT_DEFAULT_CAMERA_INFO "vc.camera_info"

[nsayer]

So this means that picamera either needs to be rewritten against libcamera or it becomes abandonware.

If I understand the announcement correctly, it does imply that if the work were to get done it would mean that picamera would be applicable for platforms beyond the Raspberry Pi because libcamera is apparently a standard facility across multiple Linux variants.

[6by9]

You can still enable the legacy stack, but the default is now libcamera. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323390

Python bindings for libcamera are already in the works.

[danielfaust]

@6by9 Thank you for posting the link to the topic in the Raspberry Pi forums. It enabled me to reuse the old stack.

I think that this is a big issue which doesn't get enough visibility. Googling for answers does barely yield any useful results, and the news post [0] from the foundation about this changes should give the user hints to how to re-enable the old behavior.

There are things the new stack can't do (at this time) which might break old code, in my case it was picamera, on which I relied to stream the video with a current timestamp and preform image snapshots in parallel at a given time interval.

In any case, I will copy your code into this issue, should the forum become inaccessible:

Edit /boot/config.txt, remove the line "camera_auto_detect=1", and add "start_x=1" and "gpu_mem=128". Rebooting at this stage will reload the old V4L2 driver. Stop at this point if that is sufficient for your needs.

If you need raspistill/vid, then build the userland libraries for yourself.

cd ~
sudo apt install cmake
mkdir bin
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/userland
cd userland
./buildme
cp build/bin/* ~/bin/

If a "bin" directory exists in your home directory, then the default .profile adds it to your path, hence it will find these copies of the binaries.
If you need the binary accessible by all users, then copying them into /usr/local/bin would be the normal solution.

Note that with the graphics stack having been changed to be Full KMS by default, then the firmware can no longer a a preview display to the screen. Please use the -n option (for no preview), or edit /boot/config.txt again and change "dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d" to "dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d".
Second note, this is still 32bit only. MMAL support on 64bit is still partially broken.

[0] https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/an-open-source-camera-stack-for-raspberry-pi-using-libcamera/

[nsayer]

That's not enough. If you attempt this with the current libraspberrypi0/bootloader packages, what you get is "Failed to create MMAL component b'vc.camera_info': Function Not Implemented." You have to backtrack those packages to the 20210831-1 versions for now.

[danielfaust]

You have to backtrack those packages to the 20210831-1 versions for now.

What does that mean? How do I do that?

[nsayer]

Go to http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/r/raspberrypi-firmware/

Download

libraspberrypi0_1.20210831-1_armhf.deb
libraspberrypi-bin_1.20210831-1_armhf.deb
libraspberrypi-dev_1.20210831-1_armhf.deb
libraspberrypi-doc_1.20210831-1_armhf.deb
raspberrypi-bootloader_1.20210831-1_armhf.deb

as root, do "dpkg -i " for all those files. You may need to remove vcdbg or make other package adjustments so that those fit.

Afterwards, do "apt-mark hold" for all of them so that future apt upgrades don't overwrite them until that bug gets fixed.