Can not unmute camera

[mselmanyildirim]

Hi,
Seems I can mute my camera but can not unmute afterwards. Logs are repeating the following:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "camera.py", line 50, in _setup_physical_camera
cv2.error: Unknown C++ exception from OpenCV code
2026-04-29 01:26:19,240 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:176] - ERROR - Physical camera not available. Sending black frame.
2026-04-29 01:26:19,240 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:31] - INFO - Attempting to open physical camera (ID: 0) with target 1280x720@30fps.
2026-04-29 01:26:19,384 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:71] - ERROR - Exception setting up physical camera: Unknown C++ exception from OpenCV code

Do you have any suggestion?
Thanks for your time.

[eitchtee]

Hey, weird. Before muting the camera, does the camera feed show up fine on the VCM webcam?

My best suggestion right now would be to play around with the camera_id setting (try 1, 2, etc) to see if there's another camera available.

[mselmanyildirim]

Yes, before muting the camera, feed shows up properly. That is why I feel I shouldn't change the id. After muting and unmuting, black screen stays as if it is still muted. Above logs appear then continuously.

[eitchtee]

Can you try the new version I just released? If it doesn't fix it, we might have to do some debugging as I have no other ideas on what else might be happening.

[mselmanyildirim]

This time I had hard time to start the camera for the first time too. I did achieved once by selecting the camera itself in the meeting app, then switching to VCM. After first muting, I was unable to unmute back. And never able to get rid of the black screen. Restarting neither the meet app, nor VCM helped. Relevant log part is as follows:

2026-04-30 10:28:02,430 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:191] - ERROR - Physical camera not available. Sending black frame.
2026-04-30 10:28:02,464 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:33] - INFO - Attempting to open physical camera (ID: 0) with target 1280x720@30fps.
2026-04-30 10:28:02,595 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:60] - WARNING - Could not set camera properties (camera still usable): Unknown C++ exception from OpenCV code
2026-04-30 10:28:02,595 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:68] - INFO - Physical camera opened. Actual W: 0, H: 0, FPS: N/A
2026-04-30 10:28:02,595 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:73] - WARNING - Resolution mismatch: Requested 1280x720, got 0x0. Frames will be resized.
2026-04-30 10:28:02,595 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:185] - WARNING - Failed to read frame from physical camera. Using black frame.
2026-04-30 10:28:02,595 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:91] - INFO - Releasing physical camera.
2026-04-30 10:28:04,599 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:191] - ERROR - Physical camera not available. Sending black frame.
2026-04-30 10:28:04,633 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:191] - ERROR - Physical camera not available. Sending black frame.
2026-04-30 10:28:04,667 - CameraFeedThread - [camera:191] - ERROR - Physical camera not available. Sending black frame.

I understand that it is hard to debug diverse hardware without having them in hand. Even Power Toys team gave up 😅

[eitchtee]

Howdy. Yes, webcams are very finicky and the language I chose for this project isn't exactly the best one for this use case.

I've launched v1.0.3, it adds some extra configurations so you can play around with to see if you get it working.

And there's a nuclear option (camera_keep_open_when_muted) if you set it to true, the camera will not be released when you mute it; if you webcam has a indicator light it will be on all the time, and I'm not sure if there's longevity implications on leaving the camera on all the time, so beware of that, but this way it will 100% work when unmutted.

[mselmanyildirim]

Thank you very much. I'll tinker it.