I have the same problem more or less!

I have tried with the kernel version 3.3.4 and 3.3.5 from testing but same issue. Also, when V4L or google talk tries to access the webcam the system freezes.

With the latest linux-lts cheese freezes but in V4L test and google talk it works.

I have a built-in webcam laptop Samsung RV520-S01 (uvcvideo)
May 9 08:53:08 localhost kernel: [ 855.625577] usbcore: deregistering interface driver uvcvideo
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.474484] Linux media interface: v0.10
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.476646] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.478988] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device WebCam SCB-0385N (2232:1005)
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.480872] input: WebCam SCB-0385N as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.4/1-1.4:1.0/input/input12
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.482013] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
May 9 08:53:13 localhost kernel: [ 861.482016] USB Video Class driver (1.1.1)
May 9 08:53:38 localhost kernel: [ 886.222412] compat_ioctl32: unknown ioctl 'v', dir=2, #1 (0x803c7601)

Just checked Google talk, seems to be completely operational for me.

Upgraded to the latest stable linux kernel (3.3.5-1). Cheese is now fully operational, except video, when I click record, webcam deactivates until I click stop recording and then cheese closes immediately and without warning.

Good for you :) For me it doesn't work yet :(

Annoyingly, the issue I now have was the original problem as I posted it to gnome. Just got a bit worse for a couple of days :P

Interesting!

Today I've tried to open cheese with both linux-vanilla and linux with nouveau(usually I use nvidia driver) and cheese doesn't even start. V4L test freezes the system and have to hard reset.

Looks like I have the same problem. More info in my forum thread that has no replies :(

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=140284

I've tried the new kernel 3.3.6 -ck and I can't use my webcam at all :(

I think it's a uvcvideo development issue, with the uvcvideo module.

OK I found a solution for V4L test, gvcview and google talk.

I created a file in /etc/modprobe.d/uvcvideo.conf with "option uvcvideo nodrop=1"

Cheese still freezes.

I can confirm that Cheese is not working on Linux ArchLinux 3.3.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 13 10:52:32 CEST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I do not have an /etc/modprobe.d/uvcvideo.conf file
I have a Logitech webcam:
[ 4.477572] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 5.373976] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:0807)
[ 5.388911] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[ 5.622883] cx88[0]/0: registered device video1 [v4l2]

Cheese fails immediately upon startup. I see a window for a few seconds as originally mentioned.
Running from terminal, cheese reports the following (which doesnt really mean much to me but I hope it, along with everything else, is helpful)
** (cheese:22613): CRITICAL **: cheese_camera_device_get_uuid: assertion `CHEESE_IS_CAMERA_DEVICE (device)' failed
Segmentation fault

The funny thing is, the webcam works just fine with fswebcam and Skype...

+1 for Segmentation fault
I have this webcam:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174f:a311 Syntek 1.3MPixel Web Cam - Asus A3A, A6J, A6K, A6M, A6R, A6T, A6V, A7T, A7sv, A7U

P.s. work with skype

please recompile cheese, clutter, clutter-gtk with debug symbols and get a proper trace.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Step_By_Step_Debugging_Guide#Technique_.232_-_even_better_gdb_output

I must confess I have never done this before, but here is the trace when I ran Cheese (hope I did it right)

Any news? I still have issues on cheese 3.4.2

my gdb log (is correct?)

hey guys,

more about this bug can be found: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104877287288155269055/posts/grHDgRNc1gi
webkit bug: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89358

I'm asking you guys to try the latest patch from the webkit bug and let me know if is fixed.

The webkit patch is already included in the current libwebkit release, which solves the problem with llvmpipe, but there are some other problems reported also.

The following upstream commits fix all problems for me, please apply them:

Do not add NULL devices to the camera list
http://git.gnome.org/browse/cheese/commit/?id=60f9af8ff5f14e68588561320530937b1b3e57ed

Do not overwrite camerabin's default flags
http://git.gnome.org/browse/cheese/commit/?id=03fe3c79311d1e3b8cb62a92ba04ce7728b8032b

I think it's also solves  FS#30147 .

UPDATE:
These patches are still not solve the video recording problem, but at least cheese won't crash on startup.

Fedora applied various patches to gstreamer in order to fix video recording in cheese:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/gstreamer-plugins-good.git/tree/
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/cgit/gstreamer-plugins-bad-free.git/tree/

The reported problem is fixed in cheese 3.6. However, cheese still crashes when I start recording video.