# Camera stops working after about an hour of working

**URL:** <https://forum.opencv.org/t/camera-stops-working-after-about-an-hour-of-working/8098>\
**Category:** Python\
**Tags:** videoio\
**Created:** [March 24, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.opencv.org/t/camera-stops-working-after-about-an-hour-of-working/8098 "2022-03-24T19:03:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ESS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc348/32.png) [@ESS](https://forum.opencv.org/u/ESS)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://forum.opencv.org/t/camera-stops-working-after-about-an-hour-of-working/8098/1 "2022-03-24T19:03:41Z")

</div>

After about an hour of running, my camera starts to timeout grabbing a frame and returns a None object.

```bash
Mar 24 18:51:11 ubuntu env[2570]: [WARN:0] global /tmp/pip-req-build-frgo6bcn/opencv/modules/videoio/src/cap_v4l.cpp (1001) tryIoctl VIDEOIO(V4L2:/dev/video0): select() timeout.
Mar 24 18:51:12 ubuntu env[2570]: [WARN:0] global /tmp/pip-req-build-frgo6bcn/opencv/modules/videoio/src/cap_v4l.cpp (890) open VIDEOIO(V4L2:/dev/video1): can't open camera by index

```

When this happens I have code that closes the connection, runs `usbreset` on my USB camera and then attaches to it again. After a while, the camera fails to read at all, even after a usb reset

```python
# Read from camera or reattach if broken
    _, frame = cam.read()
    if frame is None:
        for loop_counter in range(21):
            sleep(1.5) # give camera time to turn on and try once more.
            _, frame = cam.read()
            if frame is not None:
                break
            if loop_counter == 7:
                cam.release()
                self.camera = None
                cam = None
                self.camera = self._set_up_camera(**self.img_size)
                cam = self.camera
                self.logger.warning("Camera has been dropped and re-attached")
            if loop_counter == 20:
                self.logger.error("Camera is really not working, enter panic")
                self.logger.critical("Haven't created a frame in {:.2f} seconds!".format(10*1.5))
                raise RuntimeError('Camera stopped capturing images')

```

I Loop through a few video optoins in case the USB camera does not attach to port 0 for some reason. I saw this happen once when I had to reset the device.

```python
# Setup camera
  reset_usb_camera() # Full usb reset
  dev_port = 0
  while True:
      camera = cv2.VideoCapture(dev_port, apiPreference=cv2.CAP_V4L2)
      if not camera.isOpened():
          print("Port %s is not working." % dev_port)
      else:
          sleep(1) # give 'er a chance to start up
          camera.set(3, w)
          camera.set(4, h)
          camera.set(cv2.CAP_PROP_FOURCC, cv2.VideoWriter_fourcc("M", "J", "P", "G"))
          is_reading, img = camera.read()
          if is_reading:
              print("Port %s is working and reads images (%s x %s)" % (dev_port, h, w))
              break
          else:
              print("Port %s for camera (%s x %s) is present but does not read." % (dev_port, h, w))
              camera.release()

```

I am running this on a Raspberry PI with [this camera](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VFLWOC0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1) from amazon.

I tried running a loop with just v4l2-ctl, which I’m using as a backend in OpenCV, to see if it would run for a while but it ended up getting bogged down and stopped running after about 353 images.

```bash
#!/bin/bash -x

printf "starting test\n"
for i in {0..1000}
do
	time v4l2-ctl \
	 	--device /dev/video0 \
	 	--set-fmt-video=width=1280,height=720,pixelformat=MJPG \
	 	--stream-mmap \
	 	--stream-to=frame${i}.jpg \
	 	--stream-count=1
	
	sleep 3s
done

```

For example, one time output was

```auto
real	3m53.618s
user	0m0.006s
sys 0m0.036s

```

Showing that the system was getting blocked by something else. I thought it was I/O bound but when I ran `iotop` it said it wasn’t writing at all or just a few bytes. Also, I checked my CPU thermals to see if the whole system was overheating but it was at 51c so the CPU was fine. I didn’t know how to get the temps of the camera. When I reboot the whole system it normally comes back but not always, which is frustrating. Any ideas would be helpful and appreciated.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![crackwitz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.opencv.org/crackwitz/32/14_2.png) [@crackwitz](https://forum.opencv.org/u/crackwitz)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2022, 8:34am UTC](https://forum.opencv.org/t/camera-stops-working-after-about-an-hour-of-working/8098/2 "2022-03-25T08:34:38Z")

</div>

since you can replicate those issues with plain v4l tools, I’m inclined to conclude that OpenCV can’t do anything about this.

can you replicate this with a camera from an entirely different manufacturer?