Motion Eye Camera Problem on Vaio SR

I have a new Vaio SR, and I got it all set up last week. I went to try out the motion eye camera on Sunday, and it wouldn't work. The Arcsoft WebCam Companion 2 software would open, and it would allow me to select an option on the home screen, but I could not do anything after that. The area on the screen where the camera input data should have been shown was blank, all of the buttons except "disconnect" were greyed out, and, if I selected any options along the toolbar, I would get a Windows error message saying that the program had stopped working.

After searching the internet and finding nothing, I contacted Arcsoft. They told me it was an issue with Sony. I contacted Sony, and they just recommended I try uninstalling and reinstalling the software and the camera driver. I had already tried both of those techniques a couple of different ways with no luck. Sony support then said the only other option would be a system recovery. I wasn't too stoked about this, but, since the computer was new, it wasn't too much of a pain.

I ran the recovery, and the camera came up working just fine. I then installed Norton Internet Security 2009 and Office 2007. I tried the camera again, and it was still working. I thought I had resolved the issue. I proceeded to install the rest of the software I needed on my system:

• Zune
• Tunebite
• Cucusoft DVD to Zune converter
• Blackberry Desktop Manager
• Sprint Smartview
• Electronic Bluebook
• Creative Mediasource
• Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Surround
• Creative Alchemy
• Logitech Setpoint
• Logitech Harmony Remote Software
• Mozilla Firefox
• Seagate Manager

After putting the software on, I opened the Arcsoft software again to find that I was right back to where I was before I ran the recovery: no luck.

Obviously, one or more of the pieces of software listed above is messing with the camera or the Arcsoft software. I would appreciate any input on what might be the source of my problem and ways to resolve it without losing anything I need. I can live without the camera just fine, but it's on there, so I'd like it to be working. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

I'd say the process of elimination is your friend in this case. You can rule out norton and office plus all the oem programs right off.

Start with msconfig and deselect your more likely suspects from that list, media software for example as I doubt firefox or seagate is involved. Three or four at a time might be quicker. Then try arcsoft after each set. If that doesn't work you may have to uninstall using a similar strategy.

.

 

Thanks for the response. I was afraid trial and error would be the way to go. I hope this isn't too large of a task.

I'm sorry for not having a better grasp of the process you recommend, but is what you're saying that, in msconfig, I can essentially disable certain applications in order to try the system without any influences those applications might have? That seems like it might not be too painful.

 

That's exactly right.

msconfig executes the system configuration utility (start -> run -> msconfig)

From there, go to the "startup" tab and deselect the programs you suspect might be causing conflicts. Then go to the "services" tab and deselect any services listed that correspond to those programs. Jot down what you do because you'll need to undo them later. Click apply and restart. Hopefully you can zero in on what's causing the problem without uninstalling all your programs.

 

Thank you very much. I'll give this a try and report back what I find in case anyone else happens to stumble across this same issue.

 

Okay, I went through msconfig and disabled everything in the startup list in groups of four without luck. Finally, I just clicked "Disable All" and restarted again. The camera still isn't working. I'm a driver must have been reassigned or altered in some way during an installation. Does that make any sense to anyone with a better understanding of this stuff? Another thing I've found is that I get the same windows "not working" error in firefox when certain video files are embedded into websites. I wish I knew which kind of video files they were, but Firefox freezes when I scroll them onto the screen.

 

You need to work down the services tab too. They work in the background despite what you do in startup.

I think it's a software conflict not a driver. You already re-installed your camera driver which worked.

What does your webcam software and that firefox video have in common? Could they be .wmv files, etc.? What did you install that uses .wmv? Does this happen with Windows Media Player too?

Look, there are only a couple of ways to do this.
1) Scour the web for info regarding conflicts between Arcsoft/embedded video and all your software.
2) Run a selective startup msconfig of both suspect programs and services. A good process monitor/termination program will do the trick too but I'd be sending you on a wild goose chase with the learning curve.
3) Start uninstalling programs, one or a couple at a time. There could be registry values involved that only a complete uninstall can remove.

Like I said, it's media related.

 

Thanks for following up. I've tried searching the internet for reports of issues like this, and I've had no luck. I think uninstalling software is probably the best bet. If I don't make any progress doing that, I'll do another recovery and test the camera software after reinstalling each piece of software. And, again, I'll report back on what I learn.

 

did anyone ever figure this out? I also have the same problem.

 

Hey, I actually got into exam season, and I haven't had time to play with this since my last post. I just finished my last exam for the semester this afternoon, and I will be playing around with this over break. I will be sure to post any progress. If you figure anything out, please do the same.

Thank you.