failed to open /dev/video0

Question

Motion worked at first; I saw the on/off light of my webcam lighting when running motion then going off when I stopped it. Now, my webcam light is always on and motion don't start with the following error:

# motion -n 

[0] Processing thread 0 - config file /usr/local/etc/motion.conf
[0] Thread 1 is from /usr/local/etc/motion.conf
[1] Thread started
[1] Failed to open video device /dev/video0: No such file or directory
[1] Capture error calling vid_start
[1] Thread finishing...

Indeed I don't have a video0 device but the webcam is working and detected by my aMSN software

Environment

Motion version:	3.2.8
ffmpeg version:	SVN-r9658
Libraries:	ffmpeg, mysql
Server OS:	Fedora 6

-- RoKi - 16 Jul 2007

Answer

Motion doesn't provide any method to autodetect your v4l/v4l2 device , usually v4l devices use from /dev/video0 to /dev/videoX . Maybe your problem is that you have no set the proper permissions :

First take a look to v4l devices :

ls -la /sys/class/video4linux/

Set permissions ( if above the output is video0 ) :

chmod 666 /dev/video0

-- AngelCarpintero - 16 Jul 2007