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I recently bought a Raspberry Pi 3b+ and Camera module v3. After days of troubleshooting, I got the camera to spit out images on the libcamera CLI. But, I can't create a picamera.PiCamera object in Python. Here's my error:

Python 3.9.2 (default, Mar 12 2021, 04:06:34) 
[GCC 10.2.1 20210110] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from picamera import PiCamera
>>> camera = PiCamera()
mmal: mmal_vc_component_create: failed to create component 'vc.ril.camera' (1:ENOMEM)
mmal: mmal_component_create_core: could not create component 'vc.ril.camera' (1)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py", line 456, in _init_camera
    self._camera = mo.MMALCamera()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py", line 2279, in __init__
    super(MMALCamera, self).__init__()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/mmalobj.py", line 631, in __init__
    mmal_check(
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/exc.py", line 184, in mmal_check
    raise PiCameraMMALError(status, prefix)
picamera.exc.PiCameraMMALError: Failed to create MMAL component b'vc.ril.camera': Out of memory

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py", line 431, in __init__
    self._init_camera(camera_num, stereo_mode, stereo_decimate)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/picamera/camera.py", line 459, in _init_camera
    raise PiCameraError(
picamera.exc.PiCameraError: Camera is not enabled. Try running 'sudo raspi-config' and ensure that the camera has been enabled.

Using libcamera, I don't get any errors. But, when I try creating a PiCamera object, it fails, giving the above error. Please help!

Here's my specs:

  • Raspberry pi 3b+
  • Raspberry Camera Module 3
Improve this question
1
  • Ooh. Thanks for pointing out the mistake!
    – N3RDIUM
    Mar 19 at 10:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

The old camera stack with Picamera will not be updated for the new v3 camera. You will have to swap to the Picamera2 modules.

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5
  • I'm fairly new to RPi. Can you please tell me how I'm supposed to do that?
    – N3RDIUM
    Mar 18 at 15:17
  • Also, I get cannot import name PiCamera2 from picamera2 when I try to use PiCamera2.
    – N3RDIUM
    Mar 18 at 15:34
  • Great, now I get Exception: EGL_EXT_image_dma_buf_import missing
    – N3RDIUM
    Mar 18 at 15:42
  • TYSM, it works now!
    – N3RDIUM
    Mar 18 at 15:53
  • 1
    @N3RDIUM FYI: there is a lot if documentation available at raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/camera_software.html, including a doc fot picamera2
    – Dirk
    Mar 18 at 16:38

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