Picamera (in Terminal and Python 3) just does nothing

Question

I have a Picamera V2, a brand new Flex Cable (so that's not the problem) and a Pi 3B.

I am using VNC from Ubuntu. The Pi connects OK. But in the terminal (raspistill - o hi.jpg) and in Python 3

(

from picamera import PiCamera
from time import sleep

camera = PiCamera()

camera.start_preview()
sleep(1)
camera.stop_preview()

)

it just waits there (without showing an error message). It doesn't stop without being killed

Answer 1

Normally camera output will not show over VNC. It bypasses the framebuffer so VNC cannot capture it. If you have a screen directly connected to the Pi you would see the camera output on that.

RealVNC has an experimental feature that will capture the camera output. It works, but it's not great.

https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/docs/raspberry-pi.html describes how to enable it. Look for 'experimental direct capture' on that page.