I spoke too soon - the backported driver updates certainly helped, but I have now realised that Skype was only working with an external analogue microphone. When asked to use the webcam's built-in microphone, I was back to freezing images - unless I defocussed the images, in which case it worked! Some bandwidth issues then .... Hans was once again very helpful, and correctly suggested
This sounds like your setup has an usb-2.0 hub between the camera and the root-hub (*). This means that you either have a intel sandybridge machihine, where such a hub is integrated into the chipset, or you have put a hub in between yourself. *) Unfortunately the linux EHCI scheduling code deals poorly with multiple isoc stream to a USB-1 device attached through a USB-2 hub. This was indeed the problem - I have a Sandybridge chipset. Apparently there are no known workarounds (apart from making sure your webcam is not a USB-1 device, or using an external microphone). My best guess is that the bug reports relating to "skype only, other apps work fine" are probably better labelled as "combined video and audio from the same USB-1 device only, video only apps work fine". -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/984603 Title: Skype video freezes right after few first frames To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/984603/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs