Skype Video Call Screen keeps flashing and Camera Problem

Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04.1.

Application: Skype 4.3 for Linux.

Whenever I start a Video Call, I can see the person on the other side but the screen keeps flashing ceaselessly.

Furthermore, the person on the other side and I, can only see a closeup of my face. So I need to move away from the screen in order for the other person to see my face.

sudo lshw | grep -A9 VGA description: VGA compatible controller product: Sky Lake Integrated Graphics vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 07 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915_bpo latency=0

Help much appreciated.

Thank you.

2 Answers

I also have chipset Intel 915 and I had the same problem with video calls in Skype.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 16.10 (from 16.04.1) helped me and completely solved this problem.

I believe that problem is solved in new version of Linux kernel. You can also try this fix if you don't want to upgrade.

What worked for me, was using the nomodeset option in the grub bootloader. There are two methods to set nomodeset:

1. Temporary:
   • While booting press and hold shift in order to see the grub menu
   • Choose the entry you want to change (in a normal installation the first entry) and press e to edit it
   • Look for quiet splash and add nomodeset before it
   • Finally press F10 to boot.

If this worked for you, you can use the permanent way for all bootups.

2. Permanent:
   • edit /etc/default/grub (for example: sudo nano /etc/default/grub)
   • change the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset quiet splash"
   • Finally update the grub config: sudo update-grub

The next time rebooting, you don't have to specify the boot option.

I run Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with 4.4 kernel on Lenovo i310 laptop.

The output for sudo lshw | grep -A9 VGA is the following:

description: VGA compatible controller
product: Sky Lake Integrated Graphics
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 07
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0

This answer is partially copied from last answer at When I start my camera in video call on Skype 4.1. incoming video is flashing blue?