Monday 18 May 2009

Weird MagicCam error message from Google talk video device

Have you ever seen this error when attempting to run some capture software on OSX? (Note: The current process label in the error message is dependent upon which app you're running - in my case its one called vic):
[000:029] MagicCam 0: Current process: vic, Flash is loaded: no
[000:029] Error(magiccammac.cc:276): MagicCam 0: MagicCamOpen: Not an allowed process!

It is coming from the Google Talk's virtual video devices (but it's probably not actually causing any trouble directly - see below) - which are installed here:
/Library/QuickTime/Google Camera Adapter 0.component
And the MacCam related functions are in these two files:
/Library/QuickTime/Google Camera Adapter 0.component/Contents/MacOS/Google Camera Adapter 0
Run strings on it:
strings "/Library/QuickTime/Google Camera Adapter 0.component/Contents/MacOS/Google Camera Adapter 0" | grep -i magiccam)
and you get:
/Volumes/BuildData/PulseData/data/recipes/320452156/base/branches/googletalkplugin_release_branch/googleclient/talk/magicflute/magiccam/magiccammac.cc

Anyway it's not actually harmful and generally if you've a problem this is unlikely to be the cause of it. You can just [re]move the files as necessary to get rid the messages though your problem may well be somewhere else but at least you can eliminate it as a possible cause.

5 comments:

  1. I just noticed this too... curious...

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  2. In my case I had a problem when I use Emacs Speaks Statistics inside Emacs on a mac. When I try to open a quartz device for plotting, this error (magiccamopen...) occurs. After reading your explanation, I tried to reinstall the gmail voice and video chat component and it works fine. Thanks!

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  3. I recently found that my Finder crashes when I try to search something via the search box of Finder. Checked the console messages, I found the similar error message:

    10/9/09 7:14:05 PM [0x0-0x55055].com.apple.finder[2666] [002:197] Error(magiccammac.cc:276): MagicCam 0: MagicCamOpen: Not an allowed process!
    10/9/09 7:14:05 PM [0x0-0x55055].com.apple.finder[2666] [000:004] MagicCam 0: Current process: Finder, Flash is loaded: no

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  4. installing latest google voice didn't help me. Deleting the Google Google Camera Adapter directories from both /Library/QuickTime and ~/Library/QuickTime got rid of the error message.

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  5. i had this problem too but installed google voice now (at least in april 2010) DOES take away the error message, i must say.

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