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Camera not detecting sometimes #4137

@lovnishverma

Description

@lovnishverma

The Raspberry Pi AI camera (CSI cam IMX500) works reliably when booting from an SD card, but after switching to an SSD boot setup on the Raspberry Pi 5, the CSI camera is inconsistently detected. Specifically, the camera fails to be recognized in approximately 2 out of every 10 reboots. No hardware changes were made other than switching from SD card to SSD for the OS.
When camera is not detected, it is not detected untill pi is rebooted

To Reproduce

  1. Connect the IMX500 CSI camera to Raspberry Pi 5.
  2. Boot the Pi from an SD card — camera works reliably.
  3. Flash Raspberry Pi OS onto an SSD and configure the Pi to boot from it.
  4. Boot from SSD — sometimes the camera is not detected after reboot.
  5. Repeat rebooting multiple times — observe that detection fails occasionally.

Command used for testing (optional example):

libcamera-hello --list-cameras
rpicam-hello --list-cameras

Expected behaviour
The camera should be detected on every boot, regardless of whether the Raspberry Pi 5 is booted from an SD card or an SSD.


Console Output, Screenshots
When the issue occurs, libcamera-hello or rpicam-hello commands may output an error like:

Image

ERROR: No cameras available

Sometimes the /dev/video0 device is missing, and dmesg | grep imx shows no relevant entries.


Hardware

  • Raspberry Pi 5 (16GB)
  • Camera: Sony IMX500 CSI camera
  • Storage: Initially booted from SD card, now using SSD (NVMe via PCIe adapter)
  • OS: Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm 64-bit)
  • Firmware: Latest (as of July 2025)

Additional context

  • The issue seems to be related to the timing or power-up sequencing when booting from SSD.
  • Tested with multiple clean re-installs of Raspberry Pi OS on SSD.
  • No other peripherals connected that might interfere.
  • Nothing is changed in config.txt.

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