# Anyone have video chat via Facebook or hangouts working?



## cabriofahrer (Nov 11, 2015)

Provided that you have a webcam working (that is saying that you get a preview with multimedia/pwcview), has anybody ever been able to use the video chat function of Facebook or hangouts? I have tried to establish that kind of connections with people, but in hangouts, when the other person accepts the call, I only get a never ending "Connecting...". Also there is only a green square where I think I should see myself, but maybe that also only works once you are connected?


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## rabfulton (Nov 12, 2015)

I believe hangouts requires a propriety plugin to do video which Google does not provide for FreeBSD. You could try net-im/uTox for an open source video chat client, can anyone suggest any other solutions?


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## Peter2121 (Nov 13, 2015)

It seems that net-im/skype4 should work on CURRENT with video support.
I can confirm that it works but I did not test video.


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## cabriofahrer (Nov 13, 2015)

Peter2121 said:


> It seems that net-im/skype4 should work on CURRENT with video support.
> I can confirm that it works but I did not test video.



That makes sense, as 11-CURRENT is supposed to have the newer linuxulator c7, right?
If so, I wonder why the new linuxulator cannot be used in 10.2 as a port that could be provided, soon, instead of having to wait until the 11-RELEASE...

As to hangouts, I believe that the plugin used to be necessary, but not anymore with the chrome browser, which seems to be integrated now.

But can any of you guys who have a webcam working check it out with facebook and see what happens and report?


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## Peter2121 (Nov 13, 2015)

cabriofahrer said:


> That makes sense, as 11-CURRENT is supposed to have the newer linuxulator c7, right?
> If so, I wonder why the new linuxulator cannot be used in 10.2 as a port that could be provided, soon, instead of having to wait until the 11-RELEASE...


As I understand there is something more than newer linuxulator needed to get skype4 working on FreeBSD. Maybe additional kernel functions.


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## kpa (Nov 13, 2015)

The Linux ports provide only shared libraries and binaries, they don't add any kernel functionality because all of the Linux compatibility layer is implement by the linux(4) kernel module. In order to get something working that requires the Linuxator from 11-CURRENT there's no other option than to use 11-CURRENT. I don't think anyone even considers backporting it to earlier versions of FreeBSD.


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## jrm@ (Nov 13, 2015)

A similar discussion took place not too long ago.


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## junovitch@ (Nov 15, 2015)

kpa said:


> ...
> I don't think anyone even considers backporting it to earlier versions of FreeBSD.



PR 201299 was created before 10.2-RELEASE to ask for backporting it.  However it's not a trivial change and is a large amount of kernel code to support 64 bit Linux and 2.6.32 system calls.


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## grahamperrin@ (Dec 20, 2017)

Around a week ago I sent feedback to Google about an inappropriate video error message, in Hangouts, after the browser passed tests at https://test.webrtc.org/

Now:

Hangouts no longer presents the error; it works *without* Google's plugin with Firefox 56.0.2 (64-bit) and Waterfox 56.0.1

Hangouts video and phone calls in Firefox - Hangouts Help seems to be outdated (I sent more feedback).


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