[SaxPlayer]

I'm using MobileSheets Windows (3.8.26) with Windows 10 Pro with the German localization on a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga Gen 2.
With enabled gestures, the camera is not activated when testing gestures or when viewing a song.
The camera gets activated when generating a new song and taking a picture. This works fine.
Taking this picture was not possible with MobileSheets 3.8.25 (the camera was not recognized).
So maybe the problems are connected.
Any idea how to activate the camera for gestures?
Best regards

[Geoff Bacon]

Perhaps you haven't given MS permission to use the Camera?

Geoff

[SaxPlayer]

I gave permission for camera use for MS explicitly and for Desktop Apps.
Would it be possible without permission to take pictures for MS (as for new songs, see above: The camera gets activated when generating a new song and taking a picture)?
Regards

[MarkNY2024]

I am having the same issue. 3 different computers, a surface pro 3, customer built desktop and an HP Touchsmart 600, all with Windows 10, just purchased a Lenovo 510 FHD Webcam to get Windows Hello activated and that works for all 3 computers logging onto Windows, it recognizes the face. There is definitely an issue with activating the camera for Face Gestures in Windows 10 on some devices. but it does work on my wife's Surface book from 2015-2016. I haven't figured out yet what the Surface Book has that the Surface Pro 3 and other others do not. All of them I have given Mobilesheets camera permission in the camera privacy settings.

[Zubersoft]

I'll look into this to see if I can figure out what's happening on some devices. Everything works properly on my Surface Pro 8, but I've heard that the camera does not work on a Surface Pro 4 at all (but there are also camera access issues observed in other applications). I tested on a very low powered laptop with a camera, and that worked, and I also tested with an old logitech webcam and that also worked fine. I personally do not have any devices left running Windows 10 though - all of my tests were done using Windows 11, so that may be part of the problem. I'm relying a lot on Microsoft's framework to detect supported cameras and figure out which ones can function for video capture. I may have to add multiple different approaches to finding a compatible camera.

Mike

[SaxPlayer]

Hi Mike,
did you recognize that on the Lenovo (Win 10 Pro, Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045) the camera is activated correctly with the "new song" selection when capturing a song print by the camera option but not with the gesture testing option or selecting a song with the gesture selection on in the settings menu? So MS can activate the camera with my Lenovo but not within all menus. Additional info: I can select the gesture test window (it shows up) but no picture is appearing, also the camera LED doesn't light up.
Some more observations, which perhaps help you solving this issue:
with my HP Elitebook 820 (also Win 10 Pro, Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045) the gesture recognition works now (3.8.26) and already worked with 3.8.25.
But as I found just now: when creating a new song and selecting the camera button (I think I didn't test this with 3.8.25), the camera is not activated (no LED at the camera and no live picture), but when I press the capture button, the LED shines up and a picture is captured! After capturing the LED turns off again. This works well with the Lenovo (live preview available)!
When testing gestures with the HP, MS sometimes recognizes the capture but more often crashes when performing gestures (not limited to one gesture) in the gesture testing part.
Regards

[MarkNY2024]

Hello, The new version release did address the issue. Now Mobilesheets is activating the camera and facial gestures do work. Thanks for fixing that. However, there is a new problem, now the app is crashing when turning pages with the face gestures. This was replicated on multiple devices. It was nice to see it working. Now if we can fix the crashing issue, we should be good.

[Zubersoft]

That one is going to be more difficult, as it's most likely related to the Microsoft Store requirement to use the .net native compiler. Their compiler is changing something related to Google's code that causes instability. I believe the FastSpring version works more reliably. If you want to switch to the FastSpring version, send the invoice from your purchase to mike@zubersoft.com and we can discuss that. I can only offer this for a single device though due to the way the FastSpring licensing works. Otherwise you'd need to wait until I can switch MobileSheets from being a UWP appilcation to a standard desktop application, which requires rewriting a huge amount of code, as I have to switch frameworks. The earliest I will be able to focus on this will be much later this year.

Mike

[SaxPlayer]

Hi Mike,
I can confirm that the gestures now work on my Lenovo Yoga with Win 10.
MS crashed on the first gestures' test, but this could not be reproduced, several tests with songs ran fine.
But it would be problematic if crashing happens during a performance (solo piano player)!
Regards

[Zubersoft]

I'm going to have to find ways to reliably reproduce crashes with a debuggable build before I'll know more about the nature of what is going on. I haven't had time to focus on this yet. Thanks for providing your experiences.

Mike

[MarkNY2024]

I'm going to have to find ways to reliably reproduce crashes with a debuggable build before I'll know more about the nature of what is going on. I haven't had time to focus on this yet. Thanks for providing your experiences.

Mike

Hi Mike. If you want. I can run some kind of script or capture method of some kind while using facial page turns and can provide log file or something like that. Let me know if you would like.

[Zubersoft]

Unfortunately, the crash is happening inside Google's code, and trying to build a version of their library where I scatter logging statements throughout it would be an exercise in futility due to the size of the code base and the number of libraries involved. I really need to have a debugger attached while the code is running and the crash happens. Even if I can see the point in the code where the error occurs, I then have to reverse engineer Google's code to understand how it got into that state and what can even be done to prevent it (I would basically be having to fix bugs in their code). So there is no easy way for me to have you gather information. I don't even know where in Google's code to start looking unless I can have a debugger attached when the error occurs. I know this is all technical stuff that will mean nothing to someone that isn't a programmer - I just wanted to provide information about why this will be difficult to deal with.

Mike

[Zubersoft]

Small update: I just tested the face gestures for the last hour with a debuggable build, and it didn't matter how many songs or setlists I loaded, how many gestures I triggered or pages I turned, I could not get a single crash to occur. So this is going to be incredibly troublesome to fix if I can't reproduce crashes.

Mike

[MarkNY2024]

It's working much better after the latest update. Great job Mike!

[Zubersoft]

Glad to hear that! Thanks for following up to share your experience. I had to just deploy the debug versions of all the libraries, but that seemed to make everything stable, so other than it running slightly slower and making the installation larger, there aren't many downsides.

Mike