Webcam in use by "another app" ...?

No idea but I'll share my recent experiewnce.

I bought a webcam last week from bestbuy and set it up of my bodhi machines last weekend and been struggling with it every day all week, every day I think I solved it then it discover some other problem. Some "plug-and-play"! I dunno if its just low quality crap or if its a bodhi or linux issue or what, but Im seriously considering returning it and getting a cheaper model to see if it "just works".

When I first tried it, it didnt seem to be recognized. Rebooted, etc, nothing. Changed usb ports and suddenly it turned itself on. The camera at that point was fairly straightforward. But the built-in microphone was a nightmare. Kept shutting itself off while my daughter doing google meets for school. After days of troubleshooting, the final solution that actually worked was installing a plugin for chrome called "disable automatic gain control". But I kept thinking I'd fixed it other ways before that, first just turning up the slider in pavu control, then later editing pulseaudio config files based on advice found online, etc. Everything seemed to work at first, but the google meet would eventually turn down the mic below zero (and thus shut it off completely) until I installed that chrome plugin.

But today in the middle of the day it just disappeared, camera and mic. Rebooting didnt bring it back, although there was some USB port error thing as the very first message from kernel or boot or whatever. Power cycle actually fixed it for today's meeting (which is still in progress.... hopefully will make it thru the end of the day without another glitch).