Goes without saying. Linux is just another way of saying ‘friends’ 
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So true.
It was a joke….. 
I was going to say
I used to have a friend but it cost me too much. Or last one I had I cut his head off and mounted it on the wall,(think like hunting) but those type of jokes require a strange mentality only available in Yorkshire and take some explanation so abandoned that.
Yes we come here to help fellow Linux users and build a warm friendly relationship between us all.
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I wonder is it a usb power supply issue?
@Brunoman … could you get an independently powerd usb hub and connect the camera +microphone to that, so that it is independdntly powered. Also connect hub to computer, of course.
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Never heard of these but guess they would be more expensive than buying a different web cam or seperate microphone
No, hubs are cheap. Good idea for things like disks that use a bit of power. Not sure if a camera draws much power?
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It depends on the make and model which again depends on the resolution used. In principal enough from a usb. Connection. But your idea if a powered hub may help, just found a few on amazon and yes they are cheap. Never needed or used one. Normally my external drives have seperate power supplies so no call for one
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Neville,
The lack of power can cause electrical problems and, hypothetically, could cause some problems in the microphone circuit, but care was taken to disconnect all USB peripherals that were connected to the PC in order to test only the camera. As far as I know, only the mouse and keyboard were left connected.
On the other hand, two completely different circuits were tested: USB2 and USB3.
Bruno can say whether the test he did with Windows was on this PC, because Bruno tested the camera and it works.
According to Bruno, the camera used to work on LMDE7, but then it stopped working.
To quote Alfred, we are all friends here, which is the essence of the forum. 
Jorge
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Sorry for the delay, it’s just before 4:00 am here.
I used the same machine for the windows test and all the same peripherals were connected. (printer, webcam and keyboard/mouse dongle)
The webcam uses so little power it is negligible, and I tested audio with video on and off but get no response whatsoever.
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Then the problem has to be software.
Can we remove pipewire and go back to pulseaudio?
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Did an autoremove pipewire and now running on Pulse
Opened cheese and video OK, but mic input on Sound Settings still no response
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For my money its hardware but would love to be proved wrong, had a couple of usb câbles go faulty on me over the last few weeks after being plugged and unplugged finally just to die.
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Hi,
Just an update.
This is my current opinion on the matter:
ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
From what I’ve read, ALSA is part of the kernel.
The arecord -l command can list all available recording devices, cards and device numbers.
In my case, my webcam card is 1 and the device is 0.
Check in alsamixer that the microphone is not muted and set the volume to maximum, then run the command arecord -vv --device=plughw:1,0 --format=dat /dev/null there should be audio in the VU meters, for example:
From what I’ve been able to ascertain, if there is no audio, it’s either hardware or kernel related.
Jorge
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I still think software.
There is just a chance it could be a permissions issue.
In linux permissions are normally handled by what groups a user belongs to .
So @Brunoman … could you please check that your user is in the ‘audio’ group. … you can do this easily by looking at the file /etc/group.
If not you can add yourself to the audio group with
sudo usermod -a -G audio your_username
Just a thought. I dont know what Mint does, but some distros do not look after group entries automatically.
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checked, brian is in audio group.
still silent mic
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OK. @Brunoman ,
I think , following @Tech_JA , that we need to look at trying a different kernel.
Does Mint allow installing other kernels?
if not, find another distro with an uptodate kernel… ie a rolling release like Artix, Void, Solus… You can try it from a live usb… no need to install to your disk.
We just want to see if changing kernel is a fix? If it works we can find something more convenient.
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How to Install and Try Various Linux Kernels in Linux Mint .
But for a test using the usb ventoy I would prefer to try a different Linux version puppy or non debian base. This would leave the system alone do safer bet
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@Brunoman needs to try a very new kernel … if it is a kernel problem it will be a version issue with some component of the kernel or a kernel config setting. The latest version is the best bet.
Another option would be a very old kernel ( eg 5.10) but that might not support pipewire..
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If this was the case the help pages would be flooded with similar issues not just one.
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Ventoy has been working overtime, tried a few different distros with the same result. I think this is forcing me to get a new webcam, or at least a free-standing mic. Thank you all again for trying, think we are flogging a ‘dead horse’ 
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That took me back to management days and running training courses for others
Tribal wisdom
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