Jetson Orin Nx Seeed Studio Version freeze and reboot when a usb cam is used

Robotics & Edge Computing Robotics - Isaac Isaac ROS
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1

Hello NVIDIA team and community,

I am facing a persistent and reproducible hard-freeze issue on Jetson Orin NX
when using USB UVC cameras. I am posting this after extensive debugging,
multiple camera tests, and trying different software stacks.

I would really appreciate guidance or confirmation if this is a known kernel / USB issue.

HARDWARE

• Jetson Orin NX (16GB)
• JetPack 6.2 (Ubuntu 22.04, kernel 5.15.x)
• Power mode: MAX / 25W
• Cameras tested:

  • Mi USB Webcam HD
  • Logitech USB webcam (UVC compliant)

SOFTWARE STACK

• ROS 2 Humble
• Tested nodes:

  • usb_cam
  • v4l2_camera
    • Also tested without ROS using:
  • GStreamer (gst-launch)
    • No OpenCV GUI (cv2.imshow removed)
    • Visualization moved to external laptop where applicable

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

The Jetson Orin NX hard-freezes (complete system lockup):
• Keyboard stops responding
• SSH disconnects
• No kernel panic or error shown
• Only recovery is power cycle

The freeze happens:
• Even WITHOUT my main application
• Even with simple camera nodes only
• Sometimes after a few seconds, sometimes after a few minutes

This is NOT an application crash — the entire OS freezes.

TESTS PERFORMED

  1. Camera works fine when opened alone using simple tools.
  2. Freeze happens when:
    • usb_cam or v4l2_camera is running
    • or GStreamer pipeline runs for some time
  3. Tried multiple formats:
    • YUYV (raw)
    • MJPEG / raw_mjpeg
  4. Reduced resolution and FPS:
    • 640x480 @ 15 FPS
  5. Increased power mode to 25W
  6. Removed GUI usage completely
  7. Tested with different USB cameras
  8. Tested with and without ROS2

Result: System still freezes.

OBSERVATIONS

• Camera opens successfully every time
• Streaming starts normally
• Freeze occurs later (non-deterministic)
• No ROS error, no application error
• No clear dmesg output after reboot
• Looks like kernel-level deadlock (possibly uvcvideo / USB DMA / IOMMU)

4

Hi,
Please follow the steps without ROS installation and check if you can see camera preview:
Jetson AGX Orin FAQ

Would like to confirm the USB camera works fine without ROS. Please give it a try.

5

I tested the USB camera without ROS as suggested.

Tests performed:

  1. v4l2-ctl --device=/dev/video0 --stream-mmap
  2. gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! xvimagesink
  3. gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! videoconvert ! fpsdisplaysink sync=false
  4. gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! jpegdec ! videoconvert ! xvimagesink

Results:
• Stable ~30 FPS
• No system freeze
• Pipelines run for minutes
• Clean exit on Ctrl+C
• No ROS running during tests

Conclusion:
USB camera works fine on Jetson Orin NX without ROS.
System freeze only happens when ROS2 camera nodes are running

6

I have figured out the issue it is the Realtek Wifi which is consuming more power and freezing the jetson. i have added intel AX200NGW wifi card in the m2 slot and removed the usb wifi and now it works good

7

Glad to hear it’s working now!