Mi JETSON NANO DEVELOPER KIT - CSI Cams aren't working

Hello NVIDIA community,

I’m having trouble with two Jetson Nano P3450 boards (model B01):

  1. Board #1:
    After my project “crashed” in a parking lot, the module header (carrier jumper) no longer works.
  2. Board #2:
    This one is second-hand and looks fine externally, but it refuses to detect any CSI camera. I’ve tried:
  • Three IMX219 camera modules (two of them brand-new)
  • Three brand-new CSI ribbon cables
    on both CSI ports—none are recognized.

My troubleshooting steps so far:

v4l2-ctl --list-devices
sudo i2cdetect -y 6
sudo i2cdetect -y 7

All commands ran without output.

It seems the issue is with the board hardware again. Has anyone encountered something similar or can suggest repair options?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Don’t understand what going on for the board 1

Do you check the kernel message for the board 2

dmesg | grep -i imx219

Hi Shane,

I’m continuing my efforts to get a Sony IMX219 (Raspberry Pi Camera V2) working on the Jetson Nano P3450 (L4T R32.7.1). Below is a consolidated and updated log of everything I’ve tried, including my latest findings from dmesg.

1) Camera driver is present but I²C probe times out

After deploying my Device-Tree overlay and enabling the CSI port, the IMX219 driver (tegracam_v2.0.6) does load:

$ dmesg | grep -i tegracam
[   1.804819] imx219 7-0010: tegracam sensor driver:imx219_v2.0.6
[   1.840987] imx219 8-0010: tegracam sensor driver:imx219_v2.0.6

$ dmesg | grep -i imx219
[   1.828247] imx219 7-0010: imx219_board_setup: error during i2c read probe (-121)
[   1.835915] imx219 7-0010: board setup failed
[   1.840377] imx219 8-0010: probe of 8-0010 failed with error -121
[   1.864373] imx219 8-0010: imx219_board_setup: error during i2c read probe (-121)
  • Error -121 (ETIMEDOUT) confirms that no ACK is received when the driver attempts its initial I²C read.
  • This happens on both i2c-6 (channel 1) and i2c-7 (channel 0).

2) Steps performed so far

2.1 Verified no /dev/video0 and empty I²C buses:

v4l2-ctl --list-devices           # no video devices
i2cdetect -l                      # I²C adapters present
sudo i2cdetect -y 6               # all “–” (no devices)
sudo i2cdetect -y 7               # all “–”

2.2 Checked kernel config/modules – IMX219 support wasn’t in-tree:

lsmod | grep -E ‘imx|tegracam|v4l2’
modinfo imx219 # module not found
zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -i VIDEO_IMX219 # no entry

2.3. Installed L4T headers & unpacked source BSP (R32.7.1), then built and installed camera-imx219.ko as a module. No effect.

2.4. Compiled & deployed a Device-Tree overlay for IMX219:

cd .../kernel-dts
dtc -I dts -O dtb \
    -o tegra210-p3448-common-imx219.dtbo \
    tegra210-p3448-common-imx219.dts

sudo cp tegra210-p3448-common-imx219.dtbo /boot/dtb/overlays/

Added to /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf under LABEL JetsonIO:

FDTOVERLAYS /boot/dtb/overlays/tegra210-p3448-common-imx219.dtbo
  • Rebooted, but I²C still empty and no /dev/video0.

2.5 Ran jetson-io.pyto enable CSI connector “IMX219”, rebooted—still no I²C traffic.

3) Observations & current hypothesis

  • The carrier board headers are broken (checked with a multimeter and voltage is OK) - could be something else?
  • The IMX219 driver is present and is binding to the two possible I²C addresses, but all I²C reads time out, so the sensor never gets initialized.
  • The fact that /sys/firmware/fdt/overlays does not exist is expected on Jetson (dynamic overlays aren’t exposed), so I can’t verify overlays there.
  • I suspect a missing pinmux or I²C-mux configuration in the upstream P3450 BSP: the CSI clock and data lanes may be enabled, but the associated I²C port isn’t being switched through the Tegra I²C-mux.

4) Additional diagnostic commands

Please let me know if any of these yield useful hints:

# Check applied DTB and overlay in logs:
dmesg | grep -i dtbo
dmesg | grep -i tegra-fuse

# Dump live Device-Tree and search for imx219 node:
sudo dtc -I fs -O dts /sys/firmware/devicetree/base > live.dts
grep -R "imx219" live.dts

# Probe alternate CSI channels:
sudo i2cdetect -y 0
sudo i2cdetect -y 1

# Check I²C-mux logs:
dmesg | grep -i tegra_i2c
dmesg | grep -i pinctrl

Thanks in advance for any guidance or pointers you can share!

– Rod

The i2c failed ack that could be HW problem.

Thanks Shane for your help. Is there anyway to trouble shoot HW issues? :(

Maybe probe the i2c signal and check the sensor power/reset/standby status.

1 Like

By any chance, could you guide me through? Thanks!

Please check with your HW engineer.

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