I've got Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit and have installed the google video chat plugin. However webcam doesn't seem to work (black screen -- no video at all). For cheese it works but shows really bad (black and white kinda) image. Following some link I installed guvcview if I start it then image looks neat.

Any suggestions on how can it be fixed?

If it helps I've tried the solution:

$ sudo mv /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin.old
$ sudo gedit /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin

and putting following lines in:

#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin.old

OR

#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin.old

Cause I've both files. Finally

$sudo chmod +x /opt/google/talkplugin/GoogleTalkPlugin.old

I closed and reopened chrome then started gmail tried video call -- black screen :-/

Ok so today finally google+ provided me with trouble shoot link and advised me:

The plug-in won't install

If you're having trouble installing the plug-in, or are receiving a message asking you to reinstall it, you should check to make sure your configuration is right. To do so simply:

Check to make sure the Google Talk Plugin Video Accelerator and Google Talk NPAPI Plugin are enabled. If you're using Chrome you can

type about:plugins in your browser to display your plug-ins. Make sure you're not using Internet Explorer 64-bit (this is a browser version that is 64 bit as opposed to 32 bit). Ensure that you don't have any "click to run" extensions enabled.

If you're still experiencing this issue after checking your configuration you can follow these steps:

Refresh the browser page.
Close any running Google Talk plug-in processes.
Close all open and running browser processes.
Restart your computer.
Uninstall and then reinstall the plug-in.
Try a different browser such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

I looked in about:plugins for chrome and firefox: I don't have Google Talk NPAPI Plugin, does that matter? and I thought its installed with google talk plugin or no?