This situation happened to me last week—I needed to handle users without media devices on their system. Reproducing the issue on my laptop was somewhat difficult, but with the commands at the end of this entry, it becomes an easy task.
This JavaScript code is used to access user media. We pass constraints to request audio and video, then hope for the best! The user might deny permissions, or their machine might not have the required media devices.
window.navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia({
audio: true,
video: true,
}).then(c => console.log(c)).catch(e => console.error(e));When everything works as expected and the user grants the required permissions, we get:
// MediaStream {id: '4c211238-5cf2-4996-92af-27ac99728d98', active: true, onaddtrack: null, onremovetrack: null, onactive: null, …}
But sometimes, the user may not have the required media devices.
// NotFoundError: Requested device not found
If we want to replicate this situation and trigger the error, we can use the following commands to disable our input devices:
# Remove video device
sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo
# Audio
# First, We need to know the audio modules on our system
cat /proc/asound/modules
# -> 0 snd_hda_intel
# -> 1 snd_soc_skl_hda_dsp
# Second, We stop pipewire, this is important for the third step
systemctl --user stop pipewire.socket
# Third, Remove audio modules (replace if required)
sudo modprobe -rf snd_hda_intel
sudo modprobe -rf snd_soc_skl_hda_dspThese commands were tested on Kubuntu 24.04.1.