If you have trouble connecting to your Kinect device, for example, if KinectUtil or RawKinectViewer keep terminating with an error similar to the following one:

terminate called after throwing an instance of ‘std::runtime_error’
what(): Kinect::Camera::Camera: Less than 0 Kinect camera devices detected
Aborted
then your PC might have a bad USB host controller.

First, check if your Kinect is plugged into a USB 3.0 or a USB 2.0 port. From a terminal, run lsusb and look for a line like the following:

Bus 001 Device 014: ID 045e:02ae Microsoft Corp. Xbox NUI Camera

Instead of “NUI Camera,” you might get “NUI Audio” or “NUI Motor,” and the bus and device numbers depend on your local setup. Note down the bus number you see, and then look for a line indicating a root hub with the same bus number, and device number 1, in the output from lsusb. In my case:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

This indicates that my Kinect is plugged into a USB 2.0 bus. For USB 3.0, you would see:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

If your Kinect is on USB 3.0, try plugging it into a USB 2.0 port. Confirm via the above method that the port you found really is USB 2.0.

If your PC does not have USB 2.0 ports, of if the problem persists even on USB 2.0, you will have to buy and install a PCI express USB 3.0 extension card. I have successfully been using this no-name card, for USD 11.30 plus shipping, to run multiple Kinects at the same time.

The important thing to look out for is that the USB extension card is based on a USB controller chip from NEC or Renesas Technology Corp., chip models “uDP720200″ or “uDP720202” or similar. When installing the card, you must connect the power plug on the back of the card to your PC’s power supply unit.

If you want to find out the chip type of your current USB 3.0 host controller, run the following from a terminal:

lspci | grep “USB 3.0”

In my case, the output is:

06:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720202 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 02)