Video camera icon on status bar

Question

Level 1

8 points

Video camera icon on status bar

Hello there, I got a new icon in the status bar which I can't explain nor remove from its place (CMD+ dragging away from the status bar doesn't work). If I click on it, all options are greyed out except the "Pause" option, which doesn't really help that much. Here is a screenshot, keep an eye on "Meet - orp-tigx-khr":

I checked the "login items" list to see if there was something running at startup related to this icon, but it was empty. I tried to look for any uninstaller on my Mac and checked them one by one to see if I could recognize any "weird" folder or browser extension, but everything seemed ok to me.

Anyway, the icon appeared after I accepted a Google calendar meeting invitation, you can actually see the "orp-tigx-khr" here in the invitation link as well:

I think this is a good clue to start from, but I couldn't find anything in Chrome to get rid of the icon. Maybe it's just a bug, who knows.

I came across a thread describing the same problem back in November 2019, but the only answer provided didn't solve the problem that many other users and I are experiencing (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250851380).

I'm not a master of Mac OS, that's why I'm asking for help to the community. I'm sure there are other ways to solve this matter. Thanks in advance for all the support and time you will take to help me.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 11, 2020 1:40 PM

Reply

Answer 1

leroydouglas

Level 10

199,494 points

Mar 12, 2020 5:25 AM in response to UltrAntares

UltrAntares wrote:

Hello there, I got a new icon

Anyway, the icon appeared after I accepted a Google calendar meeting invitation,

I couldn't find anything in Chrome to get rid of the icon. Maybe it's just a bug, who knows.

I'm not a master of Mac OS, that's why I'm asking for help to the community. I'm sure there are other ways to solve this matter.

You can try by deleting the folder:

~/Library/Application Support/Google

From the Finder>Go>Go To Folder> copy and paste:

 ~/Library/Application Support/

delete the Google folder.

Go to the source and ask for Support from the third party vendor—if you are having issues with there software and persistent icon stuck in your menu bar: Google Chrome Help - Google Support

---------------------------------------

I would not touch Chrome with a ten foot stick, let alone install it on my computer OS—

get rid of Chrome, and any other app Google writes. Spying is essentially what com.google.keystone.agent.plist and com.google.keystone.xpcservice.plist in the Launch Agents folder are doing.

the daemons run the entire time your computer is on, whether you have Chrome running or not.

Their function is to constantly send anonymized data of everything you do on your computer to Google's servers. Google/Chrome real function is not being a web search engine/browser. It's to gather marketing information they sell to businesses.

------------------------------------------------

I use a light weight application to monitor all video/microphone connections—visible or invisible in the menu bar.

OverSight - Objective-See

Reply

Answer 2

UltrAntares Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 12, 2020 4:52 AM in response to D.I. Johnson

Thanks D.I. Johnson. I followed your advice, you were right, but any working solution I found about Hangouts applies to older versions of Chrome. The latest version of the Google browser doesn't list Hangouts as an extension, so it's not possible to disable or uninstall it. I was getting ready to reinstall Chrome from scratch, but after poking around in the preferences of my Chrome installation, I found the settings related to granting access to the camera, so Preferences > Privacy and Security > Site Settings > Camera.

Then I removed the websites https://meet.google.com:443 and https://hangouts.google.com:443 and restarted my Mac. This change in the settings seemed to work for me, hopefully it will help other users with the same problem.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 11, 2020 2:06 PM in response to UltrAntares

Hello UltrAntares.

Google Meet is video conferencing software, part of the Hangouts stuff. I can't tell you if it is part of the Chrome installation, but it's Google's software. If you do a web search for it I'm sure you can find all sorts of fun facts about it, including how to disable and uninstall it properly.

Reply