Mac camera is not available for any application

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Level 1

11 points

Mac camera is not available for any application

Current social restrictions require use of integral camera, rarely used previously (so don't know how long this has been an issue).

The camera is not available on either FaceTime or PhotoBooth. In the latter, Camera tab confirms "No camera available".

Re-starting Mac has not resolved the issue.

I have tried the sudo killall methods but get message saying "No matching processes were found".

I would be grateful for any further advice, other than return Mac for repair as I need it for many other uses at the moment and so can't be without it.

Are external Apple iSight cameras still available? If so, would this be a compatible resolution?

Any help gratefully received; thanks in advance.

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 20, 2020 1:54 AM

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Answer 1

Sean Kinson Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 21, 2020 8:49 AM in response to lukecbarker

Hi Luke,

Thanks for your response.

I have followed your advice above and the system is not recognising the camera; you (and this check) have pretty much confirmed my suspicion that it is a hardware issue. I will therefore pursue alternative, external cameras and not waste any more effort trying to connect to the integral one.

Thanks once again; very much appreciated.

Warm regards,

Sean

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Answer 2

Apr 28, 2020 5:00 AM in response to lukecbarker

Hello Luke,

my iSight camera is recognized by the system but the problems are the following:

no image
sound ok but the mic can only be the iSight mic. I cannot use my earphone mic (sound in ok too here).

All in all, it works but it lacks the image.

Thanks in advance.

Have a good day,

Paolo

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Answer 3

Apr 21, 2020 8:35 AM in response to Sean Kinson

Hi Sean,

Go to About This Mac > System Information > Camera and see if the system is recognising the camera.

Sounds like a hardware issue if none of the native Apple apps can display the camera feed.

I have a FireWire iSight purchased from eBay which is working fine on Catalina 10.15.4. It requires a couple of adapters (in my case; Thunderbolt 2 > FireWire 800 and FireWire 800 > Firewire 400)

Just make sure any iSight you buy has the latest firmware (1.0.3) as since Leopard I isn't possible to update them.

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Mac camera is not available for any application

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