User profile for user: deejerydoo
deejerydoo Author
User level: Level 1
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FaceTime "No Camera Available" on Macbook in clamshell mode/docked "Groundhog Day"...

Reopening an issue I've had to open on previous major OS updates from Apple that have brought this bug back into existence. Kinda like saying Beetlejuice three times when updating macOS...


Previous post that linked to the previous post: Camera not detected bug still in FaceTim… - Apple Community


This is something that has both dogged and annoyed me for several major releases of macOS. I have had Macbook Pros and Mac Minis for a number of years, running in clamshell mode (Mac Minis, simply without a camera). I use FaceTime Continuity iPhone Cellular Calling, daily, in my business. Apple states it supports FaceTime for making and receiving either audio or video calls, in its own documentation. It also gives the availability of a camera as a prerequisite only if you want to make/receive video calls.

Further details on system requirements, here: https://support.apple.com/e... and here: https://support.apple.com/e...

However, over at least the last five years, following each update to the newest major release of macOS, I have lost the ability to use FaceTime because it tells me "No Camera Available. To use FaceTime, turn on the camera." Then, normally after months of living with this (undocking the laptop and opening it, or grabbing a webcam and plugging it in, so FaceTime can detect the camera and start working, each time I launch it), Apple seems to fix the issue and FaceTime works happily, without needing to detect the camera. But only until the next major update.

When I moved to Big Sur, I was having to do the workaround, opening the laptop lid, until Apple released an update (couldn't tell you which one), after which FaceTime worked without complaint. I recently moved to Monterey, 21.1 and I'm back with FaceTime complaining about no camera.

With all the major software producers slashing budgets, normally starting with QA, we are all doomed to a Groundhog Day existence of needless software bugs reappearing, as this is clearly an example of.

Posted on Feb 22, 2022 8:21 PM

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User profile for user: deejerydoo
deejerydoo Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

Posted on Feb 23, 2022 4:15 PM

Hi Eric,


Thanks for the sage advice. However, that would be pointless as I have opened a support case with Apple each time this has happened in the past. Each time we go through the same process:

  1. Apple support gets me to do all the usual escalating severity troubleshooting steps, all to no effect:
    1. Safe mode test
    2. Reset PRAM
    3. Reset SMC
    4. Reinstall OS
  2. Apple support say FaceTime is designed to work with a camera, at which point I point them to their above mentioned documentation (that appears to have now been replaced by even more vague documentation that still doesn't say a camera is a prerequisite for FaceTime, that can be found here Set up your iPhone and FaceTime on Mac for phone calls – Apple Support (AU)) that confirms this is incorrect and having a camera has only ever been an option required for video calling in FaceTime and the only prerequisites are audio in and out. This is their own documented specification!
  3. Apple support say they'll escalate to engineering.
  4. Apple support say engineering have told them this behaviour is "by design".


At some point it seems to settle down, after an unspecified number of minor updates to the OS.


THIS IS CLEARLY A BUG that keeps on reappearing in the OS that Apple seems incapable of fixing and whatever workaround they have done is unreliable.


I have been doing some further testing on this and the results are consistent and conclusive. THIS IS A BUG whereby FaceTime, on initial start up is checking for the presence of a camera. On detecting that there is no camera it fails to operate, contravening Apple's own specifications for the application. However, FaceTime does seem to be forced to ignore this bug and commence normal operations when a call is made, for example by going to contacts or Messages and initiating a call from there, or receiving a call.


As I have already said, Apple's approach to software design and QA has declined spectacularly over the last decade or more and we are doomed to this Groundhog Day of being haunted by pointless little bugs that may sound insignificant but when combined with all the other little bugs and "undocumented features" (such as the immovable object that is the FaceTime call status window, contravening decades old tenets of windowed GUI design) they all add up to a thousand papercuts causing the product to bleed out and eventually die.

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User profile for user: deejerydoo
deejerydoo Author
User level: Level 1
24 points

Feb 23, 2022 4:15 PM in response to Eric--F

Hi Eric,


Thanks for the sage advice. However, that would be pointless as I have opened a support case with Apple each time this has happened in the past. Each time we go through the same process:

  1. Apple support gets me to do all the usual escalating severity troubleshooting steps, all to no effect:
    1. Safe mode test
    2. Reset PRAM
    3. Reset SMC
    4. Reinstall OS
  2. Apple support say FaceTime is designed to work with a camera, at which point I point them to their above mentioned documentation (that appears to have now been replaced by even more vague documentation that still doesn't say a camera is a prerequisite for FaceTime, that can be found here Set up your iPhone and FaceTime on Mac for phone calls – Apple Support (AU)) that confirms this is incorrect and having a camera has only ever been an option required for video calling in FaceTime and the only prerequisites are audio in and out. This is their own documented specification!
  3. Apple support say they'll escalate to engineering.
  4. Apple support say engineering have told them this behaviour is "by design".


At some point it seems to settle down, after an unspecified number of minor updates to the OS.


THIS IS CLEARLY A BUG that keeps on reappearing in the OS that Apple seems incapable of fixing and whatever workaround they have done is unreliable.


I have been doing some further testing on this and the results are consistent and conclusive. THIS IS A BUG whereby FaceTime, on initial start up is checking for the presence of a camera. On detecting that there is no camera it fails to operate, contravening Apple's own specifications for the application. However, FaceTime does seem to be forced to ignore this bug and commence normal operations when a call is made, for example by going to contacts or Messages and initiating a call from there, or receiving a call.


As I have already said, Apple's approach to software design and QA has declined spectacularly over the last decade or more and we are doomed to this Groundhog Day of being haunted by pointless little bugs that may sound insignificant but when combined with all the other little bugs and "undocumented features" (such as the immovable object that is the FaceTime call status window, contravening decades old tenets of windowed GUI design) they all add up to a thousand papercuts causing the product to bleed out and eventually die.

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FaceTime "No Camera Available" on Macbook in clamshell mode/docked "Groundhog Day"...

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