after weeks of trying everything including a fresh copy of Sonoma, safe boot, new account, reformat SSD, update Skype, nothing worked. Skype video kept dropping out after only a few seconds. FINALLY I figured it out. This was the most difficult debug ever since my first Mac SE in 1990. The problem was my favorite system viewer iStatistica Pro. I have been using it for years, great program. It has a feature called iStatistica monitor which advises you when something is amiss, like your SSD is full or temps are getting too hot. Never used it before. However, upon updating the main program it got booted into my system on startup. I forgot this occurred and never dawned on me to delete it. Finally I uninstalled it but still kept my iStatistica main program alive. Voila, that was the VILLAIN. Now Skype works as it should. None of the tech help on Apple or Skype could have suspected this to be the problem. A rare anomaly for sure. I am now a happy camper since Skype was a program I used for work. So, if anyone is using both iStatistica and Skype DO NOT boot the iStatistica monitor!!!
