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FaceTime camera isn't working with yosemite 10.10 (macbook air)

I'm participating of Yosemite Beta since July, and I have experienced some issues with my mac since then. But, after updating my computer yesterday, the FaceTime camera isn't working anymore. When I use softwares like FaceTime, PhotoBooth or Skype the light goes on, but the is just black.

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 18, 2014 2:02 AM

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Posted on Oct 18, 2014 6:31 AM

The first time I opened FT after upgrading to Yosemite, my camera just appeared black on my screen. I restarted the app and it fixed itself. However I did a completely clean install of Yosemite. Did you have anything installed on Mavericks that affected the camera?

51 replies

Nov 20, 2014 10:30 AM in response to michaelfromlippetal

Just solved this on one of my co-worker's MacBook Pros. Not 100% sure how, but the one thing I did to troubleshoot it was to create a new user account and log into it. I created the new user account and then did a restart. I logged into the new account and the camera worked. I then logged out and back into the standard account and it still worked. I asked her if she had already tried a restart and said she did, so I don't think it was just the restart that did it.

Deleting the new user account didn't have any affect and it still works fine in all apps.

Give it a try to at least troubleshoot it as a hardware or software issue. If it fixes it, GREAT! Good luck.

Nov 20, 2014 2:27 PM in response to lellonibur

michaelfromlippetalNov 15, 2014 6:32 AM Re: FaceTime camera isn't working with yosemite 10.10 (macbook air)
Re: FaceTime camera isn't working with yosemite 10.10 (macbook air)in response to Oldconnaught

Same problem here with my Macbook Air Mid 2012...No camera detected in the system.


First opened a terminal and typed sudo killall VDCAssistant -> No matching processes were found. Didn't work.


After that I tried a PRAM reset which didn't work either. OS X Yosemite: Reset your computer’s PRAM


Any other ideas?



Worked a treat but for how long?

iMac 27" late 2013

Nov 21, 2014 3:31 AM in response to Scott Griswold

Adding the new user as per your instructions appears to have worked for me - at least, the camera has worked for longer than is has in months., l


It seems so obvious now... camera not working? just add a new user, log in as them, restart, log back in as them, then back out and in as yourself again... Can't believe I hadn't thought of that already


/s


I'll report back if anything changes - but thank you!

Nov 22, 2014 10:22 AM in response to iamnotmyusername

This proposed solution did NOT work for me: "camera not working? just add a new user, log in as them, restart, log back in as them, then back out and in as yourself again..."


The standard camera on my MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) (2.6 GHz Intel Core i7) works with Facetime, but the EXTERNAL camera still does not work for FaceTime since I upgraded to 10.10.1. The external camera does however work for all other services such Photobooth, and Skype - so it's clearly a bug.


User uploaded file

Nov 26, 2014 4:22 AM in response to Oldconnaught

Okay - the solution to trick my camera into working - outlined a few posts above - worked perfectly for a few days, then stopped working again. Repeating the process by creating yet another user account seems to have tricked it into working again, but I have no faith this will be a permanent solution now 😟


I'm confused by this comment though:

"The standard camera on my MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) (2.6 GHz Intel Core i7) works with Facetime, but the EXTERNAL camera still does not work for FaceTime since I upgraded to 10.10.1. The external camera does however work for all other services such Photobooth, and Skype - so it's clearly a bug."


Unless I'm missing something, this thread is about issues with the INTERNAL camera on Macbook Airs (see thread title). I think we might be talking about different issues here, so wanted to clarify - when you say "external" camera - is this one you are connecting via USB?

Nov 26, 2014 6:38 PM in response to Devinvs

What finally worked for me was to unplug the camera from the USB (I have a mac mini) and plug it back into a different slot (I tried plugging in and out of the same slot to no effect). This says to me that the camera needed an uninstall (removal) and re-install (or at least re-discovery). Now that it's working again, I can put it back into the original USB slot and it works fine.


Criminy - I guess I'm willing to concede my camera my be odd (it's a creative fairly standard webcam - works on linux and windoze flawlessly). I'll dig up "supported" camera for the mac mini somewhere. But y'all with builtin cameras - there's a bug here for certain.

Nov 28, 2014 2:30 AM in response to Oldconnaught

Facetime ducks all the audio and it *****. I can't listen to music while on FaceTime call. It was okay before Yosemite.. and maverick... This is a very serious problem. How could apple doesn't see this huh? Is it because they wanna reduce the number of people who use FaceTime? I'm so done with this man.. if anyone knows how to fix i would really appreciate the solution

Nov 28, 2014 7:48 AM in response to Pichapanipet

Pichapanipet wrote:


Facetime ducks all the audio and it *****. I can't listen to music while on FaceTime call. It was okay before Yosemite.. and maverick... This is a very serious problem. How could apple doesn't see this huh? Is it because they wanna reduce the number of people who use FaceTime? I'm so done with this man.. if anyone knows how to fix i would really appreciate the solution


All you do to fix is ***** could the audio setting huh in the ***** other unit.

FaceTime camera isn't working with yosemite 10.10 (macbook air)

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