Facetime says "No Camera Available"

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Level 1

8 points

Facetime says "No Camera Available"

Hi There,

my FaceTime regularely says that there were no camera available. I know that resetting nvram solves the problem but when I'm working and I have a question to the current topic Im not in the mood to reboot and since Windows 95 is long gone. When my Linux box does something like that (can't remember when the last time was) I reloaded the driver. Is it possible to do that on OSX? The problem occurs every second or third time I use facetime so it is extremely annoying. Connection my logitech USB camera works when I'm at home but I don't see the point to have an internal camera when it doesn't work most of the time.

I dont think it is a hardware problem because I had the same problem with my MacBook Air before as I have it with the MacBook Pro Retina now. It also didn't occur under Linux on the MacBook Air.

Regards

b

Posted on Apr 16, 2015 8:41 AM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 11:06 AM in response to bitnapper

Have you installed any third-party software that uses the camera or modifies the way it works?

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Answer 2

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 16, 2015 11:46 AM in response to Linc Davis

I have third party apps which can't access the facetime camera when facetime can't as well while they can access the usb camera. The facetime camera also doesn't appear then in when I list all usb devices.

I wrote that resetting nvram does resolve the problem which isn't exactly true. A normal reboot does the trick, then both cameras work for a while.

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 12:03 PM in response to bitnapper

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take an action that isn't working the way you expect. Select any lines that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name or email address, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

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Answer 4

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 16, 2015 12:46 PM in response to Linc Davis

2015-04-16 21:42:31,805 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform. 2015-04-16 21:42:32,614 FaceTime[26233]: Invalid uniqueId: xxx@me.com 2015-04-16 21:42:32,639 FaceTime[26233]: Invalid uniqueId: xxx@icloud.com 2015-04-16 21:42:32,953 com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform. 2015-04-16 21:42:33,246 logind[100]: -[SessionManager getClient:withRole:inAuditSession:]:241: ERROR: No session dictionary for audit session 100252 2015-04-16 21:42:33,246 logind[100]: _SMGetSessionAgent:73: ERROR: __SMGetClientForAuditSessionAgent failed 2 2015-04-16 21:42:33,246 IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent[26237]: SACShieldWindowShowing:925: ERROR: NULL response 2015-04-16 21:42:39,021 IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent[26237]: [Warning] Denying xpc connection, task does not have entitlement: com.apple.private.imcore.imremoteurlconnection ((null):26233) 2015-04-16 21:42:39,021 IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent[26237]: [Warning] Denying xpc connection, task does not have entitlement: com.apple.private.imcore.imremoteurlconnection ((null):26233) 2015-04-16 21:42:39,021 IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent[26237]: [Warning] Denying xpc connection, task does not have entitlement: com.apple.private.imcore.imremoteurlconnection ((null):26233)

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 12:56 PM in response to bitnapper

You wrote that you had tried resetting the NVRAM. Is that really what you meant, or did you mean that you reset the SMC (which is unrelated)? If you have not reset the SMC, please do that now.

Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 6

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 16, 2015 1:00 PM in response to Linc Davis

A few times when the problem occurred I called the support. They told me to reset the nvram and what I had to do to reset it. After that it worked again. After the next occurrence I restarted and forgot to reset it and the camera worked. Since that I haven't resetted the nvram again. Since that I just reboot my mac and then the camera works again. Still this is extremely annoying.

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Answer 7

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 1:06 PM in response to bitnapper

If you have problems with the camera again, I suggest you reset the SMC, not the NVRAM.

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Answer 8

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 16, 2015 1:17 PM in response to Linc Davis

So instead of rebooting and resetting the nvram (which worked) or just rebooting you say I shall reboot and reset the SMC? I'm very anxious to see if that reduces the occurrences of that problem. Hope you don't feel offended reding this but I don't really see that this will be much different then rebooting when this problem occurs. But still, thank you very much. I will watch it and report if it has any effect.

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Answer 9

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Apr 16, 2015 3:35 PM in response to bitnapper

How to Troubleshoot iSight - Apple Support

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Answer 10

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2015 4:35 AM in response to Linc Davis

This has no effect. I still have to restart to get it working again. And whether resetting SMC nor NVRAM seem to prolong the time till the camera breaks again. Back to my original question: Is there a way to completely unload and then reload the drive as every other OS has? Restarting OSX everytime I want to use FaceTime is extremely uncomfortable.

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Answer 11

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2015 4:52 AM in response to bitnapper

I found a blog which was discussing that topic (to be honest I found plenty but none of them seemed to have a solution). This one suggested restarting the AppleCameraAssistant and VDCAssistant but that did not work. Although just logging out and in again does the trick but it's just as unconvinient as rebooting since this occurs on a very regular basis. But if this helps there must be a service or driver which gets restarted/reloaded. Anyone who know which one it is?

On Linux I just had to reload the uvc driver.

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Answer 12

bitnapper Author

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2015 3:15 AM in response to bitnapper

And again. Started a bigger upload today which is still not finished for several hours. The camera doesn't work again today, yesterday it did. Now I can either kill the upload, reboot and later start the upload all over from the beginning or wait till I can reboot my Mac.

Can anyone PLEASE tell me how to reload this crappy driver that I don't have to reboot my Mac every few hours to use that camera? Or do I really have to carry my logitech usb camera with me everytime?

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