- So if you're using a device to cover the camera on your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, we can't say we blame you, but you might want to be careful with what you use and how you handle it to avoid.
- About three days ago, whenever I try to use Google Meet with my class on my MacBook Air, it inevitably crashes. The camera stays frozen, and will not shut off, even if I completely close down Chrome. The camera is effect afterwards - just a green screen when I tried getting into Photobooth to check out why the camera light was still on.
Are you about to make a FaceTime call but the camera on your Mac is not working? I have highlighted 5 ways you can use to fix the FaceTime HD camera problem. Here are the quick tips for dealing with the issue when you get the prompt 'There is no connected camera' on your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
Apple added a big new feature to the latest model MacBook Pro. The Touch Bar is an OLED panel that sits at the top of the keyboard and replaces the row of function keys. It is contextual, meaning what appears on the panel will change, depending on what app you are currently using.
Before delving into the solutions though, here is something you need to know. Besides hardware challenges, problems affecting the webcam or camera arise when multiple processes what to use the same camera. As such, when a process using the FaceTime camera fails to terminate properly, it is bound to hog resources from the next application that wants to access the camera.
Now, the solutions.
When faced with the FaceTime no camera available on MacBook, the easiest fix to try is restarting your mac. The reboot will terminate all running processes and give you a clean slate to start with. However, if your FaceTime call is in a few minutes, you will have to try other quick fixes.
2. Quit Camera Apps
Quickly close apps that are associated with using the camera. For this fix, use the Activity Monitor App.
- Go to the /Applications/Utilities folder and launch the Activity Monitor App.
- Click on the 'Process Name' on the top left column to list the applications alphabetically.
- Click on 'VDC Assistant' then on the 'X' icon on the top left to close the app.
When a camera app is launched, it initiates the VDCAssistant process hence the reason you need to close it to allow FaceTime take over the camera resources.
An upgrade to the latest mac OS can cause your MacBook pro webcam not to work. Try the following steps for checking whether the camera works well or has other unrelated problems.
Log into another FaceTime account and test the built-in camera. This step will help you know if the camera isn't working because of a user-specific issue or not.
Try using PhotoBooth or iChat to confirm whether the camera not working on FaceTime is application-specific.
4. Solve the FaceTime not Connected in Display Problem
Log into another FaceTime account and test the built-in camera. This step will help you know if the camera isn't working because of a user-specific issue or not.
Try using PhotoBooth or iChat to confirm whether the camera not working on FaceTime is application-specific.
4. Solve the FaceTime not Connected in Display Problem
In some cases, the problem you'd facing is FaceTime HD camera not working on your MacBook Air. Fixing this issue is easy, although you have to do it manually.
- Launch FaceTime on your MacBook pro or MacBook Air.
- Go to Menu > Video, then choose 'FaceTime HD Camera (Display)'
That's it.
5. Stop VDC Assistant Using a Command Line on the Terminal
Save the best for last. This last fix will solve the majority of your FaceTime camera issues. And it's easy to follow and takes a very short time to execute.
VDCAssistant is a background process (daemon) that controls the functionality of the built-in iSight camera on the Mac OS. If your camera is not working on a Mac Pro or Air, this is one of those processes you should check first.
Enable Camera On Mac
- Close all applications that are using the camera on your MacBook (Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts).
- Go to Launchpad > Terminal
- Enter the following command: sudo killall VDCAssistant
- Enter your login password when prompted
- Then type the following command: sudo killall AppleCameraAssistant
- When done, launch FaceTime and the camera should work.
Those are the solutions to problems affecting your FaceTime camera. These solutions will also work when iSight cannot connect to Photobooth. Let us know if you managed to fix your FaceTime.
Apple continuously improves the iPhone's front-facing camera, but the company's laptop webcams seem frozen in time, somewhere deep in the last decade. The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern made a video comparing the webcam in the just-released MacBook Air against webcams in the Dell XPS 13, the Google Pixelbook Go, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3, and her elderly 2010 MacBook Pro. The Surface Laptop 3 and especially the Pixelbook Go easily bested the MacBook Air, with the XPS 13 bringing up the rear. Even the 2010 MacBook Pro's 1280-by-1024 iSight camera performed better than the 2020 MacBook Air's 720p FaceTime HD camera (1280-by-720 resolution) in some circumstances. None of them hold a candle to an iPhone 11's front-facing TrueDepth camera, which provides a whopping 12 megapixels of resolution and can record 4K video at 60 frames per second.
How To Access Camera On Macbook Air
2d illustration software. Why are laptop webcams still so bad? Laptop lids are much thinner than most phones and tablets, people don't tend to take selfies with a laptop, and hardware designers may assume that anyone who really cares will attach an external webcam. But with so many people now working and socializing via videoconferencing due to COVID-19 precautions and stay-at-home orders, we hope Apple improves its webcams for future laptop models. Besides, how are we going to get Face ID in a laptop without a TrueDepth camera system?
