Posts Tagged ‘Camera’

Fix Mac OS X camera problems – Tell which application is using Mac OS X builtin Camera

Sunday, September 16th, 2018

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/macosx-check-what-process-is-using-camera-screenshot
It is a common problem on Mac OS X notebooks (MacBook Air , MacBook Proc)  with builtin Video Camera to have issues with Camera in Facetime, Skype and other applications which use it.

Considering that the Camera is physically working on the Mac (it did not burn etc.) and it stooped working suddenly (is not detected by Mac OS applications which support it), the most common cause for that is the fact that another application running on the system is using it.
With the spread of spyware and malware that can easily hit your computer by exploiting Javascript bugs in browser intepreter (Firefox, Chrome, Chrome) it is not impossible that your Mac PC got infected with a kind of WebCam spy software that keeps your Video Camera active all time.

Webcam spying is a real issue of today so to secure yourself partially you can place Oversight App to get notifications when an application starts using Mac's Webcam or audio.

Open Finder and run Terminal to check whether the Web Camera is used by some of the Mac running processes.

 

Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

 


macosx-utilities-terminal-osx-screenshot

 

 

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "AppleCamera"

 

You should see one or more results. If you don’t see any results, try running the following commands as well.
One of the below commands may be necessary if you’re using an older version of macOS.

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "iSight"

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "VDC"

 

If VDCAssistant process shows running kill it.
 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  killall -9 VDCAssistant

 

 

 

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/macosx-check-what-process-is-using-camera-screenshot

You can also check whether the Mac Camera is being detected by Mac OS with system_profiler command (this is Mac's equivalent of Linux's lspci / lsusb / lshw / dmidecode for more on the topic you can check my previous article Get hardware system info on Linux etc.)
 

/usr/sbin/system_profiler

 

 

   Type8Camera::12.781 system_profiler[1075:84585] Exception NSInvalidArgumentE
      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type8Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2002-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

    Type5Camera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type5Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2001-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserve

.

    Type4Camera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type4Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2001-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

    PTPCamera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA

How to fix problem with Skype No Video on MacBook Air with Mac OS X 10.8.6 / Mac OS X Repair OS file permissions with Disk Utility

Monday, December 9th, 2013

mac os x utilities disk utility reset Mac OSX file permissions to default
My girlfriend Svetlana has MacBook Air and just recently her skype Video calls stopped working once again after Mac OS X offered her to apply some update. Her notebook as of time of writting this post is running Mac OS X version 10.8.6. About 1 month and a halfago she was facing same Skype No VIdeo on Mac BookAri issues for how I fixed her No Video Skype issues back then check here. Initially I thought again the problem will be identical and to test if Web Camera hardware is detected on a hardware level by OS, I tried to check if it is displaying videoi FaceTime application. Last time there was no Video in Skype on her Mac Book Air  I remember clearly camera was detected on OS level and displaying well in Facetime, however this time even in facetime I couldn't see a capture of myself … As obviously problem was not in Skype Mac OS previous time fix of substituting AppleCamera.plugin with older version would not fix it. After some evaluation on problem and reading large number of posts on Apple support forums, I've came to the conclusion that it is possible the whole issues are faced by improper permissions applied by latest applied Mac OS update. In such cases people were recommending to Repair Mac OS Standard OS Files Permissions using an OS embedded tool called Disk Utility.
Disk Utility is an application that's built into OS X that can perform lots of useful and even scary actions.Sysadmins and advanced users seem to find frequent need of this handy tool but those newer to the Mac OS it is better to only use it after reading the docs and well realizing what exactly doing.

To Find / Open Disk Utility on Mac OS;

Launch Applications folder -> Utilities (folder), click the name of your startup disk, and select Repair Disk Permissions.

mac-oSX-applications-utilitilities-diskutility


Mac OS X 10.8.6 Disk Utility Repair Disk Permissions screenshot
As I can understand from other ports reverting Mac OS File permissions to their default can solve a number of strange issues with Mac OS.
After repairing Mac OS X basis OS file permissions and testing in FaceTime and Skype, Camera god detected and Video was working fine 🙂
Hope this little article helps someone to fix same issues, if so please drop a thank you comment 😉

Light, Camera, Action!

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

It was a pretty hot day. In the morning we discussed a lot about the idea to move one of the colocated servers from Netinfo to Evolink. Also I have moved www.bcc.bg from one machine to another did various other Job, plamenko come home and we uploaded some of his other videos, Damqncho called and was my guest for some time ( This guy is going to become a good man in Faith I’m sure). In 6:00 we had to go to the ex-calculation center and to sign for the Cisco Academy with Mitko but it happened that he had urgent work in Balchik so I have to go alone. I used Plamenko’s bike to go to the calculation center which was located at the end of the city (Riding bike is great !). I signed for Cisco and signed also Niki (Mitko’s brother) and Niki. So we are going to share the same Cisco class! :]. After that I went to Mitko’s home to explain to his brother about the cisco way of studying. Also I forgot to mention that Doncho, has given us all the material for the semestar on a cd, we are going to have 4 semesters for the first degree, each of the semestars is going to be something like 2 months or so, the practice is going to be in Saturday. Later I have met Alex and we drink beer together. Later I saw Lily for a while and we had a walk I met Galio ( A homeless boy :[), and bought him some food, later I realised that I have lost my wallet with some money I walked again the walk where I walked after I bought him food but I didn’t found it I get a little distressed but at the same time I was feeling very calm (unusual for such a situations ). I have put my hope God would give it back. First I suspected that Galio has stolen the wallet from me but I was wrong this boy respects me. I found Galio and asked him did he stole the money, he denied to be guilty and I trusted him because he was honest. He was very kind to me he came with me looking again over all the way where I have walked at last I suggested to look in the central park where we have drinked beer together with Alex, under the bench where we have seated Me and Galio found the Wallet. And we got really happy about this. I checked my wallet there was 22 lv in there. When we was still searching the wallet I promised to God that If we found the wallet I will give 10 lv. to for his kindness and concern about my problem. After I have found the wallet I have completed my promise. Galio walked with me up to my home. The End. The only think that I can say after all this is PRAISE THE LORD, BLESS HIS HOLY NAME OH HEAVENS AND EARTH AND ALL LIVING, AND OH MY SOUL BLESS THE LORD GOD! BLESSED BE OH LORD!!!! :] END—–

How to test if USB Camera is working with Cheese on GNU / Linux

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

I just bought an USB Camera (my notebook doesn't include an embedded camera). The camera is some infamous brand chineese name Eilondo
and on the camera all that is written is SUPER USB2.0 1.3 mega pixel

I bought exactly this camera because I was said by the shop reseller that the camera works without any driver installations on Windows XP and Windows Vista

On my Debian Squeeze GNU / Linux it was detected in dmesg without any troubles, here is how the camera got detected in my kernel log :

debian:~# dmesg |tail -n 10
[25385.734932] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, address 4
[25388.905049] usb 2-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
[25389.050753] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1e4e, idProduct=0102
[25389.050757] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[25389.050760] usb 2-1: Product: USB2.0 Camera
[25389.050762] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Etron Technology, Inc.
[25389.050936] usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[25389.056056] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB2.0 Camera (1e4e:0102)
[25389.058242] uvcvideo: UVC non compliance - GET_DEF(PROBE) not supported. Enabling workaround.
[25389.059113] input: USB2.0 Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input26

I was troubled by the message uvcvideo: UVC non compliance – GET_DEF(PROBE) not supported. Enabling workaround. , and hence looked for an application to test if the camera can recored properly.

While checking in packages available in Software Center , I found a plenty of programs under the search keyword Camera
I however decided to test it using just one application Cheese A tool to take pictures and videos from your webcam which I've seen to be quite popular among Liunx users.
Cheese is part of GNOME Desktop, so that was another reason I decided to give it a try. I was pleasently surprised about how good these tiny but functional proggie is.

To run Cheese in GNOME I nagivated to the menus:

Applications -> Sound & Video -> Cheese Webcam Booth

Just in case if Cheese is not installed, installing it with apt:

debian:~# apt-get install cheese

Cheese has capabilities to take pictures, a consequential photos take up, as well as create Video movies.

Cheese take camera testing tool Debian GNU Linux

The program has support to apply 12 Effects / (Masks) to add some fun to the pictures or video snapshots.

Test Video Camera on Debian Linux Cheese Effects

Probably the best thing about Cheese is its simplistic interface, which for me personally is a main criterion to evaluate a program quality ;).