Isight/photobooth no response.

this is my first mac, a 2GHz macbook pro which arrived this morning.
the camera worked because it took my photo at the beginning when i was setting up my user account and stuff.
but everytime i try and open photo booth, i get no response. the toolbar at the very top changes to display the photobooth settings, but there is nothing in the centre appearing.
i've also tried using isight in imovie, but i get no response either. infact i can't even click anything in imovie, except quit!
i haven't tried using my isight in ichat yet, as i don't have an AIM or .mac account.
any help would be much appreciated. thanks.

Hello, joanna. Congratulations on your new MacBook Pro! I do not have one, but the following may help you get going.
You should apply the new Mac OS X 10.4.6 Combo for Intel. It offers many improvements for your Mac OS. I suggest an update technique like that explained in How I Update My Mac OS X. Be certain to use the links relevant to the iNtel Macs.
Does your iSight work with your Apple software now?
If your problem continues, and if you have external devices connected to your new Mac, shut down, disconnect the external devices, restart your MacBook Pro and try again. You can add devices back one at a time after you get your MacBook Pro working again. Check after every item is attached to determine whether one of your external devices is causing a Possible hardware or software conflicts.
If your iSight difficulty continues even with nothing connected and after a restart, try any relevant suggestions from the "Troubleshooting" section of your MacBook Pro's User's Guide. If nothing helps, contact the retailer who sold you your MacBook. It is possible that our built-in iSight is defective.
If you have ANY other problems with your MacBook Pro in addition to those with your iSight, and if you do not get better suggestions from MacBook Pro users here, search for specialized help or post your problem in the dedicated MacBook Pro Discussions area.
Please let us know how you get your new Mac working properly.
Cheers,
Jim

Similar Messages

Isight photobooth and skype

Hi,
ever since I got the new version of skype, photobooth won't recognize the built in isight camera. It simply shows a 'no camera' icon in the middle of the screen (photobooth app). However I have found that whenever I quit skype and then restard photobooth or simply start photobooth without having skype running there aren't any problems.
Hope this hasn't previously been discussed however i didn't find anything through the search (both here and via google..)
Thanks in advance
Regards

MUCaviator wrote:
Hi EZ Jim and thank you for the reply!
You are most welcome, MUCaviator!
And thanks for the Helpful points!
I do realize that only one application may use isight at a time. However while skype may be open it isn't using it (no videochat or anything on and the light next to the isight camera isn't on). With the old version of skype this didn't cause any problems. Is it possible that skype simply reserves the camera for it's own use, therefore not letting other applications use it even though skype isn't using it itself?
(1) Because everything worked until you changed Skype, I agree that the problem is with Skype.
Unfortunately, I do not know the answer to your Skype question.
(2) Unless you get the answer you need here, I suggest you try Skype help.
As you know, Skype is a third-party (non-Apple) products. The best answers for your Skype-specific question should come from Skype:
https://support.skype.com/
Skype provides comprehensive Help including FAQs, step-by-step instructions, and a searchable knowledge-base. Additionally, Skype hosts dedicated "Forums" about their products. If the users who post there have not already answered your question, they will likely be able to quickly help you.
If all else fails, you can follow the "Get more help" link to directly contact the Skype developer's technical support. They should best be able to tell you how to use their product with your system.
(3) If your time is valuable, you should immediately seek help from the Skype users who may have shared your trouble and already found a solution. However, if you want to try other ideas before exploring Skype Support, you can reinstall software.
(a) If you have not already applied the 10.5.8 Combo Update
using the following method, you can do so now:
• Backup your Mac and turn off Time Machine
• Disconnect peripherals and restart Mac
• Use Disk Utility to repair permissions
• Download and install
http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_8_ComboUpdate
• Repair permissions again immediately following the restart that finishes the update.
• Test Skype. Reconnect needed peripherals and test again.
(• Turn Time Machine on again when you are satisfied that the update worked.)
(b) If you haven't downloaded the new Skype again and reinstalled it, you can do so now.
I suggest that you restart Mac and repair permissions before the download.
Because I do not share your problem, I cannot test whether either of these reinstalls can solve anything. However, although they may do nothing to help you, neither can do any harm, and neither costs anything but a bit of time.
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz Mac OS X (10.6.6); MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.6)
LED Cinema Display; G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11); iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9); External iSight; iPod4touch4.2.1

IChat and iSight/Photobooth

I'm sure this topic has been covered but I can't find anything that seems to be helping me. I just recently upgraded to 10.5.4 and ever since my built-in iSight camera has completely stopped working. When I open Photobooth the image area is gray, and the green light by the camera doesn't come on. Also since the upgrade, anytime I try to log on to iChat, it unexpectedly quits before I can even sign on, and does the same every time I try to relaunch. I've tried repairing permissions and that hasn't helped. Any suggestions?

Hello Steve
... complete list of files (cache, library etc) that Isight draws upon.
I do not think that iSight uses ANY caches. I suppose the apps that operate your iSight might.
The best iSight technical info source I know is this search of the Apple Developer Connection. You may be able to get more specific help by becoming an ADC Member if you are not one already.
As an alternative to researching the ADC info, I offer another thought you may have already considered or tried. If I understand correctly what you have been doing at this thread in the Time Machine Forum, you believe that your iSight problem might be correctable by resetting preferences or clearing caches, but you have decided not to attempt resolution by deleting ALL system preferences and caches. If you think it might be beneficial, you could try an application like Yasu that can give you some control over which preferences and caches you can reset without using the terminal or deleting items generated and managed by OS X.
Finally, Steve, please allow me a word of caution for other readers. You seem to be an experienced OS X user who is more comfortable working at lower levels of OS X than many of us. For benefit of other readers who may be less knowledgeable, it is generally a bad idea to move, modify, rename, or delete any item outside your User > Documents folder unless you know what you are doing. While doing so will not harm your computer, if you damage your data or system files, you will need to restore them, which can be time consuming. Until you have enough knowledge to safely work with them manually, I suggest that you let OS X and your applications manage the files for you as they were designed to do.
Cheers,
EZ Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz w/Mac OS X (10.4.11) G5 DP 1.8 w/Mac OS X (10.5.2) External iSight

LED Display's iSight and Photo Booth

I read the instructions for setting up iChat to use the Display's iSight, but Photo Booth still uses my MacBook Pro's iSight. Is there any way to change this? There's nothing about it in the manual.

I have this problem as well (iChat is fine using the display's iSight, Photobooth does not use it).
Posted another problem elsewhere here related to the USB audio speakers in the display causing jittery/poor HD full screen video playback (turn off display speakers then the playback is fine/smooth). This also needs to be fixed... curious if others see it (I'm running a v2 Macbook Air).

Update 10.5.4 killed built-in iSight.

I updated my MacBook Pro to update 10.5.4 and all seemed to work fine.... EXCEPT the built-in iSight is no longer showing up for applications (photo booth) or System Profiler. Anyone have any ideas. When I revert back to 10.5.2 (yes I do whole system updates when applying OS patches), the iSight is back. I used the full combo file patch.
Any ideas or similar issues?
Thanks,
Tom

atwood wrote:
I just bought an isight and I'm having the same problem.
Nothing registers my isight (photobooth, ichat...).
The only information I've seen on blogs points to the 10.5.4 update.
I'm trying a repair process that requires a regress to 10.5.1, upgrade to 10.5.2, then special upgrade to 10.5.4 (combo I believe it's called).
P.S.
Dear Apple,
What's with all the software updates? I like you more when there were updates once a year. Now it's every week.
No, it's not every week. Leopard was released last November and there have been 4 OS updates in those 9 months - less than one ever two months.
The last OS update, 10.5.4 was released in June, several months ago.
Tiger is up to version 11 last time I checked. Tiger was released in 2005, so that's about an update every three months.
Also, nobody here works for Apple. You should phone or email them directly. This is a user-to-user forum.
If you supplied more details about your issue we might be able to help. You probably did not need to reinstall Leopard.
This post is about the built-in iSight, a completely different item. I suggest you start a new thread and repost your issue.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Software update

Hi folks.
New to the forum (in fact, only got my first mac last week!), so hope this hasn't been answered already.
Today I performed a full software update as follows:
"QuickTime" (7.1)
"iTunes" (6.0.4)
"GarageBand Update" (3.0.2)
"iDVD Update" (6.0.2)
"iPod Updater 2006-03-23" ( )
"iWeb Update" (1.1)
"iMovie HD Combo Update" (6.0.2)
"iPhoto Update" (6.0.3)
"iMac SMC Firmware Update" (1.0)
"Keynote Update" (3.0.1v2)
"Pages Update" (2.0.1v2)
"Mac OS X Update Combined (Intel)" (10.4.6)
Since then, my ipod is no longer connecting, iTunes music store is going extremely slow, and I can't use iSight - photobooth says there's either no camera connected or it's being used by another programme, and iMovie also can't find the camera.
Any ideas what's happened, and what I can do?
Any advice grateful.
Cheers.
Ben.

Ben, Apple's large update has wreaked havoc across the system. (Read these threads.) Your Firewire bus is out. The fix on it is to unplug all wires. Unplug all electricals, to the wall, including the wall. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then rewire it. Then restart. It if won't restart, then..
Hold down the shift key and reboot safely, and delete Adobe Version Cue if you have it. I also recommend deleting all startup items in the root library.
Apple's lack of response to this looks like there will be a new update soon, that corrects the problem. They don't like to admit to posting an OS update or Security update that isn't properly tested. They might could be sued for damages. Our fix took two mandays of effort. Figure that out on a class action. We updated 2 machines of 20 and both were hosed. One was a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.3 MHz, the other a MacBook Pro 17 inch Intel. We'll wait before we update again, and see how others deal with being on the bleeding edge.

Need to record my professor's powerpoint--without him seeing it!

(let me know where else this could be posted if this isn't the best discussion section)
Hey guys, my professor is basically a giant toolbag and doesn't distribute his powerpoint slides (even though all the other professor's at my grad school do give out the PPTs prior to class). It would be fantastic if I could somehow discreetly take snapshots of each slide as he goes along with a camera of some sort plugged into my MBP. Here's the requirements for this job:
1. Must be high enough resolution to read reasonably-sized font (28pt) on a 20 ft X 20ft screen, about 20 feet away, up at about a 30 degree angle from the laptop.
2. must take the shots without making a cheeseball sound
3. must take the shots without flashing or anything like what photobooth does right before snapping shot
4. the laptop must (obviously) be facing me and not the professor
Any ideas of a hardware/software solution that would do this? Currently my MBP's built-in isight + photobooth is a no go because (a) i bet it's too low res (I could be wrong, i'll test this), (b) photobooth flashes the screen white before snapping the shot, (c) you have to turn the laptop towards the professor side to take the photo.
Any help is greatly appreciated, and believe me I'll consider even the most ridiculous ideas, so throw them at me without caution.
P.S. I really don't want to hear anyone lecture me on respecting his intellectual property and whatnot, because the school requires that all lectures be audio-recorded anyways, so this is a foregone conclusion. And I pinkyswear I won't publish his content online or write a book based off his lectures. I'm a student with a learning disability and I don't the time/ability to furiously write/listen/pay attention all at the same time. In a nutshell: let's keep this thread on topic, kthnx.

You're welcome, bcapple123
Thanks for letting me know that your question is answered.
Here are my ideas in response to your new questions:
(1) I don't know any way to keep photo-booth (PB) hidden while still taking photos.
Photo Booth does not work unless it is the foreground application, and, as you note, it only makes one photo while minimized. After first picture, I find I need to bring PB back to foreground, click "Effects", and then "Normal", to unfreeze PB for the next capture.
(2) iSight is not a zoom camera. Zoom is one of the reasons I suggested a separate digital camera in my previous response.
iGlasses may let you zoom your iSight image in the way you need, but it does so digitally, so image quality is effected. You can try the demo to see if it does what you want before you buy it.
(3.a) To transform your trapezoidal images back to the square shape of the original slides, you can use the perspective correction feature of any full-featured image editor like PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements. The process is simple, but, unless you know a way to AppleScript the workflow, I cannot suggest a way to automate it. I do not know a way to do it with my PhotoShop Elements File > Process Multiple Files... menu command.
This Google search may give you some ideas or other web locations to search or post about this subject.
(3.b) I have never hear of OCR software doing the kinds of things you mention. Some well-known Mac OCR apps are ReadIris, OmniPage Pro X, and VueScan. Thoroughly examine their features, system requirements, and compatibility before you buy. You may want to contact the developers to ask your specific questions relative to their individual applications before spending your money.
This Google search may give you some ideas or other web locations to search or post about this subject.
EZ Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz w/Mac OS X (10.4.11) G5 DP 1.8 w/Mac OS X (10.5.2) External iSight

ISight positioning different between PhotoBooth and iMovie

Hi there, I just came to notice that the positioning of the camera when using PhotoBooth is pretty much a straight perfect view. When using iMovie to capture a video, the view is switched to the opposite side and the positioning isn't as straight as the view when captured from PhotoBooth. If anyone has any insights to this it would be great! Many thanks.
J.

J5367 wrote:
Hi there, I just came to notice that the positioning of the camera when using PhotoBooth is pretty much a straight perfect view. When using iMovie to capture a video, the view is switched to the opposite side and the positioning isn't as straight as the view when captured from PhotoBooth. If anyone has any insights to this it would be great! Many thanks.
J.
Welcome to Discussions, J5367
Software always controls your iSight. As Ralph notes above, not all apps work alike.
Searching this iSight Forum for "isight mirror image" (without quotation marks) will give you LOTS of threads on this topic in the last couple of years. To save you some time, here is one link that discusses available actions with several commonly used iSight apps:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10574807&#10574807
If you still have other questions after reviewing the linked info, we will be happy to try to offer detailed suggestions in response to your specific inquiries.
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.3) MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.3)
LED Cinema Display G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11) iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9) External iSight

ISight not working with Webex, GoToMeeting or Lync...BUT works with Skype, Facetime, Photobooth (June 2013 MBA)

Brand new MacBook Air (June 2013, 8MB RAM, 500GB SSD)
iSight not working with Cisco Webex, Citrix GoToMeeting or Microsoft Lync (error = webcam not detected); BUT iSight works with Skype, Facetime and Photobooth.
3 hours of phone support with Webex - no luck.
Tried SMC and PRAM reset - no luck.
Tried erasing disk and reinstalling OSX 10.8.4 and apps manually with latest versions - no luck.
Apple phone support says it's not Apple's problem because Apple apps work.
Exchanged at Apple Store for another new MacBook Air, again installed apps manually with latest version (not from time machine) - STILL NO LUCK!!!
Is there an update Apple or Cisco, Citrix and Microsoft need to put out for the new MBAs or do I just have 2 lemons???

You're welcome.
1wave wrote: ... an external webcam which might be a cheaper alternative ...
It will be interesting to see what the vendors say about using a Mac-compatible external webcam.
If not, some netbook or other Windows® device might offer compatibility at a much lower cost than a compatible Apple notebook.
We will watch for your update(s). What the vendors tell you will be very helpful to others who share this or similar issues with their new MBAs.
Message was edited by: EZ Jim
Mac OSX 10.8.4

ISight not working in native Apps..photobooth, iMovie or System Prefs

So my iSight will work but only in 3rd party apps like yahoo or aol. When i try to use it in system pref i get a message that isight is busy, photobooth say's there is no camera connected. I have reset PRAM, PMU, Safeboot and reinstalled the os 2 times. i get the same errors another user.

I forgot to say im on 10.6.6

ISight green light is on, Photobooth shows green screen

Yeah, I started up my computer today and for some reason the camera light is on but I'm not even using it. I tried opening Photobooth so that I could quit it, and maybe the camera would go off, but Photobooth just shows a blank, green screen.
Anyone got any solutions?

Hey,
I had this issue awhile back too, I had no idea what caused it. I'm not sure if this is a real fix but I ran AHT(Apple Hardware Test) and it didn't find any issues, but after the test completed I booted up into OS X and everything was fine.
Intel-based Macs: Starting up into Apple Hardware Test
I have no idea if this is an actual real fix, but you can give it a try.
Heres a forum thread with the same issue: iSight Problem
Good Luck!
Tom
(P.S. Give the SMC reset a try also: Macbook SMC Reset

ISight problem with photobooth, skype, etc

Hi everyone,
I've been having a problem with iSight recently. Whenever I try to use it for Skype or PhotoBooth, the green light turns on but all I see is a black screen. It works with flash based websites on Chrome though. I have the Gmail video plugin installed - could that be the problem? How can I make this work?
Thanks!

paranoidandroid60 wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've been having a problem with iSight recently. Whenever I try to use it for Skype or PhotoBooth, the green light turns on but all I see is a black screen. It works with flash based websites on Chrome though. I have the Gmail video plugin installed - could that be the problem? How can I make this work?
Thanks!
It sounds to me as though you have introduced conflicts with your third-party software (Chrome, Gmail video, etc.)
Check every one of their web sites to be sure you have the latest versions that are compatible with your Mac OS X (10.6.7). Also, check that there are no "known issues" for your third-party items.
Also verify that you are using the most current compatible Flash Player:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/
If you are still having problems after you have verified all of the above, consider all relevant suggestions from:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2090
If your problem remains in every user account you test after following the relevant Apple Troubleshooting suggestions, you might want to backup your Mac and then carefully follow the developers' instructions to uninstall +(do not merely drag to trash unless specifically directed to do so)+ your third party browsers and video apps to see if the problem goes away.
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz Mac OS X (10.6.7); MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.7)
LED Cinema Display; G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11); iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9); External iSight; iPod4touch4.3.1

Isight problem...maybe photobooth....

i found my isight camera in a wired situation this morning when i open photobooth...i found the image in the photobooth got widen for some reasons..i was wondering if anyone came across this problem before?
is it a hardware or software issue...
p.s. i recently installed XP thru bootcamp....does it matter?
thanks...

paranoidandroid60 wrote:
Hi everyone,
I've been having a problem with iSight recently. Whenever I try to use it for Skype or PhotoBooth, the green light turns on but all I see is a black screen. It works with flash based websites on Chrome though. I have the Gmail video plugin installed - could that be the problem? How can I make this work?
Thanks!
It sounds to me as though you have introduced conflicts with your third-party software (Chrome, Gmail video, etc.)
Check every one of their web sites to be sure you have the latest versions that are compatible with your Mac OS X (10.6.7). Also, check that there are no "known issues" for your third-party items.
Also verify that you are using the most current compatible Flash Player:
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/
If you are still having problems after you have verified all of the above, consider all relevant suggestions from:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2090
If your problem remains in every user account you test after following the relevant Apple Troubleshooting suggestions, you might want to backup your Mac and then carefully follow the developers' instructions to uninstall +(do not merely drag to trash unless specifically directed to do so)+ your third party browsers and video apps to see if the problem goes away.
EZ Jim
Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz Mac OS X (10.6.7); MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.7)
LED Cinema Display; G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11); iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9); External iSight; iPod4touch4.3.1

Photobooth/iMovie recordings with isight+mic

Greetings,
When recording voiceover with mic and video from the built in isight on my macs there's always a weird "continuos" bad audio recording sound. (whistling) If I just do a quick screen recording it disappears. This also happens if I record video inside photobooth.
Is this just a behavior of using the mic and video together for cheap recording quality and voice over or can this be fixed?

I get it too. The workaround seems to be to use a line-in mic.
You might get an answer if you post this under 'iMovie' rather than the OS section.

Isight Camera is slow with photobooth

Hi ,
My isight camera in photobooth is slow or delay for a second or 2 when capturing photos or video record anything. Is like if i smile to the camera , the isight in photobooth will only show it after a second or 2. Is there anyway to solve it or set it to real time ?
Thank you.

Open up another account to see if the delay shows up there?
If you have any peripherals attached, disconnect them. Issue gone?
Or you can see if resetting the PRAM helps. How much RAM do you have?

Isight/photobooth no response.

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