• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

Remkus de Vries

Curiously Questioning Everything

Menu
  • Blog
  • Updates
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact
  • Remkus de Vries
  • Blog
  • Updates
  • Newsletter
  • About
  • Contact

How To: Restart Your Camera in Mac OS X

Remkus wrote on 23 June, 2020 11 Comments

Working from home, for most, includes a fair amount of video conferencing. But, what if the camera on your Mac produces No Connected Camera errors and effectively won’t work or has suddenly stopped working with apps like Facetime, Skype, Zoom or Google Meet?

Well, you can either go for a full reboot of your computer, or use a little command line magic.

Time needed: 1 minute.

Restarting the camera on your Mac, Macbook, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, or iMac works like this:

  1. Kill all apps that use the camera

    Make sure to stop all apps using the camera. I’ve not found this to be a requirement in all cases, but it’s good practise to do so before proceeding.

  2. Open Terminal app

    Open the terminal app on your Mac. You can find it by navigating to your Applications > Utilities folder.

    Alternative you can use spotlight (⌘ + Spacebar) and start searching for “terminal”. Of course, if you’ve got the wonderful terminal enhancing iTerm app installed, that will work as well.

  3. Copy killall command

    You’ll need to copy the following command into terminal:

    sudo killall VDCAssistant

  4. Paste killall command to terminal

    Navigate to your terminal app and paste the killall command you’ve just copied

  5. Confirm command execution

    Next up, you’ll need to hit Enter which will prompt you to enter your administrator password for the Mac. Most likely this is the same password as your Mac user account you’re logged in with.

    If all went correctly, you’ll see an empty command line prompt again. Same as when you started.

  6. Open camera app again

    Open up your camera-using app (Zoom, Skype, Facetime, etc) and activate your camera again. It should now function properly again.

I’ve had to do this so many times that I’d figure I’d document how to do it properly. Hope this helps you too!

Topic: Blog

Previous Post: « Letting go…
Next Post: Stop Chrome from hiding full URL »

Reader Interactions

ABOUT THIS SITE

This site is hosted by Servebolt – running on state of the art hardware, making it really lightning fast. If you’re serious about fast sites, free tests are available!

See what other WordPress related products I recommend.

Comments

  1. JvdMeulen says

    23 June, 2020 at 15:55

    Als je het zo vaak moet doen, moet je er een workflow van maken! (of als je @alfredapp hebt, een script/plugin) #tip

    Reply
  2. Remkus de Vries says

    23 June, 2020 at 15:56

    Ja, is ek sa. En Alfred haw ik, dus sil dy ekstra stap ek dwaan. Goeie reminder!

    Reply
  3. JvdMeulen says

    23 June, 2020 at 16:00

    ik ha der nea lêst fan, oars hie ik sels wol dien


    Reply
  4. Marguerite Cardinal says

    10 July, 2021 at 21:15

    Thank you so much! Restarting my computer is such a pain. This really helped.

    Reply
  5. Rob Kohr says

    1 September, 2021 at 20:49

    Very nice. I added this to my .zshrc

    alias camera=”sudo killall VDCAssistant” # restart the camera

    so now I can just type camera to run it

    Reply
    • Remkus says

      2 September, 2021 at 12:32

      Good tip if you’re familiar with aliases, yes.

      Reply
  6. Paul Mostert says

    4 January, 2022 at 07:55

    Hard reset switched my camera back on.
    Switch off Macbook then switch on with Opt, Command, P and R pressed for 20 Seconds.
    Open Photo booth – camera now working again

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Be social, find me here:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
Copyright © 2010 – 2022 Remkus de Vries
WordPress hosting by Servebolt