Camera is not found on Zoom?

I usually don't have any problems turning on my microphone or camera at Zoom. During an exam (right there, of course), I suddenly couldn't turn on my camera. When I tried to click on the corresponding sign, I was shown that no camera could be found? This problem was so strange that I didn't know how it happened and how to solve it. Finally, I joined the meeting with a second device, on which, fortunately, the camera worked. In later meetings the camera worked normally again. This actually happened to me twice and only during exams, where I did not find the time to fix this issue.

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Submitted by Anna Lackinger on Mon, 12/06/2021 - 08:58
2 answers

Usually, there is a simple solution to this type of problem such as:

1. When an app is misbehaving, you should try restarting it immediately.
2. If Zoom or webcam driver isn't up to date then you should update it.

Submitted by Mesa Islamovic on Wed, 12/22/2021 - 12:10

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After research, I found a solution for my problem. Before I joined the exams, I always made sure that the camera settings match the requirements (for example, that the screen of my laptop is clearly visible in the camera, or that my workplace is visible).
Unfortunately, I did not close my camera before joining the meeting. I found out that the camera can only work with one application at a time. Of course it cannot work on Zoom, if I have already opened it.
I can recommend to everyone to make sure that the camera is not running (also make sure to close apps that use the camera), before joining a Zoom meeting where the camera is required.

Submitted by Anna Lackinger on Mon, 12/06/2021 - 09:00

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Comments

Thank you, this serves as a great heads up, as I would certainly have panicked and scrambled to fix the issue if this happend to me during an exam!

 Sascha Pleßberger - Mon, 12/13/2021 - 14:56 :::

Thank you for the info. I have never noticed that only one app can use the camera at a time

 Ondrej Brichta - Mon, 12/20/2021 - 11:50 :::

Thank you for sharing this solution. I have encountered this problem in the past, although with a different application (Jitsi meeting in Chrome), where I had another program open which held the access of the camera.

My camera has a green LED, so I check every time that it isn't glowing when I enter a Zoom-Meeting

 Thomas Stoiber - Mon, 12/20/2021 - 15:55 :::

Thanks for making that clear! When I ran into the same issue, I found that there is a Linux kernel module called v4l2loopback which can be used to enable multiple programs to use the webcam.

 Stefan Puntigam - Tue, 12/21/2021 - 17:51 :::

Thanks for sharing this! For Windows, we can also use the Task Manager to end processes that might be hanging and using the camera.

 Parinaz Momeni ... - Wed, 12/22/2021 - 00:34 :::