iSight: "Another Application is Using Your Camera"?

[orvn]

Periodically, one of my applications does not relinquish control of my iSight. I have no idea who the culprit is, but as a result, I have to restart or login/logout.

Is there any way to identify the application in question? I've closed all of my major apps out and no luck, must be a smaller process.

The green iSight LED is not lit.

The screenshot is from iChat. Photobooth just displays a loading indicator (like an AJAX throbber) and the camera never loads.

 

[heisenberg123]

Periodically, one of my applications does not relinquish control of my iSight. I have no idea who the culprit is, but as a result, I have to restart or login/logout.

Is there any way to identify the application in question? I've closed all of my major apps out and no luck, must be a smaller process.

The green iSight LED is not lit.

The screenshot is from iChat. Photobooth just displays a loading indicator (like an AJAX throbber) and the camera never loads.
Image

photobooth uses it is that running?

 

[natejohnstone@g]

Log out of Skype, Gmail or any other email program that has a video chat feature, etc. THen see if your camera icon lights up. If not, quit and restart iChat. If that still doesn't work, just restart the computer and open ichat.

This happens to me all the time, btw. Some programs do not "let go" of the camera after using it (or thinking they'll use it), so you have to quit them altogether.

 

[orvn]

I understand that (note the verbiage in my OP), I'm just wondering if there's a way I can force release the iSight from another application.