iSight "in use by another application"

[IJ Reilly]

I'm trouble-shooting a new G5 iMac with a built-in iSight camera. Whenever you launch PhotoBooth or iChat, they report that the camera is "in use by another application." It isn't -- and I can't find any process in the Activity Monitor which looks like it might be latching onto the camera. The iMac is almost new. The iSight worked correctly for a while. I've tried creating a virgin user, but this account reports the same issue.

Any suggestions?

 

[ipacmm]

I would try to re-start the iMac, I had that same issue with my MBP but once I restarted, I haven't had that issue since.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would try to re-start the iMac, I had that same issue with my MBP but once I restarted, I haven't had that issue since.

Thanks, but I tried that, a couple of times.

Over at the Apple support forums, some suggest resetting the SMU, which involves unplugging the iMac line cord, then and holding down the power button while plugging it back in, then pressing the power button again to restart.

 

[ipacmm]

I would check out this article:

http://ezjimfortestonly.blogspot.com/2005/10/built-in-isight-in-new-late-2005-macs.html

 

[HughJ]

although i dont have an iSight, i did have a similar problem i eventually narrowed it down to the version of Quicktime, seems that 7.11 (i think) had some sort of recording function and therefor was taking over the camera, i went back to version 7.0.4 and everything works fine

hope this works for you