iSight issues

[RussMaGuss]

Hello all, I've been using my macbook for a few months right now, and primarily use it for recording me and my band-mates on Logic express, but now, I've not been able to use my iSight on my mac. I don't know what's wrong with it, because I've always been able to take photos with friends in Photo Booth and take movies with it as well. Up till now that is. A few days ago I tried to open up Photo Booth and snap a picture, but all I got was a blank screen. The program would count down, but the screen would just be white instead of showing what it would take. The little green light next to it would go on as well, but it wouldn't take a picture, and nothing is blocking the screen either. Can anyone tell me what's wrong or how to fix it? thanks a lot in advance,

Russ

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Are you sure the camera isn't broken? Try to capture video with Quicktime.

 

[JediMeister]

I don't think you can record in QuickTime Player without QuickTime Pro. First thing is to check if the iSight is giving you the same video signal in your iChat Audio/Video preferences and iMovie. If it works fine in either of the other two, there's nothing wrong with the camera, just Photo Booth. In that event, create another user account, and test in there as well, to see if there's something mucked up with the Photo Booth plist in ~/Library/Preferences. If it doesn't work in any of the 3 applications or on another user, check if the iSight camera shows up in System Profiler, under Hardware->USB. It may say Vendor-Specific Device, not appear at all, or read as Built-in iSight. If its either of the first two, try resetting the SMC, but if that doesn't work, bring it in to an Apple service location. Its unlikely that after the other steps that it would be recognized by the system, but try the reset in any event and report back.