Hi,

I finally get iMovie working and it doesn't sense the internal camera in my MBP. I've tried a terminal hack found in the support area that has not worked.

Nothing I've seen will allow the internal camera to be recognized.

Any ideas on how to make it work?

Running 10.9.5.

Thanks.

Reboot.

Open Messages/Preferences/Video. Does the Camera work there?

---

Ed (modelamac)

I think I will just put an OUT OF ORDER
sticker on my head and call it a day.

Facetime works. I just can't bring the camera up in iMovie.

Have restarted. Same results.

There's a wide-ranging issue with iMovie 11 and a ton of people have reported the same thing. There is a Terminal hack, but it didn't work for me.

Quote
dmag
Have restarted. Same results.

The usual reason for that error is that an app like Facetime or Skype was run before iMovie and never surrendered control of the camera.

If a reboot doesn't fix the problem then it may be a background task grabbing the camera. Log in under a second user account and see whether it works under the second account.

Quote
Chakravartin

Quote
dmag
Have restarted. Same results.

The usual reason for that error is that an app like Facetime or Skype was run before iMovie and never surrendered control of the camera.

If a reboot doesn't fix the problem then it may be a background task grabbing the camera. Log in under a second user account and see whether it works under the second account.

Created a new account. Same result. Can't see the camera. Thanks.

Does the camera show up in the System Profiler Information window? It should be there as a USB device.

Yes, it does. Under USB high speed bus > Bus > Facetime camera.

Might be a driver problem. Reinstall the 10.9.5 update from the combo updater if it'll let you.
[support.apple.com]

Thanks, I will. Really appreciate you helping on this.

Update...

I used the 10.9.5 updater and got mixed results.

First, it put iMovie 11 in a separate folder, while installing the 9.0.5 version as the active iMovie app.

I ran 9.0.5 and it recognized the Facetime camera. It is a pretty grainy image, even though 1080p, but it sees it.

Then, I tried iMovie 11 and it still does not see the camera.

So, there is clearly an issue with the OS and the app. I'll ask Apple and see what they say, but with so many people reporting this it seems to me that it's just bad code.

If you have any other thoughts, please let me know. Again, thanks for the help.

Disconnect USB and FireWire devices and reboot. iMovie 11 may see one as a video device. When it seems more than one device that could be used to display video, it guesses which is the correct video input and usually guesses wrong.

Quote
Chakravartin
Disconnect USB and FireWire devices and reboot. iMovie 11 may see one as a video device. When it seems more than one device that could be used to display video, it guesses which is the correct video input and usually guesses wrong.

Don't have any.

Ordinarily, the next step would be to try reinstalling iMovie, but it seems you've effectively tried that...

Does QuickTime Player see the camera? Any objection to doing things in 2 steps? ...Record in QuickTime Player and edit in iMovie.