Google Chrome not able to identify my webcam

Question

Chrome has suddenly stopped accessing my camera. Whenever I go to a website that tries to use my camera, I see a text that says camera : none available

When I go to media settings, I see that Chrome is not able to detect my camera, though the camera is working fine with Gmail chat camera test, and it works fine in Firefox too.

I am on Ubuntu 12.04 and my camera works fine. I tried it using a application called cheese

Solution

To quote the Google support article[1] (emphasis mine):

If you select Allow on a "http" URL your preference will not be remembered in future visits. If you select Allow on a "https" URL, your preference will be remembered in future visits. You can monitor which site is using your camera and microphone by clicking the camera icon or microphone icon microphone icon in your Windows system tray or Mac status menu.

Similarly, one will often see the video camera icon in Chrome's address bar during such requests, or of course the flash-based camera prompts.

So the question I pose is whether you're seeing this on a flash webcam site, or any that would attempt to use the webcam, such as an HTML5 website (a good one to test is here: http://wolframhempel.github.io/photobooth-js/).

If you verify it works with HTML5 and not flash, the culprit may be the flash plugin, or settings on that particular website.

[1] https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2693767?hl=en

Comments

[tumchaaditya]

I hope you have tried something as obvious as reinstalling chrome. And what is cheese? Are you sure its not a problem with whatever it is? What do you mean by it works in GMail chat? Is that in chrome?

[terdon]

If it works in cheese and in gmail chat, it sounds like you are simply not permitting the websites ton access your camera. Should be a security setting somewhere.

[Hardik Juneja]

@terdon - Under Chrome, If you will go to you settings tab -> Advance settings -> under Privacy settings click context settings -> media. You can clearly see that chrome will identify your webcam But its not identifying mine.

[Hardik Juneja]

@tumchaaditya- cheese is a GNOME app that helps you take photos and videos using your webcam under linux. In Gmail if you go to chat setting -> click verify your setting. You will see Gmail will try to test your cam and audio. This test successfully pass on my system

[terdon]

And yet Gmail chat camera test detects it OK? In chrome I assume, right? If so, I would suspect either that the gmail client itself is using some system that blocks the rest of chrome from your camera. Just disable or uninstall the client and restart chrome to check or ii) that the gmail chat's test is either lying or running somehow independently of chrome. Does it actually let you video chat?

[PathToLife]

Java was disabled in Chrome recently. That might have affected it. Q was asked in 2014... in which case idn