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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue System
I have an Apple iSight that was showing odd issues. And I found an odd solution!

When I first received my iSight, the green "on air" light would only go on half the time. After three weeks of using my iSight on both my tower and my laptop computer, the audio mic in the iSight no longer worked. I tried all possible solutions including unplugging the iSight, quitting iChat, plugging in the camera, launching iChat, rebooting, and all the articles from macosxhints.com, macfixit.com, Apple Kbase articles, etc. I was about to send it back to Apple under warranty. Until I randomly decided to send video to a friend via Yahoo Messenger.

Lo and behold, by enabling the webcam on Yahoo Messenger, it reset something in my iChat(s). The "On-Air" light now works as it should, and each of my computers can now use the built in microphone again. Yahoo Messenger only fixed the issue on that local machine; I had to perform the same steps to have it work properly on my desktop.

[robg adds: I can't confirm this, as I haven't had any issues with my iSight ... anyone else able to verify the problem and fix? And more interestingly, why it might be a fix??]
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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue | 9 comments | Create New Account
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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: jasongutierrez on Aug 01, '03 03:56:32PM

Do you suppose that there is an incompatibility between AOL IM and iChat wanting ownership of the iSight. I don't have one, but I'm planning on getting one next week.

Just a thought
Jason



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: buserror on Aug 01, '03 06:10:57PM

It might be the fake-audio driver used by iSight that got stuck. iSight uses a userland driver there:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/iSightAudio.plugin

That is loaded when the camera is plugged, and demultiplexes the audio from the firewire stream to make a proper HAL CoreAudio device.

I think that unplugging the camera AND killing that process would fix the issue you have when plugging the camera back in.



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: mhollis on Aug 08, '03 02:11:49PM

Hold it, you mean that microphones on Macs do work with Yahoo's Instant Messenger Webcam?

I have a G4-400 with analog audio (upgraded processor to 1GHz). I have an Apple microphone plugged into the microphone (external audio) jack. I have a camera (that is overkill for web cameras -- a Canon GL-2 connected to Firewire). It has an external microphone.

Sound does not work with YIM. Is there some way I can get either microphone to work?



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: meck on Sep 13, '03 04:04:20PM

I had the same experience - was about to send back, but in trying to talk to a PC friend switched to Yahoo messenger - assumed something else had fixed problem, but this now seems likely!



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: jrry on Sep 17, '03 10:04:56PM

Yep - worked for me too - couldn't get the thing to come on for ichat or ichat streaming icon - system profiler would only see it sometimes

Started yahoo messenger and plugged in the isight - it works - quit - and now it works for ichat too!



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Wow. That seems to have worked!!!
Authored by: Eric123 on Oct 28, '03 02:58:38PM

Installed Yahoo IM, got the video working, quit, restarted iChat and no more "camera in use" (so far, so good). Hope the fix sticks. We'll see. BTW, I have had this problem for weeks, at least 3 times a day "Camera in use by another application" but I have no other cam, no other app, no previous firewire devices. Thanks for the tip!



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Did NOT work for long.
Authored by: Eric123 on Oct 28, '03 04:47:54PM

This did not clear up my "Camera is in use..." problem. It's back to its old ways!



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: jeanette on Dec 14, '03 04:48:20AM

Hi, I've recently purchased Panther and iSight. I know this sounds silly, but I never investigated the compatibility of using iSight with non-Mac video conferencing softwares, etc. Could you please tell me which programs will work with iSight? Obviously, I have iChat AV installed (as standard), but I'm finding its use rather limited at present. Any help you can give at all would be gratefully received. Ideally, I'd like to have video with sound. I'm using the iSight with internal Microphone setup on iMac G4.
All the best, Jeanette



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An odd fix for an iSight video/microphone issue
Authored by: ivanssahba on Apr 03, '05 06:07:31PM

Hello,
I am just wondering how well the iSight works with Yahoo messenger?



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