I’ve had odd problems with my isight camera ever since I purchased my macbook pro, switching over from a PC after more than twenty years with the IBM and Windows paradigm, even though I got interested in computers in the early eighties with Apple 2es. The problem: I’d open Photobooth or Skype and would get nothing but a blank green screen in the vid-window. The devise appeared to be set just fine in System Profiler.

I decided to try an external camera. I figured that such a devise would be less expensive than shop time and would work okay for my needs. Anyway, it happens that the external camera proved incompatible with the mac. So I downloaded the maccam utility and placed into my Quicktime library. I used the maccam interface to crank up the external camera. Funny enough, both cameras started working simultaneously so that in Photobooth, I was grabbing a distorted image in the video window. I unhooked the external devise and–boom–the iSight camera was working.

I tested further by removing the maccam driver from Quicktime and still the camera worked. I’ve the utility where it is now, though, because now everything’s working fine.

So, here’s the test. Why did the iSight camera start working again?