integrated webcam turns off after a few seconds

[rpremuz]

Some of our users reported they are unable to video stream with the integrated webcam. The users need to participate in web meetings while working from home. The web meetings are mostly done with web client in a web browser (latest Chrome or Firefox).

The users have HP EliteBook 840 G6 (PN: 4WG26AV) laptops with MS Windows 10 Pro. 1903 64-bit that is regularly patched (but latest April 2020 updates not yet installed).

Some of the users of that laptop model experience the following issue: when the user starts a web meeting with video streaming from the webcam the user sees the video stream for about second or two and then the image gets completely frozen (still image).

The issue is also present in the Camera app available in Windows 10: after starting the app the image from the webcam can be seen for just a moment and then it disappears and the light near the webcam lens turns off.

It seems that for some reason the integrated webcam turns off by itself after working for a few seconds.

Installing the latest HP Universal Camera Driver (2019.0.18362.3 Rev.A) from https://support.hp.com/hr-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elitebook-840-g6-notebook-pc/26609796/model/2660... didn't fix the issue.

The laptops have BIOS R70 01.03.00 installed. There is a newer version available (R70 01.04.05 Rev.A) but I'd like to avoid upgrading BIOS remotely.

Or is it a hardware related issue?

Please give some advice if you experienced such an issue with webcam and were able to solve it.

[TryToDoMybest]

Hello

I don't know if it could be a BIOS issue , in case you want to try to update BIOS to the remote PC , you need first install remotly install on the client PCs :

HP Client Management Script Library , they are Powershell scripts. you can install it using the installer (a .exe file) or from powershell prompt :  install-package HPCMSL

with HPCMSL installed on the clients, you can send them PS cmdlet to update the BIOS to latest version.

example on youtube: https://youtu.be/LhcjRq5ggIY

https://youtu.be/uKX9FPADGu8

You can also try to run on the remote PC , HP Image Assistant, that will check if all drivers are fine and you can read the HP Advisories for Elitebook 840 G6.

https://youtu.be/bIJl6vahR9o

HP Image Assistant works even from command line, without the GUI , but it's to long to explain how to do it in few words. HP have a user guide for that.

bye.

[rpremuz · Accepted solution]

Booting the laptops with Ubuntu Desktop and testing the webcam with Cheese application showed  that the webcam works fine and the issue is not hardware related but caused by some software component in Windows 10.

Reinstalling Windows 10 v. 1903 or upgrading it to v. 2004 fixed the issue.

-- rpr.