Integrated camera not detected — firmware bug confirmed, OS-independent — HP ENVY Laptop 17-cr0755nz

[saagii]

Subject: Integrated camera not detected — firmware bug confirmed, OS-independent — HP ENVY Laptop 17-cr0755nz

Model: HP ENVY Laptop 17-cr0755nz
SKU: 6V1M3EA#UUZ
Baseboard (board): 8A2E
Current BIOS version: 24.32 (F.37 Rev.A)
CPU: Intel Alder Lake-P (12th generation)
Camera sensor (identified via ACPI): Omnivision OVTI01AF / OVTI01AS (MIPI/IPU6)

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PROBLEM SUMMARY
----------------------------------------

The integrated camera is not detected by any operating system tested
on this machine, even though it worked normally in the past (both
under Windows and Ubuntu, to the best of my recollection).

The built-in "HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI" tool reports no
hardware fault — the hardware is therefore presumed to be functional.

The issue has been reproduced and confirmed identical on:
- Windows 11 (clean install, all available HP drivers installed)
- Debian 13 (kernels 6.12 and 7.1.13)
- Ubuntu (kernel 7.0.0-38-generic)

Under Windows 11: Device Manager shows no camera entry whatsoever,
not even as an "unknown device". Application-level error:
0xA00F4244 (NoCamerasAreAttached). No optional updates available via
Windows Update. No dedicated camera driver found on the HP support
page for this SKU.

Under Linux (Debian and Ubuntu, multiple kernels): no IPU6 controller
ever appears in `lspci` (Multimedia controller class [0480]). System
logs (dmesg) show, on every boot, on all three kernels tested:

ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Attempt to CreateField of length zero
ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.WMID.WQBC due to previous error (AE_AML_OPERAND_VALUE)
ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.WMID.WQBE due to previous error (AE_AML_OPERAND_VALUE)
ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.WMID.WHCM due to previous error (AE_AML_OPERAND_VALUE)
ACPI Error: Aborting method \_SB.WMID.WMAA due to previous error (AE_AML_OPERAND_VALUE)

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TECHNICAL ANALYSIS (DSDT)
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Analysis of the decompiled DSDT shows that the camera's power-resource
device (INT3472, an ACPI power-resource device) has a _STA() method
that only returns "present" if two fields (CL00 and C0TP), located in
the GNVS memory region (ACPI NVS), are correctly set. These fields
are never written by the AML code itself — they are expected to be
set by firmware (SMM code) triggered via the WQBC/WHCM WMI methods
listed above. Since these methods abort before that mechanism can
run, the fields remain at zero and the camera is never reported as
present to any operating system:

/sys/bus/acpi/devices/INT3472:00/status → 0 (across all 12 instances)
/sys/bus/acpi/devices/OVTI01AF:00/status → 0
/sys/bus/acpi/devices/OVTI01AS:00/status → 0

This explains why the issue is identical regardless of which OS is
used: the failure occurs at the firmware level, before any OS-side
driver (Windows or Linux) is even involved.

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STEPS ALREADY TAKEN
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- Camera option in BIOS: absent from the Advanced/Security menus.
- Physical camera privacy shutter: present and functional, with no
effect on the device's ACPI status.
- Dedicated camera Fn hotkey: functional at the kernel level
(SW_CAMERA_LENS_COVER toggles correctly), with no effect on device
activation.
- Attempted BIOS downgrade to F.04 (the oldest version still offered):
rejected by the HP installer ("This bios update is not compatible
with this device"), due to the anti-rollback lock introduced in
F.21 ("previous BIOS versions cannot be reinstalled after this BIOS
update is run").
- Release notes for all BIOS revisions F.06 through F.36 were
reviewed; none mention any change related to the camera, WMI, or
IPU.
- "HP System Power State Notification" driver: shows a warning in
Windows Device Manager (driver not loaded, expired signing
certificate — also documented by other owners of the same model on
the HP support forum). Tested as an alternative lead: reinstalling
it had no effect on the camera issue, which therefore appears
unrelated to this second, separate bug.
- Full ACPI/DSDT analysis performed, as described above.
- A technical report has also been sent to the Linux kernel mailing
list ([email protected]), in case a per-board
quirk table (as has already been done for other HP boards, e.g.
8BC2, 8C9C) could provide a software workaround on Linux — though
this would not fix the issue under Windows, since the bug sits in
the firmware itself.

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REQUEST
----------------------------------------

Given that:
1. The hardware is confirmed functional (HP UEFI diagnostics, past
successful use),
2. The bug is confirmed identical across three different operating
systems (Windows 11, Debian, Ubuntu),
3. It has been precisely localized to the firmware's WMI methods
(WQBC/WQBE/WHCM/WMAA, "CreateField of length zero" ACPI errors),
4. No earlier BIOS version is available to test for a possible
regression,

I am requesting a corrective BIOS update for baseboard 8A2E (HP ENVY
Laptop 17-cr0755nz, SKU 6V1M3EA#UUZ), or failing that, guidance on
how to restore the integrated camera's functionality.

I am happy to provide any further technical information (command
output, decompiled ACPI tables, screenshots) that may help your
support team with diagnosis.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[BeemerBiker]

This is a user to user forum.

I am guessing that your laptop is out of warranty.   Note that only windows 11 is supported for your laptop.

I flagged your post for a moderator to look at. 

Have you tried cloud recovery?

HP is removing cloud recovery for system over 5 years old. The actual wording is a limited time after the warranty expires. You may want to get a copy of the cloud recovery before it is too late.

Cloud recovery provides all the custom HP drivers.
Go here and enter your product ID including the 3 characters after the # character. If you have cloud recovery you can restore your system using a 64gb flash.
It may take an hour or more to create the recovery USB. Alternately, download from the MS windows store. Click here for instructions.

I believe this is a typo:  5V1M3EA#UUZ

it does not have windows cloud restore.  It is a laptop but since it has no cloud recovery it may have been bought with freedos instead of windows.  Just a guess.

Exactly what is the correct product ID?

[saagii]

Thank you for looking into this! You're right to flag the typo — the correct Product ID is 6V1M3EA#UUZ (not 5V1M3EA), confirmed via dmidecode -s system-sku-number on this machine. It's definitely not a FreeDOS unit — I've successfully installed and run Windows 11 on it (the issue is specifically that the integrated camera isn't detected, confirmed via Device Manager showing no entry at all, and via 0xA00F4244 NoCamerasAreAttached).

I'll try the Cloud Recovery tool with the corrected ID now and report back whether it includes a camera/IPU driver package different from what's on the standard support page. Thanks for flagging this for a moderator — I have a full technical writeup (DSDT analysis, ACPI error traces across Windows/Debian/Ubuntu) ready to share if that would help.

[BeemerBiker]

If the camera does not work during UEFI diagnostics then that is a hardware problem that can  be covered in warranty.    Was the camera working in UEFI diagnostics before a firmware upgrade and failed after the firmware upgrade?  Even if out of warranty possibly HP could roll back the bios update.

If the device is not listed in the diagnostics possibly it may be in the updated UEFI diagnostics.
Expand the spoiler for update instructions

Spoiler

HP releases newer UEFI diagnostics periodically.
When you select F2 during boot you are requesting UEFI diagnostics.
There is an updated diagnostics package Click Here
Look for the phrase 'issues outside the OS',
Click the DOWNLOAD button.
The version of the UEFI diagnostics is shown at the left of that DOWNLOAD button.
When you press F2 to run diagnostics please ensure the version is the new one.

Let me know what you find out.

I tried all three and only the UUZ worked. 
PRIMARY: #UUZ - Switzerland
#ABP - Swiss (German)
#ABQ - Swiss (French)

[saagii]

Good to know UUZ is confirmed correct via the recovery tool — thank you for checking all three variants. I'll also try the Cloud Recovery download next and see if it includes a different driver package than the standard support page.

Regarding the BIOS: no, I don't have a confirmed "before/after" — the camera issue was already present when I started investigating, and HP's anti-rollback lock (introduced in F.21) prevents me from testing an older BIOS version to check for a regression. So I can't currently confirm whether this is a new firmware bug or has always been present since purchase — I'll mention this limitation clearly if HP support asks.

[saagii]

Update: I managed to boot the diagnostics key successfully this time. However, the only tests available are video memory tests (graphics card), not anything camera-specific — there's no dedicated camera/webcam test in this diagnostics suite for this model. So I'm not able to get a definitive pass/fail specifically for the camera hardware through HP's own tool. Given everything else I've gathered (ACPI-level evidence that the camera's power-resource device never activates, identical behavior across Windows 11/Debian/Ubuntu), I think this is as far as I can take the diagnosis without HP-side firmware documentation. Happy to share the full technical writeup if that would help move things forward.

[BeemerBiker]

The webcam connection test should be in the "component tests".

Boot -> press F2 -> run the component test.

• Webcam Connection Test: This test initiates video streaming on the webcam. If the test detects multiple webcams, select the webcam you want to test. (This test is currently not available in the Windows version of the hardware diagnostics.)

  To run the test, click Webcam Connection, and then click Run once.

It is not part of the windows diagnostic, it is in the F2 diagnostics when you boot up

[saagii]

That's helpful, thank you — but on this unit, "Webcam Connection" simply doesn't appear anywhere in the Component Tests menu at all, even though I've run that full test suite (I ran it as my very first troubleshooting step, before even suspecting a camera issue, and again just now to double check). No webcam entry shows up to select or run.

I suspect this might actually be consistent with the root cause I traced: the camera's ACPI device (_STA method) never reports as "present" on this board due to a firmware bug in the WQBC/WHCM WMI methods (full technical details in my earlier post). If the diagnostics tool builds its test list dynamically based on what the firmware reports as present, a camera that's never enumerated wouldn't show a test option at all — which would match what I'm seeing exactly.