Webcam not working on Z Book Firefly G8

[Donased]

OK, so I have 4 clients in 2 offices with HP ZBook 15.6inch G8 notebooks. The webcams have stopped working. There could be more but not all of them use webcams often. These laptops are all under 3 years old, likely less than 2 years. 

I have looked at 2 of them. 1 has windows 11 and the other is windows 10

On both, the webcam does not show in device manager, and when I use windows camera app it says it cannot locate a camera. 

The rest of the time I spent on the windows 11 laptop. 

I ran windows update and updated everything including advanced updates. 

I downloaded the HP support tool and updated everything in there as well. 

The camera driver was showing an update but it failed to install. It was not a huge increase in version number. 
I downloaded the updated camera driver from HP and ran it. It's inconclusive as to whether it worked, there were no errors, but also no confirmation of it working. 

I checked privacy and security>camera All access is on. 

I looked in BIOS but could not see anything related to the camera (Clients would be very unlikely to access bios anyway)

If it was just one laptop I would be inclined to blame the hardware but 4? 

Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Thanks for reading. Hopefully someone has an answer. 

[Donased]

Now 6 clients have reported this

[MobiusNZ2]

have you been able to resolve this issue since? Just got a client today with the exact same (Zbook Firefly 15 G8) report his webcam isn't going. Took a quick look and it doesn't show in Device manager at all.

I'm going to go hand on again shortly and check for HP updates but thought I'd touch base and see if you have found anything.

[MobiusNZ2]

Just to add I took a look physically yesterday and the webcam doesn't show as an option in the BIOS to enable / disable devices. I checked HP Support update and installed all updates but nothing to do with Camera that was firmware or otherwise and no new BIOS updates. Just NIC drivers and GPU.

Anyone know why perfectly functional Zbook Firefly G8's would suddenly "lose" their Webcam?

[Donased]

My apologies for not answering, your reply went to my spam folder in email. 

2 laptops I was able to get working with an update. They were newer ones. 

2 older laptops were unable to be sorted with software and HP have replaced the webcams. 

1 was user error. (the slider)  and the other laptop I am yet to see as client hasn't handed it over yet. 

If your one is newer (came with windows 11) I'll send you what HP sent me. It pulls in some updates and runs some sort of system reset (don't worry, no data lost) and the tool looks real handy for other HP issues. 

1. Download and install HPIA: 
https://ftp.ext.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HPIA.html
2. Once the installation is done: 
i) Click on "analyze" image. The application will run a deep search.
ii) Click on "recommendations" once the search is completed. 
iii) Select/checkmark all the drivers available under recommendation tab.
iv) Click on "download and install the softpaq automatically" which is the second option.
Wait for the installation summary and restart the unit.
 

2. Once you run HPIA, please try the following steps in the unit: 

Reset BIOS:
 

1. Turn on the computer.
2. Tap the F10 key several times until Entering Setup appears.
3. Select  " Restore the BIOS to factory defaults "
4. Press the Esc key and select Save and exit or Exit.
   
   

[MobiusNZ2]

Thanks, thats really good info. I tried everything I could at the time but because it wasn't seen at all in device manager or the BIOS I was thinking it was either a hardware failure or it had at some point attempted a firmware update of the camera and bricked it.

I setup a Logitech one for him to use in the interim and then a few days later her reported it started working again.

Not sure if something in software was triggering it or if its actually a bad cable in the hinge or something so we'll see if it happens again.