SOLVED

Mac Desktop Client not working with External Webcams

Copper Contributor

The desktop mac client is no longer reading other webcams other than the default. The web client is still reading my other webcam. After restarting twice and troubleshooting, I am unable to determine why. This was not a problem yesterday and feels like it's due to a recent update. Specifically the EOS webcam utility and CamTwist are not being read.

10 Replies

Hello @craigmcrae   This sounds like an issue that I found at our answers.microsoft.com tech support site.  Please review the solutions given here and if they don't work for you, reply back to this community for other suggestions from members:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/why-cant-teams-detect-a-webcam-that-works-for...

 

Thank you for being a member of the Teams community.

@ThereseSolimenoThanks for the link. I reviewed and the number one suggestions was to see if it works in the web app. I have indicated the web app works fine, and the desktop was working fine previously. The other fixes suggested were windows specific so they were not helpful infortunately.

@craigmcrae @ThereseSolimeno I am seeing the same behaviour with the Teams client on mac not recognising a virtual webcam implemented via OBS (https://obsproject.com/). It is detected in the web client.

@rendrag @craigmcrae This is also the case with Wirecast in that the desktop client is no longer able to see virtual cams (also confirmed as unable to see fo OBS). It worked yesterday prior to the update to 1.3.00.18164. I completely removed it and downloaded from Microsoft's website and was thankfully presented with the slightly older version (15561) and that of course restored the virtual cam functionality.  To me, it's definitely a Teams bug. I've tried to mess around with the updater daemon on my Mac to hopefully not have it auto-update. We'll see.

 

I kept the older installer in hopes that if the update is still pushed automatically, I can go through this process again. The problem with non-user controllable automatic updates is bugs take down everyone with no supported recourse. Obviously, better testing - and virtual cams with a product like Teams is not an edge case - would be ideal.

I reverted to an older version of Teams (one linked from the website) and it worked again! Then during the day an auto update came through and took the functionality away again. Would love for this to get fixed in whichever version keeps getting pushed to me.

@craigmcrae I had to get fairly aggressive on the Teams updater daemon (Mac) after sudo

 

chflags schg /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.microsoft.teams.TeamsUpdaterDaemon.plist

 

Note that this can only be undone (noschg) in Safe mode - but no other way seemed to work (it's the overwriting of this file that allows the update, it seems).

 

 

Details here: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031017061722471

 

Yes, let's hope that the Teams folks fix this bug. I did file a bug report: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/908686-bug-reports/suggestions/40961347-latest-teams-upd...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm having this issue now as of Friday's update to 1.4.00.9281. It was last updated on 4/9/21.

 

Please fix!

best response confirmed by ThereseSolimeno (Microsoft)
Solution

@ajantonioli Interestingly, I am now able to use external webcams using the same version you mention whereas on the previous versions going back to last July I was unable to. I don't know if enabling "Developer Preview" (which I have enabled) does anything or not. 

Woah! Thanks eRay! I looked and unfortunately it seems my organization does not allow developer preview. That said, it gives me hope that the devs are looking into fixing this with the next version. Go go go MS Teams!!

My Teams has not been updated since the problems started, but the options are now available!

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by ThereseSolimeno (Microsoft)
Solution

@ajantonioli Interestingly, I am now able to use external webcams using the same version you mention whereas on the previous versions going back to last July I was unable to. I don't know if enabling "Developer Preview" (which I have enabled) does anything or not. 

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