iSight camera not detected after maintenance
After replacing the battery and speakers in my Mid 2012 Retina MacBook Pro according to this guide, I reassembled the computer and noticed that everything worked perfectly except for the iSight camera.
Symptoms:
- No green LED when attempting to use the camera
- "No video capture devices were found.” in System Information > Hardware > Camera
- No camera visible in System > Hardware > USB
- “No camera available” in FaceTime, Photo Booth, and Skype
- Apple hardware diagnostics shows no camera detected
Solutions attempted:
- Reset PRAM/NVRAM
- Reset PMC
- Tested with a brand new admin user
- Attempted to boot into Safe Mode, but the boot loader seemed to freeze at the very end
- Booted into network image at the Apple store and no camera was detected
- Kill VDCAssistant and Apple CameraAssistant (They were not found; I don’t believe these processes exist on Mojave)
- Unseat and reseat the camera cable (twice)
- Inspect the camera cable (no visible damage)
Before replacing the battery and speakers, I occasionally had an issue where the camera would not be detected but a quick reboot always solved the problem. When disconnecting the camera cable during the battery replacement, this cable was the most difficult to remove. I had to apply a good bit of force, but the port is still solid on the logic board and there’s no visible damage to the cable. I always pried (alternating) on the protruding sides of the connector until it wiggled out.
The only 2 theories I have left is that the cable may be very sensitive or I may have blown a ferrite bead although I’m 90% sure I never disconnected or reconnected the cable while the battery was connected.
How sensitive is this cable? How can I determine if a ferrite bead was blown? Does anyone have any other ideas?
Is this a good question?