XPS15 webcam not recognized

Today I was in a video chat on Gmail, and everything was working properly. I ended the chat, and a few minutes later, began a new chat. This time, my video was not available. I went into the gmail settings to find that no camera was listed in the camera list.

I then restarted the computer to find the same issue. I can not find the camera in the device manager. Dell Webcam Central tells me to install a compatible device.

I downloaded and installed the webcam driver from Dell, but there is no change.

I have no idea what caused this to happen. I noticed that my automatic updates were set to install automatically, though I just changed it to let me decide when to install.

So bottom line is that my webcam no longer works, and I have no clue how to fix it.

Anyone else run into this problem?

 

I have been experiencing the exact same issue. When I run the diagnostic test, sometimes the webcam is detected and other times it does not show up. Skype/MSN Messenger no longer detects the stupid thing either. Called Dell and they said to send it in for repairs though I'm debating if going 2-3 weeks without my laptop is even a decent tradeoff for webcam.

Also, my mic never worked from the start but it was never a big deal since I have bluetooth.

 

This happened to me aswell (SXPS 16), they sent a technician and turns out a wire came loose. All he did was reconnect it. If you know how to then you can go ahead and check otherwise, you might have to send it in.

 

My webcam quit working after the third day. I uninstalled all the webcam software and drivers, then reinstalled the drivers and software. Problem fixed so far. Don't call dell support. They will download more bloatware to your computer to diagnose the problem.

 

Thanks for the tips everyone. I uninstalled webcam central, then reinstalled. Also reinstalled webcam driver. After that, webcam worked again. Weird. Now I have to figure out why windows updates keep giving me an error. I so want to like this laptop, but it sure is giving me a lot of trouble out of the box.

 

Suprisingly, the webcam is the only problem I've had so far (about 2 weeks), although as soon as I received it, I added the SSD and 8GB of ram, then did a fresh install and upgrade to ultimate without all the dell bloatware. If you don't want to do a fresh install, look for the program pcdecrapifier. It will fully remove any programs you don't want that are slowing the computer down. It will even create a restore point incase you mess up and uninstall something you wanted.

 

Go into device manager and try scanning for hardware changes. If it doesn't find anything you'll probably need to contact support to have it fixed. Unless you want to take it apart yourself. (not that difficult)

 

Hey I had the same problem, shutting down my laptop and removing the battery for a few min solved it for me, this has happened to me on two XPS 15 laptops, first a L501x and now again on a L502x.

Hope this works for you, you can also try plugging and unplugging a usb device with Dell Webcam Central open. I read about this on another forum, it might work!

 

Make sure you either have the original version 265.xx Dell NVIDIA driver or the 270.xx NVIDIA Verde driver. There was a Dell-provided NVIDIA driver (something like 267.xx I think?) around April that conflicted with the webcam.