Is your Chromebook’s camera acting up? You’re not the only one in this situation.
The cameras on Chromebooks all around the world are having problems after they were updated to the latest operating system. You’re not alone if this has been occurring to you recently, and Google is working on a remedy.
The problem may have been solved by the time you read this. It was on Reddit(opens in new tab) Tuesday (April 5) that a Google official reacted to a similar issue, saying that Google intends to provide a patch this week, and thanks Chromebook users for their patience in waiting for the update.
According to a Google employee, “Our team estimates that the repair will be available later this week with a software update and is not linked to your device.” “Once the patch has been carried out, we will give an update on this topic.”
It appears that there have been at least four Chrome OS bug complaints involving camera difficulties, some dating back to February of this year (opens in a new tab). Apps like Zoom display a dark screen if the camera doesn’t work.
More than a half-dozen complaints and bug reports name the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook as the most commonly affected model, while the issue has been documented on many other models as well.
This happened to every single one of my Duet 5 Chromebooks that I have in service at work,” reads a comment(opens in new tab) on one of these reports. “It would be extremely welcomed if there was a solution to this problem.”
Another poster claimed to have had camera issues on a Chromebook running Chrome OS version 100 on the Beta Channel, and the problem continued even after the Chromebook was updated to Chrome OS 101 on the Beta Channel.
You may wish to hold off on updating your Chromebook’s operating system until this issue has been rectified. There are a lot of Chromebook models that have been reported to have this problem, and the About Chromebooks team has been cataloguing them. So far, this problem has been documented on a number of models:
- Acer Chromebook 14
- HP Chromebook x2 11
- Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook 5
- Lenovo 10e Chromebook
- Google Pixelbook Go
- Acer Chromebook Spin 13
Stay tuned as we learn more about which models are impacted and when a remedy will be made available; we’ll keep you informed!