Acer Aspire S 13 webcam not working, driver not showing up

I got this laptop in about August 2016, it has Windows 10, and the webcam has always worked before. Today when I tried to do a video chat I saw it wasn't working. When I tried opening the camera app, I got a message saying "We can't find your camera" with the error code <NoCamerasAreAttached>.

I Googled around and most of the advice says to update the driver. But the camera driver doesn't even show up in Device Manager. There's no "camera" category, and it's not under either "imaging devices" or "sound, video, and game controllers". I checked.

It seems as if the laptop doesn't recognize the camera at all anymore. Does anyone know what's going on? Is it actually a hardware issue?

Accepted answers

All comments

DevonK2

Adding some screen grabs so you can get a better idea.

I'm pretty sure there used to be a specific "camera" option in Device Manager that had the driver.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/4i/iyabrroqcfxt.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/o4/d97u5dvp5ypb.jpg

Rade97

Hai @DevonK2
If it is a external webcam you can give the model number of the webcam in the google and download the driver to the computer
If it is a internal camera in the laptop go to the website given below and give the snid number of your laptop and can download the driver from the website.
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/drivers
Click accept if the comments are useful.

DevonK2

Thanks Rade97.

It is an internal camera, the one that came with the laptop. I did look at the Drivers page on the Acer website that you linked and put in my laptop's SNID. 15 drivers show up, but none of them seem to be for a camera. Do you know if one of them is? I copied and pasted the list below:

Audio Driver
Bluetooth Driver
Bluetooth Driver (NFA344A Liteon)
Card Reader Driver
Chipset Driver (Kabylake)
Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver
Fingerprint Driver
Serial IO Driver
IRST (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology) Driver
Touchpad Driver
Touchpad Driver
Turbo Boost Driver
VGA Driver
Wireless LAN Driver
Wireless LAN Driver (NFA344A HAI)

Deejay_tech

The acer laptop camera uses the windows built in camera driver.

DevonK2

@Deejay_tech - thanks. Do you know how I would get that back onto my laptop if it seems to have disappeared? Windows Support wasn't much help unfortunately.

Deejay_tech

The internal camera is connected to the mainboard of the laptop via the USB bus.
you can try this, not sure it will work but no harm in trying.
in device manager, uninstall all usb devices.
then reboot.
windows will automatically install all the usb device drivers on reboot. this may re enumerate the camera device.

if its a hardware issue then nothing can be done except to replace the camera module.
but try all the software options first.

also in device manager, click view, then click show hidden devices. do you see an entry which can be camera device.?

DevonK2

@Deejay_tech, thanks for your help - I did "show hidden devices" and the camera finally showed up!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/5b/nw5g16szqtrk.jpg

It's grayed out and the camera still doesn't work, though. I went into "Properties" on the driver and saw the following message: "Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45) To fix this problem, reconnect this hardware device to the computer."

Based on that, it looks like a hardware problem. So I'll try taking my laptop to Best Buy when I get a chance.

RyanW88

DevonK2 said:

@Deejay_tech, thanks for your help - I did "show hidden devices" and the camera finally showed up!

It's grayed out and the camera still doesn't work, though. I went into "Properties" on the driver and saw the following message: "Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45) To fix this problem, reconnect this hardware device to the computer."

Based on that, it looks like a hardware problem. So I'll try taking my laptop to Best Buy when I get a chance.

Hi Devon K2 can I ask if you ever got this problem sorted? I have exactly the same issue as you on my Swift 3.

Patiodors

Acer Aspire S24 camera reporting exactly as above. And I also ask has this problem ever got sorted. My camera has not really worked since using Microsoft Teams. Has worked intermittently on occasions.

DevonK2

Hi folks - thank you all for your thoughts. I ended up taking my laptop to UBreakIFix a few months back and they said the issue seemed to be with the hardware. Apparently the cable that connects the webcam to the CPU just doesn't work anymore.

rondeemo

Sorry to be late to the dance but I just found out I have/had this problem as well and came across your discussion. With your comments and others I found elsewhere I hit upon a solution, at least it worked for my ACER...

Go to Device Manager as per DevonK2's post and uninstall the camera driver
Right-click the computer name at the top of the list, click on Scan for hardware changes...
Scroll down to, and expand, Universal Serial Bus Controllers
One USB device should be not working, mine was the Intel eXtensible Host Controller. In the Properties (right-click, Properties) it had the same "Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer..." message as the camera -- uninstall it
Reboot the computer and ... VOILA! My camera was working again!

I hope this works as well for you as it did for me, although it took me over an hour of searching to find all the clues and put it all together as a solution.

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 220

StevenGen 100

poooooooooop69 60

GR08 57

Dimm 45

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™