Surface Pro 8 Camera Not Working - yet white light remains on?

Sadly in this case, it's kind of on intel and their graphics drivers to fix, as their chips are directly integrating into the camera lines, as far as I understand. It's certainly frustrating.. but it's the reality of most non-apple computers that there's rarely "one throat to choke" because of the vendor/chipset integrations.

On the other hand.. this is why I run multiple OSes and always have a trusty iPhone as a backup.. but I get that most people don't have that luxury or flexibility outside the tech world and are stuck with the single corporate issued machine.

Hi Adam,

Thanks so much for posting this! I updated the drivers manually as you suggested above and the issue seems to have disappeared.

It's been really embarrassing with my camera not working for Teams meetings, and even worse - freezing during the meeting with no warning. When you buy a Microsoft laptop/tablet you would expect a seamless experience with the integrated hardware and Windows, but clearly this isn't the case!

Thanks again!

Well, this is a shame that even Microsoft Employee is having the problem but they can't solve it.

I managed to get them to confirm the issue and get them to understand it's totally not related to our domain or others as other businesses are having the same issue. Some of our users reported that the camera would work in Zoom or Webex meetings but it'd break once they make a Teams meeting.

I also had to turn off Windows Hello for myself. It'd freeze the laptop if I locked it and then come back a few minutes later. I'd have to restart the laptop (I am using a Surface Laptop 4, reported the camera issue would be happening only in Surface Pro models).

Anyway, the person who I was communicating with from Microsoft told me that they confirmed the issue and that soon they'll be rolling out updates to fix the issue, however no ETA.

I honestly don't mind disabling Windows Hello or not using the camera as I don't have meetings with clients etc. But our users must have it and they get frustrated when this happens middle of an important meeting with a client, candidate, etc.

We expect Microsoft to fix this problem in a reasonable time, as they expect business to pay their bills to them on time as well. Let's make an empathy.

Have been having the Camera issue for the last 6 months for the Surface Pro 7, 7+, and 8 models. We use Surface Laptops as well but that never occurred in the models.

We have done all the troubleshooting methods such as reinstalling the camera, latest updates, and latest firmware, running the SDT scan, running the system scan for compromised system files, obviously multiple restarts, and checking app permissions, installing Win 11. We have experienced that some of the devices were fixed and some were not, and some occurred after a short time.

Some devices find an error within the SDT report but are also unable to export the report. This may be related to your domain -- that's what we were told --.

We logged the issue with Microsoft but the answers we get are quite funny. They are expecting us to reset the Windows while users are from the interstate branch and while they don't have replacement devices there. You'd expect a wiser diagnosis from them.

I'll be happy to send the devices that are having the issue currently -- as we just got reported for 2 devices only today -- to Microsoft, so they can investigate and provide solutions to Businesses and individuals.

Hi Kenneth Hutson,

Thank you for reaching Microsoft Community. We apologize for the trouble this has put you in. We value the time and effort you invested in attempting to solve this problem. Let us work on this together.

Recovery of the camera is possible by performing one of the following steps below. Kindly retest camera functionality after each step.

Reboot the device – a simple reboot may recover the camera.

Long button press – Press and hold down the power button until your Surface shuts down and restarts and you see the Windows logo screen (about 20 seconds), then release the power button.

Uninstall/Reinstall driver.

1. Open Device Manager and locate the camera device that has failed, and you want to roll back the driver.
2. After locating the adapter, tap and hold, or right click on the name and choose Uninstall. The Uninstall windows will open.
3. Check the box next to “Delete the driver software for this device”, then click OK
4. Restart the PC.

Manually download Drivers and firmware for your Surface.

Check what is the current OS Build of your Windows version. On the search box type Winver and hit the enter key.

Go to Download driver and firmware for Surface, choose Surface Pro. Then click the link next to Surface Pro 8 then click Download on the next page. Choose the .msi file that matches your current OS Build and click Next. After downloading, run and install the .msi then Restart. 

Let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Lavenia