Surface Pro 7 Front Camera Not Working

Anonymous
2019-10-29T19:25:09+00:00

I'm not sure when it started, since I hadn't used the front camera on the device at all, but today I noticed in the Device manager that the "Surface Camera Front" has an error:

This device cannot start. (Code 10) STATUS_DEVICE_POWER_FAILURE.

Sure enough, upon opening the camera app, it acts as though I only have the back camera installed.  I am predictably unable to bring up the front camera.

Is there possibly a driver issue, or is this a hardware flaw?

Thanks!

**Edit**: Problem persists through reboots, disable/reenable, troubleshooter, etc.  Notably, I realized the front camera worked for at least the first hour that I had the device, since it shows you the camera feed when setting up Windows Hello.

Surface | Surface Pro | Sound and camera

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

82 answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-11T01:57:56+00:00

    Hello,

    I've bought my Surface Pro 7 i3 in November and have the issue since the beginning.

    Camera eventually stops working. Mainly when I stand by and wake the computer again, but sometimes diring the regular use.

    It seems relaged to Windows Hello.

    Already tried all the suggestions here including wiping everything with USB Recovery, but issue is still here.

    I think that I can't replace the device because I live in Brazil and it was bought in US and I have the screen cracked (with no effects for regular use)

    Any ideas? I can't even manage to turn Hello off. There is no such option. Camera always turn on even if I configure not to use Hello.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T18:12:53+00:00

    I assume you already updated your replacement device's drivers & firmware after receiving it?

    For my device all remaining camera issues got resolved with the updates around January.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T16:53:50+00:00

    Thanks for replying.  I am wondering how my machine is continuing to log me in with facial recognition if the front camera isn't really working.  Makes me nervous indeed....

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T15:50:03+00:00

    No, I spent HOURS on the phone with customer support trying to fix and no solution.  They FINALLY sent me a replacement device and it happened again.  

    I found that when the device was trying to sign me in using facial recognition (which it failed repeatedly), it was screwing up the camera once I got logged in.  I turned the facial recognition log-in option off and that seems to have fixed the problem.

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-04-03T15:40:24+00:00

    I would like to also know if there are a number of warranty exchanges for this issue without spending the hours to go through all the gyrations suggested by this thread?  Unfortunately, until the COVID19 issue, I didn't use my camera until the warranty period probably expired for my machine.  But what is Microsoft doing for this?

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments