Problems With Your Built-in iSight?

Posted on February 10th, 2009. Written by Rico.

Reader Gina recently called me up, describing a problem she was having with her 2006 MacBook’s iSight (the built-in webcam). Basically, nothing was coming out when she tried using it for chat. On top of that, when she tried taking pictures with Photo Booth, only green came out on the app’s preview pane. So what was the solution to her problem?

Well, the green Photo Booth screen provided me a clue I used to search for a solution online. Apparently someone else encountered the same problem, and started a thread on Apple’s Support forums—in fact, nearly two years ago:

When I turn on photo booth, the screen is green. When I take a picture, it remains green. Can anyone help me with this ?

Turns out Apple has a page detailing How to Troubleshoot a broken iSight.

I shared all this information with Gina. To make a long story short, her iSight started working properly after she followed the instructions detailed here. Nobody seems to know why resetting your Mac’s System Management Controller makes a non-functional iSight work again, but you definitely can’t complain about the results.

On top of that, this is yet more proof that Macs—regardless of their marketing—do break down from time to time.