You join a meeting and your camera shows a black square, or nobody can hear you. This is almost always a setting rather than broken hardware, and there are five usual culprits. Start with the physical one, because it catches people constantly.
Try this first
- Check the privacy shutter. Most business laptops made in the last few years have a small sliding cover over the camera, just above the screen, moved with a fingernail. When it is closed you get a black picture with no error message at all, which looks exactly like a fault. Slide it across and look for a tiny dot appearing. Some laptops instead have a key on the top row with a camera symbol and a line through it, which switches the camera off in the same way.
- Check whether another app has it. Only one program can use the camera at a time. If Teams has it, Zoom will show black, and the other way round. Close every other meeting app completely, including any window minimised in the corner of the taskbar, then start your meeting again. A browser tab left open on a video call counts too.
- Choose the right device in the app. In Teams, click the three dots at the top right, choose Settings, then Devices, and check the Camera, Speaker and Microphone dropdowns. In Zoom, click the small arrow beside the camera or microphone icon in the meeting toolbar. If you use a headset, a webcam and a monitor with a built-in camera, Windows may have picked one you are not looking at or speaking into. Teams and Zoom both show a preview and a moving level bar, so you can confirm before you join.
- Check the Windows privacy settings. Click Start, type camera privacy, and open Camera privacy settings. Make sure Camera access is on, Let apps access your camera is on, and that the app you use appears switched on in the list below. Do the same for the microphone by typing microphone privacy. These get switched off by a Windows update or by someone tidying settings, and the result is a black picture with no warning.
- Check the obvious audio things. Look for a physical mute switch on the headset cable or earcup, make sure the headset is fully plugged in or connected over Bluetooth, and check you are not muted in the meeting itself. In Teams and Zoom the mute button is in the meeting toolbar and turns red when you are muted.
- Restart the computer. Click Start, the power icon, then Restart. This releases a camera left locked by an app that closed badly, which is a common cause after a crash.
If that didn't fix it
Test the camera outside your meeting app. Click Start, type Camera, and open the Camera app that comes with Windows.
If the Camera app shows a picture, the hardware is fine and the problem sits inside Teams or Zoom. Signing out of the app and back in fixes a good share of those.
If the Camera app shows an error or a black square as well, the driver may need attention or the camera itself may have failed. Note the exact error message and log it with us.
For microphones, click Start, type Sound settings, open it, and speak while watching the bar next to your microphone under Input. If the bar moves, Windows can hear you and the meeting app is the problem. If it does not move on any device in the list, tell us that.
What to tell us
Include which app it happens in, whether it happens in every meeting or just one, whether you use a built-in camera or a plug-in webcam, what headset you use, and whether the Camera app test worked. That usually lets us fix it without needing to interrupt you for questions.
Still stuck?
Log a ticket at portal.yougrowit.com.au or email support@yougrowit.com.au. If it is stopping you working right now, call 03 9028 4358.
Support hours are Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5:30pm Melbourne time, excluding Victorian public holidays.
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