Posted on

Fixing iSight Error: There is no connected camera

A rash of users with “There is no connected camera.” problems with their Mac iSight Cameras has prompted a few calls on the subject. The problem manifests as a blank screen with a crossed out camera in iPhoto, with the text “There is no connected camera”. It does not appear to be limited to any particular type of Mac, and has been seen on a brand new 2017, top of the range MacBook Pro within a few weeks of purchase.

Mac Error There Is No Connected Camera Image
Mac Error There Is No Connected Camera

The error message “There is no connected camera.” comes up when the iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air detects an issue with the camera’s connection. The problem appears to be with VDCAssistant, which is the process or daemon that is responsible for the built in iSight camera. Killing this process often fixes issues with the built in web-cam.

To Diagnose ‘There is no connected camera.’

First check If The OS recognises that the camera is installed by doing the following:

  1. Alt + Click on Apple (Top Left)
  2. Then Alt + Click System Information
  3. Under Hardware in the Left Column, click Camera

If no camera appears, then there may be a hardware problem, such as a lose ribbon connection on a laptop, so it is a trip to the Genius Bar or your local Tech Support.

How To Kill the VDCAssistant Process

If the camera is recognised then it is possible that the VDCAssistant process has stalled. To kill the VDCAssistant and any associated processes, close all applications1 that use the camera such as Photo Booth, Face Time or Skype. Then carry out the following steps:

  1. Open the Terminal application: Click on the Spotlight search and enter Terminal, and then select Terminal – Utilities.
  2. Enter sudo killall VDCAssistant in the Terminal window and hit Return.
  3. If the Password prompt appears, enter your password, followed by Return.

Open Photo Booth and see if the camera is working. The green camera light should be on

Still ‘There is no connected camera.’?

If the camera has now been restored, then the process has been killed and then successfully restarted. You can also kill the process by restarting the machine, although that is not always convenient. If you still get the error message “There is no connected camera.”, then the quick fix did not work, and there is a more challenging problem to deal with. In this case it is off to the Apple Genius Bar2 or your local Tech Support. If this did not help, please Contact Us to let us know.

Notes
1. Although not recommended, it is possible to do this with the application(s) running, as the VDCAssistant process will restart automatically.
2. Other support channels are available to help with the error “There is no connected camera.”

Posted on

How To View WMVs on a Mac

Someone sent us a link to an WMV video sample the other day and the technician was unable to view the file on his iMac workstation until the correct driver had been installed. As this is probably a common occurrence for new Mac converts, this post shows you how to view WMV files on a Mac

What To Do
To ensure that you can play WMV video files on your Mac, install one of the players or components listed below. We are using Flip4Mac™, also known as Windows Media® for QuickTime, which allows you to play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser.

How To Install Flip4Mac™

  • Download the component from one of the Flip4Mac™ sources listed below
  • If the file does not open automatically, double click it to mount the disk image
  • Click the Flip4Mac WMV.mpkg file to run the installer
  • Follow the on-screen instructions to finish installation

You may need to restart any QuickTime-based applications, but now your Mac can view WMV files.

Alternatively
If you are looking for an alternative way to do this, check out Mediacoder from SourceForge or MPEG Streamclip from Squared 5. Whichever way you chose, you can now brows WMVs on a Mac and open them like all other Video files.

Resources

Posted on

Add a Mac Mini Server to your network

Have you ever considered adding a Mac server to your gadget collection, but were afraid of the hassle? Does your Mac work group need a server to share essential resources like your media library, without cluttering up your individual machines? Have you ever wondered if you could set up a Mac server to control your Mac work stations?

Well the answer may be to get yourself a Mac Mini, preloaded with Snow Leopard Server. You can buy one of these little dynamite machines for less than £900 including VAT in UK, or $950 US, and be up and running in less than an hour. The standard Apple Mac Mini Server comes with a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB RAM, and two 500 GB Hard drives as standard, with a Geforce 320M graphics adapter, and of course Snow Leopard Server 2 installed.

Be warned, however, that this machine does not include an optical drive, as does it’s client cousin, or a keyboard or mouse, and you will need your own display. It does have two graphics ports, a HDMI port, with an included HDMI to DVI conversion lead. It also includes Wi-Fi wireless networking (based on 802.11n specification; 802.11a/b/g compatible), Gigabit Ethernet wired networking (10/100/1000BASE-T), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) for connecting with peripherals such as keyboards, mice and cell phones, and four USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire 800 port. Not bad in such a tiny form factor!

If you want to use a VGA display you can buy an optional adapter Mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter, which allows you run up to 2560-by-1600 resolution. Please note that the Mac Mini Server has a Mini DisplayPort, not a Mini DVI port, so you need an Apple MB572Z/A Mini Display Port to VGA Adapter cable, or equivalent. See the link below for a suitable product, or contact Apple.

The setup is quite simple, with a Mac quality Assistant to guide you through the process. One note of caution is offered here; if the server you are setting up will serve as an Open Directory Master and DNS server, you should not set up a new Open Directory domain until you have read and understand the implications. One of the pitfalls of simply walking through Mac OS X Server’s automatic Server Assistant tool, is that the Assistant offers you the option of setting up a new Open Directory domain. This can cause problems if the server you are setting up will serve as an Open Directory Master and DNS server. See Understanding Mac OS X Open Directory later for more information.

Another thing to be aware of of if you are a hands on person and just want to get going. Make sure you have the server software serial number cards that are essential during the setup process! That is one of the first things the Server Assistant requires, and if you have thrown away the packaging in your enthusiasm to get going, you will have a problem. Not that anyone we know would have done that, you understand!

In use, the Mac Mini Server runs cooler that the client version with its built in internal optical drive. Is seems that the internal optical drive generate most of the heat in a Mini, while the disk drives generate very little, which contributes to the heat savings claimed by Apple. As a benchmark, a Mini with Snow Leopard Server should handle a work-group or small business of 25 users with a bit of room to spare.

For the corporately minded, who like the server bolted into a 19″ rack, there is even a nifty little attachment you can buy, which allows two Mac Mini Servers to be secure in a 1U rack mounted enclosure. Neat!

Further reading about Mac OS X server:

Posted on

How to Use Remote Desktop on an iMac

Have you ever wanted to access something on your iMac without going back to your desk? Wouldn’t it be cool to remotely access you iMac and check on your email without even being there? Did you know that Mac OS X comes with Remote Desktop software included, which allows you to connect to your iMac from another machine?

To set this up and try it out for yourself, follow the following sequence on the target Mac:

  • Go into System Preferences
  • Select Sharing
  • Check Remote Management
  • Note down the the IP address of the Mac, you will need this later
  • Click on Computer Settings
  • Check VNC viewers may control screen with password,
  • Enter a suitable password and the click OK

Your Mac is is now ready to receive input from another machine on the network. Now go to the machine you want to use to control your Mac and install a VNC client such as Chicken of the VNC, (for a Mac) or TightVNC (for Windows).

Using Chicken of the VNC

  • Open Chicken of the VNC and at the VNC Login screen check if the target Mac is listed. If not, click on New Server, and enter the IP address you noted earlier and the password, and click Connect. If the Mac is listed, select it and enter the password, then click Connect.

Using TightVNC for Windows

  • Open TightVNC Viewer (for a default Windows installation this will be under Start, All Programs, in the TightVNC folder)
  • In the New TightVNC Connection enter the IP address you noted earlier and Click Connect.
  • At the Standard VNC Authentication dialogue enter the password and click OK

Remember if you want to make a remote connection though a firewall, you will need to set up Port Forwarding, and point port 5900 to the IP address of your machine. You can do this by logging into the router with the administrator name and password.

You can now access your Mac OS X machine across the network as if you were sitting at it. Enjoy!

If you are interested in using your desktop Mac remotely, the links below may be usefull:

Posted on

How To Add New Fonts To Your Graphics

While we were experimenting with layouts for a news letter for a project currently in the marketing department, we came upon the need for some additional font options for the headline and titles. While the built in fonts on a Mac are impressive, the headline wanted something more futuristic and stylized than those provided by default. A quick Google search identified that there are several sites which offer free fonts, and as the newsletter must be re-creatable, we wanted a freely available font for the headline on the style guide. After all you don’t want to pay for a custom font which you have to license for every user who may recreate the newsletter in the future.

On a Mac it is simple to install extra fonts. You just download them and then open the Zip or Archive file in Finder and then double click the font so that it opens in Font Book. If the font is what you are looking for just click the Install Font button. OpenType fonts work in Mac OS X, and TrueType fonts work in Mac OS X and earlier versions.

There is a little bit more to do in Windows, and you must be an Administrator on the target machine to install or remove fonts.

To install a font in Windows the hard way, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, and then click Run.
  2. Type the following command, and then click OK:
    %windir%\fonts
  3. On the File menu, click Install New Font.
  4. In the Drives box, click the drive that contains the font that you want to add.

Alternatively, you can also browse to a file in Explorer and then either

  • right-click on the font file, and then select ‘Install’ from the drop-down menu.
  • double-click on the font file to open the font preview and click the ‘Install’ button.

We are installing the new font for embedding in a header graphic, so everyone will see the same result. We tend not to use these custom fonts on web pages as most viewers will not have them installed, and you dont want to lose fancy twirls and long descenders.

A great site to visit is dafont.com where they have an excelent selection of Free, Shareware, Free for Personal Use and Public domain/GNU GPL fonts which will meet most needs. We particularly liked the Sci-Fi selection which includes gems like Star Jedi and terminator! We discounted fonts marked “Free for personal use” as this newsletter is to support a database which is launching in a corporate market.

Why not explore the wonderful world of fonts and give you next newsletter some character?

Posted on

Screen Capture in Mac OS X

The other day someone needed to screen print in Mac OS X, but as a Windows user they focused on the the absence of the Print Screen button on a Mac keyboard, which leads to the inevitable question “How do I Print Screen on a Mac?” As this is not the first time that requirement has surfaced, here are few ways to accomplish screen capture in Mac OS X.

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 3, then release all keys
  3. Use your mouse to click on the screen

You will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the captured image file.

You can Print Screen (screen capture) just a portion of your screen, which is really useful if you are wanting to focus on a particular part, say an icon.

  1. Switch to the application or screen where you want to screen capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 4, then release all keys
  3. You will see the mouse cursor has changed to +
  4. Use your mouse to select the portion you wish to capture.

You will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the screen capture image.

If you want to print screen for a particular application window you can

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to screen capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Shift + 4, then release all keys
  3. You will see the mouse cursor has changed to +
  4. Press the space bar once
  5. You will now see the mouse cursor has changed to a camera
  6. Use the camera to select which application window to screen capture

As before, you will see a picture file appear on your desktop, which is the captured image file.

However as Windows users are used to the captured image going straight to the clipboard, you can mimic this behavior on a Mac as follows:

  1. Switch to the screen that you want to capture
  2. Hold down Command (Apple key) + Control + Shift + 3, then release all keys
  3. Use your mouse to click on the screen

The captured image is now in the clipboard, ready to for you to paste into your chosen application.

The full list of built-in Mac Screenshot Commands are as follows:

Command+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and save to file
Command+Control+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and copy to clipboard
Command+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and save as to file
Command+Control+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and copy to clipboard
Command+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save to file
Command+Control+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to clipboard