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May 6th, 2013 21:00
Silverlight is messing with my webcam
I am at the end of my rope. I recently re-signed up for Netflix and Amazon Prime with my 8 month old Inspiron Laptop. Both sites use Sivlerlight to stream videos which I was aware of having used it once with a previous computer. This time for some reason, Silverlight has decided to turn on my webcam and flash the monitor and dim it or something every time I try to watch something using anything but Internet Explorer (which I despise). I never had this issue with my old computers (a dell XPS desktop and Inspiron laptop). Ihave tried uninstalling and reinstalling Silverlight. I also talked to both Netflix and Amazon and they said it must be something on my end. When I tried contacting Dell, I got run around and told that in order to get this fixed it would cost me like $150 to talk to anyone who can help me. I find that pretty ridiculous considering I have had hard drives replaced, been walked through rescuing a computer from what appeared fatal errors and such in the past. It's enough to make me walk away from Dell in the future if there support has fallen that far.
Is there anyone else who has had this type of issue or knows anything that might help me fix it since Dell refuses to help without trying to bleed me dry?
Philip_Yip
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May 11th, 2013 07:00
Solution from private message:
It appears to have been a combination of things.
1. The webcam would apparently turn on anytime there was any streaming video
This was disabled via Device Manager and prevented.
Additional solution from RoHe
Silverlight automatically allows web sites to access the webcam and microphone, and seems to require a registry tweak to block, quote:
Webcam and Microphone
Silverlight allows webpages and applications to access the microphone and webcam. For webpages and sandboxed out of browser applications, Silverlight will display a dialog asking the user's permission to use the microphone/WebCam before allowing the application access to the device. For trusted applications, Silverlight does not display a dialog (however, the application may choose to display its own message).
Silverlight provides settings to disable the use of webcam and microphone. When this setting is disabled, no Silverlight application may access the webcam or microphone, and the dialog asking the user for permission is not shown. This setting is available in the custom ADM or ADMX file you create using the text provided at the bottom of this page. The registry setting for disabling webcam and microphone that the administrative template files contain is:
Key path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Silverlight\
Value Name: AllowWebcam
Value Type: DWORD
Valid Values:
Disabled — 0x00000000
Enabled — 0x00000001
You can locate this setting in the following policy path for your GPOs
2. The Green Light Above the Monitor Switched On
The green light was associated with the 3d aspect of my video card which can be changed in the nvidia settings.
3. Screen Goes Black for a Second and Returns Dimmed
Changing the Hertz setting under resolution settings prevented the issue.
Philip_Yip
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May 7th, 2013 01:00
First lets determine whether your webcam is actually causing the issue.
Try to disable your webcamera in device manager. Press [Windows] and [ e ] and then select properties to the top right. Then Device Manager to the top left.
Look for Imaging Devices, your webcam should be listed under that category. Right click it and select disable.
See if the same issues occur when using Silverlight.
Hawkeye612
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May 7th, 2013 04:00
Okay, I disabled and I guess it is not my webcam. It still did the exact same thing with it disabled. The screen went black for a second and comes back dimmer than before and a green light above the monitor comes on. It isn't the flash looking light directly next to the webcam, but is a little to the right by what looks like an infrared panel.