internal camera not working on ubuntu (precision 5530)

Hi,

I own a precision 5530 with ubuntu 18.04 installed natively. My internal camera was been working intermittently for a few months now. Every once in a while it randomly works for a session so I'm convinced that it is not a hardware problem (unless it is a faulty connection and in between sessions it gets connected from me moving it... doesn't seem likely to me but you can correct me if I'm wrong).

when it is not working i get

1028:[ 2.353483] usb 1-12: Product: USB 2.0 Camera
1126:[ 3.210860] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB 2.0 Camera (0c45:6365)

from "dmesg | grep -in camera"

but any "/dev/vid*" folders don't even exist

It seems to me that the issues started after some particular firmware update but I'm not positive on the timeline

any ideas? thanks