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PSA: Unhelpful error message - 'camera disabled' should read 'camera unavailable'

isa9
Newcomer
Newcomer

in getting ready for a zoom meeting I had 'camera disabled' once zoom started on my windows 10 desktop that uses a USB webcam.  

 

Seeing 'disabled' I started checking permissions of the browser (duckduckgo and chrome). 

 

I had recently changed from Norton 360 to bitdefender -so I went through all those settings. 

 

I next went to 'settings - devices' because I thought well maybe the camera quit working or a reboot was required.  

 

Device wasn't listed.  

 

Trace cable to webcam - it is unplugged.  

 

If the zoom application simply said 'camera unavailable' or 'camera not present' then I would have check it first. 

 

Since the application said 'camera disabled' someone with decades in the trade assumes that something is blocking access to the camera, but the system knows the camera is plugged in. 

 

The crafting of error message text is important.   

 

Many products simply say 'xxxx has encountered a problem and will shut down'   well, even the old blue screens at least told us where to look. 

 

I suggest an improvement to the diagnostics and error codes within zoom to save time as more often that not, we only engage the product a few minutes before we need it and that doesn't usually provide us with enough time to track down errors. 

 

I posted this before with some humor attached, and that post was removed. 

 

So now you get the boring one.   

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