Surface Pro 8 front facing camera not working

Hi Talha1,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

It appears that you’re having issues with your Surface Pro8’s front and rear cameras. While the rear camera is working, the front-facing camera has stopped functioning. This could be due to a corrupted driver or outdated camera settings.

We will collaborate to identify the optimal resolution to this problem. Since you have already completed most of the steps, we will perform the remaining ones to resolve the issue completely.

1. We will go to the device manager, and we will refresh the camera driver.
2. Please click on Windows button + X. Then, select device manager.
3. Under device manager> click on system and devices>Surface front camera>then right click on Surface front camera then select uninstall. If you see a pop on the screen. do not put any check mark on that small box just click okay below.
4. Then we will be going to download the driver pack on your Surface Pro8, to update the hardware driver of the device.
5. After downloading, install the driver pack and then restart the Surface after installation to apply changes.
6. Once the device is back on, test the camera again.
7. If the issue persists, we will go to the UEFI screen and check if the front camera is enabled.
8. To go to the UEFI using the Settings app: Open the Settings app by pressing the Windows key + I. Click on System and then click on Recovery. Scroll down to the Advanced startup section and click on Restart now. After your device restarts, click on Troubleshoot, then Advanced options, and finally UEFI Firmware Settings. Then click on UEFI and select restart now. then under UEFI> click on devices>Then check if the front camera is on.
9. If the camera is on just taggle off and on, then click on exit then restart the device.
10. Once the device is on test the camera again.

I hope I have answered all your questions. Please let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Christopher.

Hi Talha Naeem1

We appreciate your response. If the previous steps did not resolve the issue, the next course of action would be to download and install the recovery image on your Surface device. This image is a fresh installation of Windows that is specific to your Surface device.

To Download USB Recovery Image - http://aka.ms/sri    

REQUIREMENTS:

To ensure compatibility with your Surface device, it is recommended to use a USB flash drive with a minimum storage capacity of 16 GB to 32 GB and format it to FAT32. If the storage capacity exceeds 32 GB, it is not possible to format it to FAT32 as only XFAT and NTFS options are available. Please note that if a USB flash drive is formatted to XFAT or NTFS, it will not be detected on your Surface device. You need to use another Windows PC to download the recovery.

NOTE: Creating a recovery drive will erase all existing files that are stored on the SSD drive. Make sure to transfer any important data on your USB flash drive to another storage device before you proceed.

Once the download is complete, create a folder on your desktop and rename it to ‘recovery’. Extract the recovery image to the folder you created on your desktop. After the extraction is complete, select all the files in the folder and copy and paste them directly to your USB flash drive. Do not copy the folder directly to the USB. Once the copying is done, remove the USB and connect it to your Surface.

When you are ready, please click this link Creating and using a USB recovery drive for Surface - Microsoft Support to follow the step on how to use the recovery image.

Please let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Christopher.

Hi Christopher,

Neither the reset or the device manager fix have worked, as there is no other "non highlighted" driver available, despite having tried to download the necessary drivers from the Microsoft Update Catalogue.

Only thing left is the "devices" menu through UEFI, which doesn't seem to be available to personal surface pro 8s. It might be a hardware issue, but the camera did work fine in September so I'm not sure. Is there any other option?

Thanks

From Talha

Hi Talha1

Thank you for getting back with us. Thank you so much for taking some troubleshooting steps to further fix this issue. Downloading the driver pack go to the UEFI did not fix the issue. How about refreshing the camera driver under device manager? Did you follow these steps?

1. Under device manager> click on system and devices>Surface front camera>then right click on Surface front camera then select uninstall. If you see a pop on the screen. do not put any check mark on that small box just click okay below.
2. If still persist, the issue. Please click on system and devices>Surface front camera>then right click on Surface front camera then select update driver> then click Update driver>then click on Browse my computer driver>Then click on Let me pick from a list available.> Then under show compatible hardware.> Please select another camera driver that is not highlighted> then click next then okay.
3. Then restart your Surface to apply change.

If you have completed all the steps mentioned above and the issue still persists, then the next course of action would be to reset the Surface device to its default settings to eliminate the possibility of a software issue.

Please let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Christopher.

Hi christoper,

thanks for the quick reply. Downloading a driver pack hasn't changed anything. Using the UEFI method, there is no "devices" column when I enter Surface UEFI. There's PC info, security, boot configuration, date and time and exit, but no option to see the devices enabled or disabled, so not sure how to go forward.

Thanks, from Talha