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How to Check Your Computer's Access to Camera and Microphone
How to Check Your Computer's Access to Camera and Microphone

We are unable to use your camera, speaker and mic. Please allow permissions on the browser or machine.

Dennis S. avatar
Written by Dennis S.
Updated over a week ago

SeriousMD does not have direct access to be able to control permissions to access your camera and microphone on your computer.

The browser will be the one to ask you to allow access to the camera and microphone. If you disallowed it, don't worry, you'll be able to change it, just check out the instructions below.

There are times though, that you suddenly get a message like this when you start a call inside SeriousMD.

You might be thinking that you've already enabled it before and that you've already used it, so it might be from our end.

Unfortunately, we're not able to see nor control the permissions, the browser is the one that sees if the computer is allowing the camera and mic, if not then it will prompt this message.

From our experience, this is usually caused by a Windows Update or a Mac OS Update. Sometimes, it's caused by an outdated or broken Chrome Extension. At rare occasions, it's related to a browser update. It varies depending on the circumstance that happened on the actual computer.

Tip: If you need it right now, please try a different browser and see if the camera and mic will work. It probably will.

Here are some ways to troubleshoot this issue:

Option 1: Restart the computer and try again

Option 2: Check browser permissions

For Chrome and other Chrome based browsers, you will see this arrow beside the URL. Click it and make sure everything is on.

If your display shows a drop down list, make sure to select ALLOW

For other browsers like Safari, go to Safari Preferences, make sure the camera & microphone are set to ALLOW

Option 3: Incognito or Private Browsing

If you have a lot of extensions installed, just to be sure all your extensions are disabled, please try a new Incognito Window and try the call there.

This is just to test that there are no conflicting extension.

Option 4: For Windows

We've encountered in the past with another doctor that after a Windows update, the permissions for the Camera and Microphone were disabled.

When we visited the app permissions of Windows, it was set to enabled, which was confusing.

We disabled it and then we re-enabled it. It worked right away after this.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/manage-app-permissions-for-your-camera-in-windows-87ebc757-1f87-7bbf-84b5-0686afb6ca6b

Option 5: For Mac

You may want to check Camera and Microphone access for your browser.

  • Click the Apple logo and click on System Preferences

  • Click on Security & Privacy

  • Click Privacy

  • Click Camera and check the browser you use

  • Same with Microphone (and also Screen Recording if you want to use the Screen Sharing feature)

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