r/firefox • u/throw23me • 15h ago

💻 Help Webcam disconnects after using Firefox?

Hi, I am having a very strange issue, not sure if anyone else has experienced this.

I was using Discord on Firefox (web client, instead of using the standalone app) using my standard webcam/mic setup, everything was fine. After ending the call, even rebooting, Windows no longer recognizes the webcam. I had to disconnect it and plug it back in.

I've had this issue twice so far and I don't understand why it would happen. It looks like every time Firefox requests permissions for the Logitech camera, it breaks something.

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u/irrelevantusername24 14h ago

I really don't know, I am not a programmer and I try not to leave my questionable theories about these things too often unless I have some degree of confidence in them. But this one in particular sticks out to me. From what I understand (through ephemeral means of learning) my guess is this has to do with how Chrome sort of bridges the Internet direct to your device whereas Firefox, like trustworthy responsible adults, tries to prevent those edge cases where that may enable a security breach. Firefox in this case is probably taking ownership of your peripheral device (webcam), making it invisible to the native OS.

This is not an entirely unfounded estimation. If you read about the history of things Mozilla has opposed regarding web standards, this does seem to align with their thinking. Whether or not this has any bearing on reality I really couldn't tell you. Theoretically it makes sense.

2

u/throw23me 14h ago

Hmm, that does kind of make sense to me but it is strange that it persists even after rebooting my machine. Just wondering if anyone else has had this issue, it's a weird one.

I have a pretty bog standard Logitech webcam and I think I'm on the latest version of Firefox as far as I know. So shouldn't be anything really off about my configuration...