Webcam does not work in Google Meet

Browser Support Desktop Support
1

Description of the issue:
Video through my Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 1’s webcam does not work through Google Meet, although it used to.

I see my image in the “ready to join” screen when starting a Google Meet meeting, with the appropriate background blur. However, when I click the blue “join now” button and go into the meeting, I see a frozen image of myself. If I disable and re-enable the webcam using Google Meet’s controls, the camera is no longer recognized in the meet session even though it turns on (I see the webcam light active).

This did not used to be a problem – I have been able to use Google Meet in Brave for a long time up until recently.

How can this issue be reproduced?

  1. Go to meet.google.com and click the blue “New Meeting” button and start and instant meeting (although this happens with all Google Meet sessions I’ve tried, including those initiated by others)
  2. You will enter the meeting, your webcam will be active, and no image will appear [error]
  3. Leave the meeting by pressing the “Leave call” red button toward the lower right
  4. Click the “rejoin” button
  5. You will now see and active preview from your webcam that looks okay. Click the blue “join now” button.
  6. You will see your frozen image [error]
  7. Click the “turn off camera” button at the bottom. The webcam will deactivate
  8. Click the same button to turn the camera back on. The webcam will activate but no image will appear from your webcam.

Expected result:
Video from my webcam would function in Google Meet.

Brave Version( check About Brave):
1.35.103

Additional Information:
Video works fine in Google Chrome.

I also tried going into “Site and Shield Settings” in Brave, going to the camera tab, and making sure my webcam was selected (it was) and deleted meet.google.com in the “Allowed to use your camera” section and re-adding this permission in a new Meet session.

None of the above worked.

2

Update: I tried turning on hardware acceleration and that seems to work.

I turned it off earlier because my NVIDIA driver kept crashing when using Brave. That fixed the crashes, but apparently breaks Google Meet video.

I’ll open a new thread on the driver crashes if that problem reappears using Brave.

3

@Philo ,

REVISED 2022-02-27 Sunday

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I visited “https://apps.google.com/meet/” and watched the Brave Browser Developer Tools > Network

Some of the following are probably sources of cookies and javascripts supplied to the browser:

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Settings Management Help ref.:

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With Brave Browser running, in a New Window, go to brave://settings/clearBrowserData

Examine all the settings for all three tabs: Basic / Advanced / On exit

Be certain that those settings are what they should be, for your usage. In time, you will have tested those arrangments, and figured out what you need, there.

Quit Brave Browser. Wait a moment. Start Brave Browser.

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In a New Window, go to brave://settings/cookies

Scroll down that settings page, to Sites that can always use cookies

Click the Add button

Enter storage.googleapis.com as the site . . . but do not Enable

  • Current Private session only
  • Including third-party cookies on this site

Click the Add button

Repeat those steps for all the other possible sources, listed above.

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Next, go to brave://settings/content/javascript

Scroll down that javascript settings page to Allowed to use javascript

Click the Add button

Enter storage.googleapis.com as the site . . . but do not Enable

  • Current Private session only

Click the Add button

Repeat those steps for all the other possible sources, listed above.

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In order to learn, what website sources (of cookies and scripts) may be involved, learn to use the Developer Tools > Network tool for monitoring items.

How to use Developer Tools > Network

“https://www.lifewire.com/web-browser-developer-tools-3988965”

“https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/network/reference/”

“https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/devtools-guide-chromium/”

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Developer Tools > Network tool is where you search for sources of scripts and other items that will qualify despite their not being obvious scripts.

Developer_Tools_-Application-_Cookies__example_Amazon.com_00

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Developer Tools > Application tool is where you will find the sources of cookies.

Developer_Tools_-Application-_Cookies__example_Amazon.com_02
Developer_Tools_-Application-_Cookies__example_Amazon.com_021136×485 125 KB

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4

Thanks @289wk .

Same problems occur in private and tor browser.

One interesting thing that discovered while trying the above is that the webcam only malfunctions when I’m using a picture in the background or using background blur in Meet and hardware acceleration is turned off in Brave. If I don’t modify the background, the webcam works in Brave.

So I need to have background modification on and hardware acceleration off. Then the error occurs.

5

@Philo ,

The following workaround, has been mentioned of late – for webcam issues

6

Thanks again! I’ve changed the setting to OpenGL since the description said that may result in better performance on NVIDIA cards, which is what I have and whose driver previously was crashing for me when using Brave, which made me turn off hardware acceleration in the first place.

I’ll work with hardware acceleration on and OpenGL selected for the ANGLE graphics option and see how it goes! Hopefully no crashes and good performance!

7

Update: I randomly tried Meet again in brave today and encountered a similar issue. My webcam didn’t work and in addition I experienced random flashing in blocks of the browser.

I went to use Chrome and it worked fine.

For Brave, I’m currently using hardware acceleration + ANGLE set to OpenGL.

I checked my Chrome settings, and I’m also using hardware acceleration and ANGLE is set to “Default” in the flags. And it works fine, with no graphical glitching and the webcam with background blur working flawlessly.

So this is likely a Brave-specific issue.

8

@Philo ,

You are doing OK. I did a major revision of my reply 3, above.

9

Thanks. I followed the instructions but I’m afraid it didn’t help. I still get the same problem. I’ve attached a screen capture of the flashing as an animated GIF of what I see during a Meet:

Screenshot

10

@Philo ,

Did you slso try D3D11ON12 for ANGLE graphics backend ?

And, maybe Disable the Hardware-accelerated video decode flag switch:

brave://flags

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Frustrating – my guess is, that Google is trying to stump its competitors, such as Brave Software, by fouling up Chromium – making the work at Brave, more time consuming as Brave then applies itself to more workarounds.

Websites see Brave Browser (desktop), usually as

“https://useragent.openadmintools.com/”

Screen Shot 2022-03-04 at 11.59.54 PM
Screen Shot 2022-03-04 at 11.59.54 PM735×382 45.9 KB

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The following, is kind of a repeat of an earlier effort, above.

Yesterday, I ran into that type of repeat-reloading (“flashing”) of a webpage (or portions of same), when trying to visit Slack.com, during a test:

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Look there, where I just wrote “UPDATED 2022-03-04 Friday”

I used Developer Tools > Network . . . in order to grab possible sources for javascript (and other items), and I used Developer Tools > Application . . . in order to get cookies info.

This evening, again trying – but for Google Meet, cookies:

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 12.27.11 AM
Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 12.27.11 AM749×326 39.9 KB

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Try and figure out what other sources for scripts and cookies, might apply to the website(s) of interest to you.

So far, I found some new sources, but also some repeat of the list (way above):

cookies for

accounts.google.com (cookies definitely)
accounts.youtube.com (cookies definitely)
apps.google.com
meet.google.ecom
www.google.com

javascript for all:

accounts.google.com
apps.google.com
fonts.googleapis.com
fonts.gstatic.com
lh3.googleusercontent.com
meet.google.com
play.google.com
storage.googleapis.com
workspace.google.com
www.google.com
www.gstatic.com

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I have found, that javascript needs to be Enabled for a source, even though a source listed in Developer Tools > Network does not apparently supply specifically a javascript.

–

11

I think everything’s working okay now. The settings that work for me using backgrounds on Google Meet are:

  • Keeping “Use Hardware Acceleration when available” on
  • Using D3D11 under the “Choose ANGLE graphics backend” flag (OpenGL creates flickering and doesn’t work; D3D11ON12 seems unreliable for me on Windows 10)

I tried disabling “Hardware-accelerated video decode” but that didn’t work and introduced other glitches (didn’t show other person’s video when I navigated away from the window running Google Meet temporarily and then returned).

I’ll keep my settings like this for now and report back if I have any more trouble!

2 Likes
12

Please let us know if you encounter this issue again — this is a great thread with good info for other users and staff alike. Will be sure to let desktop team know about this.

2 Likes
13

@Philo ,

Details of that flag:

Choose the graphics backend for ANGLE. The OpenGL backend is soon to be deprecated on Mac, and may contain driver bugs that are not planned to be fixed. The Metal backend is still experimental, and may contain bugs that are still being worked on. The Metal backend should be more performant, but may still be behind the OpenGL backend until fully released. – Mac

Related article [09/24/2018]: “The end of OpenGL and OpenCL on the Mac” at:

“https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/09/macos-10-14-mojave-the-ars-technica-review/12/”

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