The verification of the webcam working is a live feed picture of yourself in a small moveable box. If you don't see this, or see something else (like a solid colored screen–blue, black, yellow have all been noted), please take the following steps to troubleshoot.
Close and reopened your browser (it may take more than once–try 2-3x)
Depending on Instructor settings, you may receive the following notice if your webcam is not connected for a proctored assignment:
You will not be able to access the assignment until webcam is detected. Take a breathe, there are some tools to navigate through this technological tragedy.
Observe, is there a small video camera in the URL, and/or on your menu-bar?
(in URL field)
(on active tab–notice red camera shown)
On inactive webcam tabs, there will be a grey camera with a line through it and a lock, indicating video is set to not be allowed:
This lock needs to be cleared before accessing a webcam assignment. To do so, click on the video camera, and under permissions, click the x to clear the 'blocked temporarily'.
You'll notice your URL line no longer has a lock with a line through a video camera:
Now you're ready to refresh your page, navigate back to the assignment, and allow camera use.
Confirm you can see a picture of yourself in the lower left hand corner!
Another potential problem could be unknowingly having a keyboard function that was locking the camera despite the software having the camera activated. The hot key on the computer will be different for different laptops but can be found by looking up "hotkey for (insert laptop brand) camera". Example, for MSI computers, pressing Fn+F6 locks/unlocks.
Virtual high five!
