Posts Tagged ‘which’

Fix Mac OS X camera problems – Tell which application is using Mac OS X builtin Camera

Sunday, September 16th, 2018

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/macosx-check-what-process-is-using-camera-screenshot
It is a common problem on Mac OS X notebooks (MacBook Air , MacBook Proc)  with builtin Video Camera to have issues with Camera in Facetime, Skype and other applications which use it.

Considering that the Camera is physically working on the Mac (it did not burn etc.) and it stooped working suddenly (is not detected by Mac OS applications which support it), the most common cause for that is the fact that another application running on the system is using it.
With the spread of spyware and malware that can easily hit your computer by exploiting Javascript bugs in browser intepreter (Firefox, Chrome, Chrome) it is not impossible that your Mac PC got infected with a kind of WebCam spy software that keeps your Video Camera active all time.

Webcam spying is a real issue of today so to secure yourself partially you can place Oversight App to get notifications when an application starts using Mac's Webcam or audio.

Open Finder and run Terminal to check whether the Web Camera is used by some of the Mac running processes.

 

Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

 


macosx-utilities-terminal-osx-screenshot

 

 

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "AppleCamera"

 

You should see one or more results. If you don’t see any results, try running the following commands as well.
One of the below commands may be necessary if you’re using an older version of macOS.

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "iSight"

 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  lsof | grep "VDC"

 

If VDCAssistant process shows running kill it.
 

MacBook-Air:Volumes root#  killall -9 VDCAssistant

 

 

 

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/macosx-check-what-process-is-using-camera-screenshot

You can also check whether the Mac Camera is being detected by Mac OS with system_profiler command (this is Mac's equivalent of Linux's lspci / lsusb / lshw / dmidecode for more on the topic you can check my previous article Get hardware system info on Linux etc.)
 

/usr/sbin/system_profiler

 

 

   Type8Camera::12.781 system_profiler[1075:84585] Exception NSInvalidArgumentE
      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type8Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2002-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

    Type5Camera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type5Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2001-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserve

.

    Type4Camera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA
      Location: /System/Library/Image Capture/Devices/Type4Camera.app
      Get Info String: 10.1, © Copyright 2001-2014 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.

    PTPCamera:

      Version: 10,1
      Obtained from: Apple
      Last Modified: 13.12.2017, 9:34
      Kind: Intel
      64-Bit (Intel): Yes
      Signed by: Software Signing, Apple Code Signing Certification Authority, Apple Root CA

How to Repair Ubuntu Linux which failed due to computer switch off during update :)

Tuesday, August 28th, 2012

My sister tried updating her Ubuntu to a newer version 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) but in the middle of the dist-update process had to go out and hence closed her notebook thinking the update would continue by itself. I’m not fully aware what happened next, maybe the battery charge went down, maybe the computer entered sleep mode in the middle of some important package update or whatever. The result however on next opening OF her Ubuntu powered Acer Aspire 5736Z was Ubuntu unable to boot properly.
The boot up failed in the middle of booting the BootSplash (from some of the /etc/init.d … init scripts)

. The BootSplash status was therefore failing and on the screen the GUI cursor appeared refreshing every few seconds, whether on every refresh the screen become blank, the hard drive was reading on and on, continuously as well. Since the screen was keeping mostly blank I had no way to see exactly why the hard drive was scraping on and on….

My first guess was to try to boot the Ubuntu in single user mode (without GUI environment) and then complete the interrupted packages apt-get dist-upgrade.

In the old days of RedHat and probably nowdays in Fedora, I remember entering single user mode was easy just press I button few times on OS boot in non-interactive mode. The I (boot single-mode) shortcut however is not compatible with Deb based distros (as I found out by trying it out unsuccesfully).

Actually during booting process, this notebook did not even prompted the GRUB menu with even simple choice to choose an old kernel or something, hence I took a quick look on the net how can I make the GRUB menu appear on Ubuntu!.
As I read the reason why GRUB menu did not appear on the laptop boot was due to very short GRUB (select) boot timeout delay set.

Therefore to make the GRUB prompt (select) prompt appear in Ubuntu it is necessery to:

1. Hold continously the SHIFT key at boot

Ubuntu Linux version 12.04 GRUB boot textscreen picture

Once the textmode GRUB selection screen appears, as I read in instructions in blogs one has to:
HIT e key, over default boot-up kernel, e.g.:

Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-23-generic

Now to boot Ubuntu in single user mode as I red it is necessery to modify near line:

linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic root=UUID=bc6f8146-1523-46a6-8b\6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro quiet splash

to something like:

linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-24-generic root=UUID=bc6f8146-1523-46a6-8b\6a-64b819ccf2b7 ro single quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-24-generic

Then finally to load up with the changed GRUB options, I have pressed Ctrl+X
Unfortunately this didn’t work on this totally bugged Ubuntu. After continuously looking for way to boot in sigle user or textmode (without X server), I found another blog recommending to change: quiet splash words with text in grub kernel load-up options ..

In my case none of the ways worked out so I finally decided to do it the “old-fashioned” classical way to recover Ubuntu, e.g. – by using Ubuntu Install CD, booting in “Try Ubuntu” mode and using the good old chroot cmd.

Fixing the failed updates Ubuntu, came up to booting with Ubuntu Install CD with option: Try Ubuntu without any change of your computer, further on once the CD boot up, I entered console and inside console used commands similar to one of my previous posts – How to mount /proc, /dev and chroot in Linux

Ubuntu fix was up-to to issuing :

# mkdir /mnt/recover
# chroot /dev/sda1 /mnt/recover
root@ubuntu:~# mount /proc
root@ubuntu:~# mount /proc/pts
root@ubuntu:~# mount -a
root@ubuntu:~# mount /dev
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure -a
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get update
....
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get --yes upgrade
....
root@ubuntu:~# apt-get --yes dist-upgrade
....

Onwards during the apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade few questions poped up asking me if I would like to replace some files with their new versions on each questions I substituted the files with the new maintainer version. Then finally after PC restart my sis Ubuntu boot up now fine with the latest Ubuntu version 12.04.

Today it’s Holy Saturday or the Great Sabbath day (The day in which Jesus Christ rested physically in the tomb) right before the Lord’s Resurrection

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

It’s Holy Friday . It’s the day in which our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s dead body was resting in the “tomb” as the Gospels from the New Testament teaches.
Today we in the Orthodox Church held a late Church service to honour for a last time the Lord’s death holding the deep spiritual grief for his betrayal and death on the cross.
We also wait with expectancy the Son of God’s resurrection which as the Holy Scriptures teaches has been found Risen! by the Our Holy Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene.
We at are on about to enter the joyous part of the year. The time of miracles and great Divine Grace.
The Son of God is Dead but yet he should rise again as he has already resurrect some 20 centuries earlier.
We are about to be enlighten once again with his Never ending holy Light, through the Church service to be held this night.
In Bulgaria the Church service usually starts about 23:30 and usually continues until 02:30 early in the Morning.
We also have the practice to pick up the burning light from the priest’s candle in the Church and bring it home.
We believe this transfers God’s grace in both our hearts, mind soul as well as our homes. This is being done as we expect that God blesses us with this act with a good spiritual and physical health.
It’s also important to note that on this day each year the the Holy Fire comes down from heaven in the Jerusalem Temple Church (The Holy Sepulchre) and lights up the Jerusalem’s Orthodox Patriarch (High Priest)’s Candle.
This is undoubtfully a miracle that proofs the truthfulness of the Orthodox Faith. This also proofs that our Orthodox Faith Church as well as tradition is the puriest Christian faith available for us the Christians of this age!
This Holy Fire after is usually distributed among the Orthodox Christian Churches around the world using planes with candles burning with the the Holy Fire.
The fire is being brouhgt to Bulgarian Orthodox Church from Jerusalem through a plane, right after it descends from Heaven and is being distributed to the Major cities, towns and villages.
Then we the normal church layman can benefit from the fire, lighting up our candles from this Holy Fire and in that find God’s Grace both by God and in God (The Holy Trinity).
Here is a link to the Video of the Holy Fire Ceremony from Jerusalem 2010.

So Thanks and Glory to our Holy God for his great miracle! Glory be to our Holy Lord (The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit) now and unto ages of Ages! Amen.