7 ways to fix freezing Webcam in windows

The coronavirus breakout has forced people to stay in their homes. A lot of companies have adopted the ‘Work from Home’ model. Offices and Educational institutions have shifted to online for the most part, all of this has made a Webcam one of the most important things in our life. Like any other hardware, a Webcam also sometimes tends to malfunction and today we are going to look at 10 tips to fix freezing webcam in windows.

Running a troubleshooter

Troubleshooting has always been one of the go-to solutions for quite a number of problems that occur in Windows. Running a Windows Store apps troubleshooter is advised as it checks for every possible error and fixes it immediately.

How to run a troubleshooter in Windows 10:

1. Go to Settings
2. Find ‘Update and Security
3. Select it and find “Troubleshoot” in the list of options on the left-hand panel.
4. Select “Additional Troubleshooters” and find “Windows Store Apps”. 

Tweaking the windows registry

Windows registry contains crucial information about the applications running on your PC. While the instructions of this tweak are fairly easy to follow it should be noted that any change in your Windows registry which is done without the right information can cause harm to your PC and data. The user is warned about the consequences if it is not done the right way.

How to tweak the registry in Windows 10:

1. Press the ‘Windows+R’ key to open the run command
2. Type ‘regedit’ and click ok you will now see the registry editor window opened
3. Follow the path : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform
4. Under this path, You will find a folder named ‘Platform’ under the ‘Windows Media Foundation’ on the left sidebar. Right-click on the folder and find ‘new’ and select ‘DWORD’ value, this will create a new value in this section. Change the name of the value to ‘EnableFrameServerMode’ modify it by right-clicking and set the value data as 0.
5. If you are using the 32-bit version of Windows you are done here If you are using a 64-bit  version you have to go to another path –HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform
6. Here again, you have to add a ‘DWORD’ value named “EnableFrameServerMode” and set the value to 0.
7. Close the registry editor, the changes that you have made will be effective  immediately and then you can reopen the app where your webcam was freezing and check if the problem still exists. If you wish to undo the changes that you have made you can again visit the registry editor by using the ‘Run’ command and deleting the DWORD values that were created by you.

Check if your drivers are up to date

If your webcam starts to malfunction after a Windows update then it might indicate that the device has outdated drivers which are causing the problem. To resolve this press ‘Windows + R’ to open the run command and then type ‘devmgmt.msc’ and click ‘OK’,  this opens the device manager where you can see the driver version of your webcam and update them.

You can also uninstall your drivers then restart the PC then again open the device manager, go to ‘action’ and select ‘scan for Hardware changes’ which will make Windows update your webcam drivers to the latest version.

Download the drivers yourself

If the previous method does not work out for you you can always visit the website of the manufacturer of the device that you are using, find your product, and download their drivers or you can download software like a driver updater which will scan your PC for updated drivers and then update them.

Check your Antivirus

Sometimes the antivirus software that you are using restricts the Webcam from working properly. In that case, you can find the particular function and disable it, albeit temporarily.

Update the camera app

One of the easiest ways to resolve the issue of a Webcam malfunction is to update the camera app from a Microsoft store.

How to do it update camera app from Microsoft store :

1. Go to the ‘Microsoft Store’
2. Click on the 3-dots on the top right corner and select ‘Downloads and Updates’ from the list, it will show you the available updates.

Rolling back the Windows update

The infamous ‘Anniversary Update’ of windows in 2016 wreaked havoc on a lot of PCs and unfortunately, webcams were not able to escape the wrath. The best thing to do in situations like these is to undo or ‘roll back‘ the update which will restore your PC settings to the last update and hence, solve your issue.

How to do it roll back windows update:

1. Go to ‘Settings’ and select ‘Update and Security‘
2. Click on ‘Update history’
3. Select ‘Uninstall updates’, it will open a new window that contains the list of all the installed updates from where you can select the windows update and uninstall it.

Hope this helps you fix freezing Webcam in windows. Apart from the above methods, you can also try updating windows as it has a good chance to solve the driver issue and restore the functionality of your webcam. If it still doesn’t work, there might be a good chance that your webcam isn’t working. You can try plugging in your webcam to another computer to double check if it works properly.