If you’re wondering why your Surface Pro X’s camera suddenly stopped working this week, you’re not alone. Surface Pro X owners flooded Posted on Reddit yesterday Complaining that your webcam has stopped working unexpectedly is a problem that can have many different implications.
Surface Pro X owners receive the following error message when trying to use the camera:
Error code 0xA00F4271
What’s interesting about this particular problem is that it affects: one by one Surface Pro X customers. According to Reddit user Wapitiii, the most likely culprit is an expired security certificate, given the comprehensive nature of the camera’s failure. When he reverts the Surface Pro X to a date before May 23, 2023, the camera “magically” starts working again. This lends credence to the suggestion that security certificates are the culprit. By the way, rolling back the date on your device is not a good workaround, as it can cause problems authenticating secure websites and programs on your PC.
“I manually set the date back to April, but as I said earlier, the wrong date will break date/time sensitive websites and apps.” Written by PC Carrington On the Microsoft Community forums. “Chrome soon started blocking my email websites and prevented me from accessing travel boards. Any software or website that tracks dates. So when I want to use the camera, I manually adjust the date and use Zoom. to automatically correct the date so you can use other apps and websites. “
Without a working camera, Surface Pro X customers cannot join video calls using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet (among other popular apps used for work and education). Additionally, the Surface Pro X’s camera serves as a way to log in to Windows 11 using Windows Hello. Users whose cameras do not work will need to log in using another method.
Despite the wide range of issues with this latest Surface Pro X, Microsoft has yet to officially comment on the issue. A note on the Windows 11 Feedback Hub indicates that Microsoft is “investigating,” so the company is at least aware of the issue. Unfortunately, there are no plans to fix it. Therefore, customers must either manually rollback the system clock to use the camera (at the risk of confusing other programs) or invest in an external webcam.
Microsoft’s Surface Pro X is a bit of an odd dude in the broader PC market to begin with. 13 inch convertible with Microsoft SQ1 or SQ2 Arm processor. Using a power-hungry Arm processor, the device can be used for up to 15 hours on a single charge.
Microsoft released the Windows 11 “Moment 3” Update (KB5026446) today, but I doubt it addresses the camera issues faced by Surface Pro X owners.
