Your browser blocked the camera. Here is how to give it back.
You pressed start, a prompt appeared, you tapped the wrong thing — and now video will not work no matter how many times you reload. Reloading is the wrong tool, and the fix takes about twenty seconds once you know where the setting lives.
Why a refusal has to be undone by you
The permission prompt belongs to your browser, not to the page. When you answered it, the browser recorded that answer for this site — sometimes permanently, sometimes just for the session, depending on the browser.
That is deliberate: a page is not allowed to nag you into turning your camera on. A site can ask again, but once your browser has a block on record it simply refuses without showing you anything. Lifting the block is something only you can do, from your own settings.
There are three states rather than two — not yet asked, allowed, and blocked — and reloading only helps in the first. That is why reloading, the usual reflex, tends to change nothing.
Where the setting is, by browser
In every case you are looking for the site permissions for this page, not a global camera setting.
- Chrome, desktop: click the icon at the left end of the address bar, find Camera, switch it to Allow, then reload the page.
- Chrome, Android: tap the icon left of the address, then Permissions, then Camera, and allow it there.
- Safari, iPhone and iPad: Settings, then Apps, then Safari, then Camera — on older iOS versions Safari sits directly in the Settings list instead. Set it to Ask or Allow. You can also clear the site's own entry under Safari's website settings.
- Safari, Mac: Safari menu, then Settings, then Websites, then Camera, and find the site in the list.
- Firefox: click the icon in the address bar and clear the blocked permission, then reload.
- Edge: the padlock in the address bar, then Permissions for this site.
When the permission is not the problem
If the camera is allowed and video still will not start, work down the list. Another program may be holding the camera — on many systems only one application gets it at a time, so a call left open in another tab or app wins. The wrong device may be selected in your browser's camera list. Your operating system may be blocking camera access for the browser itself, separately from the browser's own setting.
Close anything else that might be using it, check your OS privacy settings for the browser, then reload. On a laptop, also check for a physical privacy shutter or a hardware switch.
What still works meanwhile
A blocked camera does not lock you out. Voice matching needs only the microphone, and text matching needs neither, so both remain available while you sort the setting out.
It is also worth knowing for ordinary use, not just for troubleshooting: the camera can be switched off in the middle of a conversation without ending it, the microphone has its own separate switch, and on a phone you can flip between the front and rear camera mid-call.