Surface Pro X Owners Are Currently Unable to Use Their Cameras

Surface Pro X users are currently seeing errors when trying to use the cameras on their devices. The first reports of camera errors appeared on Reddit and Microsoft’s Community website yesterday, and The Verge was able to reproduce the issue.

As of this writing, launching the Camera app on Surface Pro X devices gives users a “0xA00F4271<MediaCaptureFailedEvent> (0x80004005)” error message. The problem seems to affect all Surface Pro X tablets, though a temporary workaround has been discovered.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X tablets are powered by ARM chips from Qualcomm and they run the ARM version of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft discontinued the Surface Pro X line last year when the Surface Pro 9 offered customers the choice of Intel and Qualcomm processors.

On Reddit, multiple users have confirmed that manually changing the date to May 22 or earlier will make the Surface Pro X cameras work again. However, this isn’t exactly recommended as changing the date on your PC could cause issues with other apps and services.

If Microsoft hasn’t publicly commented on the issue, it appears that the cause could be an expired security certificate. It’s certainly bad timing to have such a bug affect Surface devices right in the middle of Microsoft’s Build developer conference, but let’s hope the company will release a fix soon.