Microsoft Releases Temporary Fix For Surface Pro X Camera Bug

Microsoft has released a temporary workaround for the issue that’s causing the integrated camera on the Surface Pro X and other ARM-based devices to not work as expected (via The Verge). Last week, the company quietly rolled out a “critical troubleshooter” to mitigate the issue on affected devices, though there are some caveats.

The company acknowledged that Windows on ARM devices powered by Qualcomm 8cx Gen 1, Qualcomm 8cx Gen 2, or the Microsoft SQ1 and SQ2 variants found on Surface Pro X devices started displaying an “0xA00F4271 (0x80004005)” error when users tried to use the Camera app. Microsoft said that the issue started to affect integrated cameras on May 23, though USB cameras are not affected.

The temporary fix that Microsoft released last week will be applied automatically on non-managed devices. However, the company said that it may affect some camera features.

“This workaround might disable some features of the camera or lower the image quality but should allow the camera to function until the issue is resolved by the device manufacturer with an updated camera driver” the company explained.

There’s no ETA yet on when the driver update that fixes the issue for good will be available, but Microsoft should provide more information soon. In the meantime, USB cameras work as expected on affected Windows on ARM devices.