Camera Not Working

When I try using the iMovie application, it tells me the camera is "not connected" and when I switch to iChat to check the camera it tells me it is "in use by another application."

Is this a common mishap or a logical problem I can correct?

First, what iMovie version and what camera?

You could try closing both iChat and iMovie, disconnecting the camera, starting iMovie, plugging in camera, finally trying to get content.

I've found at times that I have to press the physical play button on a miniDV camera when using iMovie 06 on OS X 10.5. I then tell iMovie to import the video.

I'm sorry I didn't clarify. The iMovie version is 8.0.3 and I was talking about the built in camera on my macbook pro. It was working fine for both of the applications the other day and then this happened. The only thing I remember doing out of the ordinary was downloading software to transfer my ipod songs onto to itunes.

I had this problem for a couple of years!!! I tried all the usual stuff recommended by Apple and info from a bunch of different forums. Here's what I did to finally solve this problem:

Open the Console app, click All messages on the left-hand side, and clear all messages. Open iChat and attempt to access the camera from within the app. You should see some error messages indicating that you have a problem with one of the drivers. In my case, it was the wrong version of a driver that got installed by some other application's installer, or something ike that. Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact name of the driver. I then used Pacifist app to re-install the driver from a clean installation disk. Viola! All the issues went away!!!

Not sure why I didn't think to use Console app to diagnose the problem when it first started.... Anyway, hope this helps some fix the problem.