Quick Tip: We couldn’t start your video

Scenario: This issue (or at least this version of the issue) is specific to the Surface Pro 2 (all versions).  Trying to start my video I would end up with this error: “We couldn’t start your video.”

This would happen regardless of the camera I would use, including either the built-in front or rear facing camera.  To make matters even more strange, when I would go into the Lync | Options, it would display the video preview once.  If I open up Lync | Options again, I would get an error stating the camera could not be found and restart Lync.  If I closed Lync and opened it back up, I could again show the preview once but I would never be able to start my video.

At first, I thought maybe the issue was related to my setup.  Here is a quick picture:

I use a Surface Pro 2 with Surface Dock to power my main screen.  I than have an USB Pluggable UD-3900 to power the second two monitors.  So I started by removing all of that software but nothing changed.  Removed and reinstalled Lync, back to RTM and still had the problem.

Solution:

A quick trip into device manager and I found that the “Surface Pro System Aggregator Firmware” had a yellow “bang” next to it.

1. Open up Devices and Printers.  There you will see your surface and it will have a Yellow Bang there as well.  Right-click and choose troubleshoot.

2. It will ask you to Automatically Search for a solution.  Allow the computer to grind away for a few minutes attempting to find the fix.  It won’t and it will fail miserably.

3. After a few minutes, you will get an option that tells you that you need to reboot your computer and you will have a view details options.  You need to click it!  From there, you will get a new screen like this:

Click Restart Computer and than Lync will be fixed and your USB devices and camera will work 100%.  As I mentioned at the start, most likely an unique issue which required an unique fix but worth checking on.