title: Color and depth stream don't work anymore
body: <p>I used until yesterday afternoon a Kinect for XBOX 360 on my computer, a MacBook Pro 15" Late 2011, whose specifications are available <a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/sp644" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. I use Windows 7 (natively installed, without using virtual machines). The version of the SDK I had installed was 1.0.</p>
  
  <p>All of a sudden, from today the Kinect no longer worked. Initially I thought it was some error in my code, but I noticed that the program remained stuck at the beginning, when I called the method <code>KinectSensor.Start()</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I started looking for information on the internet. I read about a solution obtained by reinstalling the drivers. It did not work, and then I tried to install version 1.6 of the SDK. Unfortunately, even that did not work.</p>
  
  <p>I've seen at this stage, there might be compatibility issues with certain USB host controllers, such as the Intel 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB host controller. In my case, however, there should be no problems (because there were not ever been up to yesterday):</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/mwxBD.jpg" alt="The Windows device manager shows that the USB controllers should not cause problems"></p>
  
  <p>To check if the problem was really due to the sensor, and not to my application, I run one of the test applications provided with the SDK, called <em>Kinect Explorer</em>. However, I encountered the same problem with this test application. After waiting about one minute, when the Kinect Explorer starts I cannot see neither the color stream, nor the depth stream, nor information about skeleton. The only thing I can do is move the Kinect up and down, changing the angle of the neck. Even the microphone array seems to work properly.</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/V1Uwu.jpg" alt="The Kinect Explorer not works properly"></p>
  
  <p>I read two interesting posts about this kind of problem: <a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/kinectsdk/thread/73426beb-8ff2-43f5-b3c7-2fe4679263fd/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> and <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/openni-dev/K2OK9-Fj5CI" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a>, which have not been answered.</p>
  
  <p>In the first of these two links, the user who reports the problem says that the hardware has been compromised. I thought the same thing myself until I started again Kinect Explore, initially with the sensor unplugged. Once started this program, I plug-in the cable, and I noticed that Kinect Explorer has marked the Kinect sensor as <strong>Connected</strong>. After a short initialization phase, I again see the color stream, while the depth stream showed an image of uniform color (green-gray):</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ga4UR.jpg" alt="The sensor seems work, but this only lasts a few seconds"></p>
  
  <p>This situation lasted a few seconds, after which the image is locked and the question came up. Also, sometimes the FPS value drops from 30 to 29.</p>
  
  <p>I am able to reproduce this latter situation only after keeping the Kinect unplugged for a while (10 minutes are sufficient).</p>
  
  <p>How can I solve this strange and terrible problem? Is it possible to restore the Kinect sensor, and make it works again? Or do I have to conclude that the sensor is irretrievably broken?</p>