Chosen Solution
The camera works when the screen is open more than a 90º angle and if I adjust the screen angle it’s fine until it’s less than 90º, then it freezes and I either have to restart it or run sudo killall VDCAssistant. I’m on Sierra but I don’t think it would matter. I also did the permanent GPU bypass with the resistor so the defective dedicated GPU is inactive. Could it be a pinched cable, and if so, why has it only started doing it now? I’ve taken it apart and done some stuff but none of them involving taking the screen off. I did take out the optical drive because I had no use for it and the camera cable runs along it, but I don’t see why that would affect it. Reseating the cable (pulling away, not up) had no effect.
The iSight cable is damaged exiting the hinge area. Review this guide MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Display Replacement From Step7 to 12. Take a few pics of the area and post them here so we can see the damage Adding images to an existing question
