Why is the FaceTime camera sometimes greyed out for a contact?

[kat.hayes]

Sometimes when going to FaceTime and looking at recent calls, I click on a contact and the camera icon is unavailable and I have to repeatedly select it and sometimes search for the contact by clicking new and wait until the camera icon shows up. Any ideas why it does this? Thanks.

 

[macsplusmacs]

have you rebooted phone?

Are you sure you are not in airplane mode?

 

[kat.hayes]

Rebooted and not in airplane mode.

 

[cynics]

When you look at someones contact its the beginning stages of establishing an encrypted peer to peer connection. An Apple relay needs to reach out to their phone, verify the registered number/email are not only available but are who they say they are...

Depending on the state of the iPhone this can take anywhere from a second to a minute or so.