Backup camera not working on Honda CR-V 2017 EX-L

Question

I have a 2017 Honda CR-V on which the backup camera doesn’t work - the screen is just black, with the three buttons on the bottom showing camera angles. Occasionally it will work, but will flicker to black like the signal is bad and then turn off completely again.

I tried opening up the tailgate panels and checking wiring; I reseated the camera connector and checked power (5v on two of the pins, one of which is a bit thicker and I presume to be ground. I couldn’t find a wiring harness pinout but I am reasonably confident that it has power). The wiring plug has 8 wires. I did find older pin outs with more, which are not valid here.

Other than a faulty camera module, is there anything else that I am overlooking? The camera module appears to be $150 so I want to exhaust all other (free) options before trying that.

Is it reasonable to assume that a faulty module could exhibit the failure mode I am seeing - intermittently working, but mostly not?

(As for my level of experience, I do not have much car maintenance experience but I am quite strong in electronics and overall ‘willingness to try’ in general home / appliance repairs.)

Thank you all very much for any suggestions.

Edit - here is a video showing the intermediate flickering. My apologies that it is in shorts (portrait mode) format - I didn’t have time to switch things before the image died completely. https://youtube.com/shorts/y6DkBqKNOgE?feature=share. Here is a photo when the camera is completely dead. Note the angle buttons on the bottom of the screen still.

Cheers

Answer 1

In case someone else finds this useful, I opened up the panels to access the wiring wiring again, and cleaned the connectors with rubbing alcohol followed by compressed air. Immediately after cleaning there was no difference, but after a day it was working again, and has not flickered for a couple weeks. No idea if the cleaning did the trick, or if it was just the movement that knocked something back in contact again. For the time being, I will leave it alone; if / when it starts acting up again I think a new camera module may be the next step.