Hello,
I've got a rooted Android device (Motorola Photon Q running stock ICS 4.0.4) which happened to have rear camera broken - specifically - the camera connector on motherboard . Before, all the apps I tried were able to switch on the flashlight to use as a torch. Since the camera went broke, none of them work. When opening stock Camera application, it shows front facing camera view. The switch is grayed out. It used to show an error like "failed to initialize" about back camera before showing front camera view, but it does not anymore, after trying to fix the connector I've written my own application to at least debug it and find out where the problem lays, and tried a few ways to light the flash, but no luck.
The question is:
Does anyone know of any way to bypass the checking of back camera (starting it) and going directly to switching on the flashlight? Or is there any general or device-specific way to enable flashlight without camera working (but plugged in, just a few pins of total 32 are lost)? I can provide any specific logs, files or parts of the ROM
I will be getting another motherboard in a few months probably, but before then, I want to challenge this. As of ideas, I was searching and thinking of either creating sth like DroidLED for my device (however I dont know if such approach is still valid under ICS) or somehow switching hardware addresses of back and front camera, so the front one would act like a back one. Both hard or impossible, but maybe you guys will show me the way
micx_pl said:
Hello,
I've got a rooted Android device (Motorola Photon Q running stock ICS 4.0.4) which happened to have rear camera broken - specifically - the camera connector on motherboard . Before, all the apps I tried were able to switch on the flashlight to use as a torch. Since the camera went broke, none of them work. When opening stock Camera application, it shows front facing camera view. The switch is grayed out. It used to show an error like "failed to initialize" about back camera before showing front camera view, but it does not anymore, after trying to fix the connector I've written my own application to at least debug it and find out where the problem lays, and tried a few ways to light the flash, but no luck.
The question is:
Does anyone know of any way to bypass the checking of back camera (starting it) and going directly to switching on the flashlight? Or is there any general or device-specific way to enable flashlight without camera working (but plugged in, just a few pins of total 32 are lost)? I can provide any specific logs, files or parts of the ROM
I will be getting another motherboard in a few months probably, but before then, I want to challenge this. As of ideas, I was searching and thinking of either creating sth like DroidLED for my device (however I dont know if such approach is still valid under ICS) or somehow switching hardware addresses of back and front camera, so the front one would act like a back one. Both hard or impossible, but maybe you guys will show me the way
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
jast relax and wait new motherboard.
If I would want to give up, I would do it already But maybe someone will shed some light on this problem?
Related
My camera all of the sudden stopped working the other day. Whenever I try to use it, the screen goes black then force closes after a few minutes. I tried to download a few other camera apps and nothing happened. Currently running with no root and I don't want to root it until the camera is fixed, unless that would help fix it.
MSK01 said:
My camera all of the sudden stopped working the other day. Whenever I try to use it, the screen goes black then force closes after a few minutes. I tried to download a few other camera apps and nothing happened. Currently running with no root and I don't want to root it until the camera is fixed, unless that would help fix it.
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Click to collapse
If you're on a 100% stock ROM with no changes and no root access with a camera that stopped working, there are very few things which can be done.
The only real solution would be to clear out the specific stock camera application's data directory. Not sure if this is possible w/o having to clear all the data.
I'd suggest the following steps in this order:
1) Manage applications under settings is where to look to clear out the specific Camera application data in hopes that only something was corrupted. Reboot and test.
2) Wipe all data on the device. Reboot and test.
3) If none of these worked, personally, I would return/exchange the stock device for another one as at this point, it would definitely seem to be hardware related.
An alternative route would be to gain root access and look into switch kernels/ROMs, but this could end up being a dead end if the issue is hardware related.
The only good/not so bad news is I've never seen the camera completely stop working on any of these devices .. at least not yet. So hopefully this issue is not hardware related! Good luck!
I cleared out the camera information and it worked the second I restarted my phone. Thank you!
That happened to me to, nothing I tried worked. Was good that I had ESRP. The Sprint store replacement the phone in lieu of just fixing the camera
dgr581 said:
That happened to me to, nothing I tried worked. Was good that I had ESRP. The Sprint store replacement the phone in lieu of just fixing the camera
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Click to collapse
Sometimes it's nice for them to just fix your phone and not give you a refurb. My sprint store seems to screw ur phone up when they fix it lol.
In the past when I was on the evo they swapped my screen out and broke my volume buttons. Then they just gave me a refurb.
Same thing happened to me. Suddenly, it doesn't work. Oddly enough, the Front Face camera does work by using the Mirror app. But the Rear camera does not respond when launching the Camera app.
I already tried switching ROMs, switching kernels, factory defaults, and nothing worked. Might be a hardware issue. I just hope it can be fixed without replacing my phone. It would suck having a replacement phone with HBOOT v1.50...
Hey there,
Everytime I try to activate the front camera I either get a 'cannot open camera' error or just a black screen (even though I can change the settings), sometimes I just get a FC after few seconds.
I tried using different camera application and all I get is a black screen, some application allow me to take a picture but the result is just a completely black image.
I don't know what triggered the problem, it was pretty sudden. I was on CM7. Even after a complete wipe and flashing olympus rom, nothing has changed.
I tried cleaning the cache, rebooting, everything I can think of.
Looking for older threads in the forums didn't result any useful information.
Help would be very much appreciated.
bump?
Have you flashed a full blur ROM yet to make sure it isn't a hardware issue?
Sent from my Atrix with XDA Premium
Lets say I go back to motion blur rom and nothing changes, will it confirm that it is certainly a hardware issue? Thanks for the respond.
I haven't mentioned it but the LED doesn't work too.
Its possible that a cable was knocked loose. If you verify it is a hardware issue, you can void your warranty and take apart your phone to try and fix it following instructions here: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola-Atrix-4G-Teardown/4964/1
I dropped my phone in some water, and the volume up button was acting like it was always being pressed (really annoying when rebooting as it kept kicking into RSD mode). I managed to disassemble it and clean the button, and now it works great again.
Is the only way to verify is to install motion blur rom? If so, is there any recommendation for a specific rom that might give me the most accurate indication that it's a hardware issue?
Thanks for the quick respond.
I would say that as soon as you have tried a ROM with a different kernel, you have verified a hardware issue.
Changed to motion blur based rom, still dead.
I guess it's a hardware issue.
Btw I dont know why I wrote it's the front camera but I meant the back camera so if it's BACK Camera+LED Light and switching roms/format/hardreset didn't help so it's a hardware problem.
I'll try and contact Motorola since I still have warranty.
I received my Titan device recently and since then the device's camera is not working properly.
When I got the phone the camera was acting superb and I tested it by taking a few shots and a movie roll (all max quality). After the phone did a reboot over night due to drained battery the camera app began to show a black screen instead of a preview and hang up or crash when pressing the shoot button.
I called up the HTC support center in my country and was told that this is a common and known issue with Windows phones and is caused by 3rd party apps using the window's camera API. I got instructed to do a factory resetand afterwards, the camera did work properly, but again for a few shots (obviously after ending the phone call with them ).
So I decided to investigate the matter.
On my phone were installed the 'Skype','Whatsapp' and 'Mykebo free' apps before the reset, none of which seem to have a connection to the camera API (I didn't use Skype's video feature). This made my suspect the HTC's camera control software that maybe interferes somehow with the camera.
I began resetting my device and checking when the camera starts to fail.
Doing a couple of resets I saw that the camera started to fail after connecting the phone to the PC and disconnecting it while the camera app was working (the app itself does not run but shows the Zune 'disconnect to view media' screen). But on the last reset the camera didnt even start.
I am really confused since it doesnt seem to be a hardware issue (the photos were taken perfectly) but neither a camera API malfunction since the phone is used widely and even a best photo competition exists on this forum.
I want to avoid using my warrenty since it includes sending the phone abroad and is a bit costly for me..
Any ideas on what to do next? could it be that the ROM flushed in the phone is corrupt in any way?
loder123 said:
I received my Titan device recently and since then the device's camera is not working properly.
When I got the phone the camera was acting superb and I tested it by taking a few shots and a movie roll (all max quality). After the phone did a reboot over night due to drained battery the camera app began to show a black screen instead of a preview and hang up or crash when pressing the shoot button.
I called up the HTC support center in my country and was told that this is a common and known issue with Windows phones and is caused by 3rd party apps using the window's camera API. I got instructed to do a factory resetand afterwards, the camera did work properly, but again for a few shots (obviously after ending the phone call with them ).
So I decided to investigate the matter.
On my phone were installed the 'Skype','Whatsapp' and 'Mykebo free' apps before the reset, none of which seem to have a connection to the camera API (I didn't use Skype's video feature). This made my suspect the HTC's camera control software that maybe interferes somehow with the camera.
I began resetting my device and checking when the camera starts to fail.
Doing a couple of resets I saw that the camera started to fail after connecting the phone to the PC and disconnecting it while the camera app was working (the app itself does not run but shows the Zune 'disconnect to view media' screen). But on the last reset the camera didnt even start.
I am really confused since it doesnt seem to be a hardware issue (the photos were taken perfectly) but neither a camera API malfunction since the phone is used widely and even a best photo competition exists on this forum.
I want to avoid using my warrenty since it includes sending the phone abroad and is a bit costly for me..
Any ideas on what to do next? could it be that the ROM flushed in the phone is corrupt in any way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash its with your device OEM .nbh .... If you haven't done that then maybe something is wrong with an API etc so flashing it might solve the problem.
Tachi91 said:
Flash its with your device OEM .nbh .... If you haven't done that then maybe something is wrong with an API etc so flashing it might solve the problem.
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Click to collapse
I will try this out now.
I noticed that on the factory reset menu there is an option to show the OS CRC.
I recieved the values:
BL CRC-0x439025DD
OS CRC-0x6A9EA866
are this OK? the phone is fully patched.
loder123 said:
I will try this out now.
I noticed that on the factory reset menu there is an option to show the OS CRC.
I recieved the values:
BL CRC-0x439025DD
OS CRC-0x6A9EA866
are this OK? the phone is fully patched.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you got the Titan one go here download the RUU that goes with your titan and flash it while in the bootloader
Tachi91 said:
If you got the Titan one go here download the RUU that goes with your titan and flash it while in the bootloader
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Click to collapse
I did a flush and the camera doesn't work at all, seem like this is a hardware failure :\
Thanks!
2 days ago my Camera app stopped working either through the hardware button or software all it does is play the opening app animation and return back to the previous screen. Ive tried soft and hard resets of the phone and now ive even reflashed it via NCS to no avail. Now at this point youd think it would be a hardware thing, but apps like "panorama" and "smart shoot" still work and so do all the other camera apps ive downloaded. Anyone managed to fix this?
You seem to be the only one whom has had this issue and reported it. So no, no fix as of now since you are alone on this one.
same here
Jt612 said:
2 days ago my Camera app stopped working either through the hardware button or software all it does is play the opening app animation and return back to the previous screen. Ive tried soft and hard resets of the phone and now ive even reflashed it via NCS to no avail. Now at this point youd think it would be a hardware thing, but apps like "panorama" and "smart shoot" still work and so do all the other camera apps ive downloaded. Anyone managed to fix this?
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Click to collapse
same thing happened to my phone since yesterday and I've tried hard reset but nothing changes.. Camera only works through smartshoot and if I try to open it just using the original app, or use the camera button, it just won't open and turn back to the home screen
576514545 said:
same thing happened to my phone since yesterday and I've tried hard reset but nothing changes.. Camera only works through smartshoot and if I try to open it just using the original app, or use the camera button, it just won't open and turn back to the home screen
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Click to collapse
I have exactly the same problem. After 5 days of perfect use of everything, the phone overheated, drained completely within a couple of hours and now it has a permanent problem with the camera: either black screen when launching the camera app, or if it launches, pink stripes and frozen app after 10-15 seconds. It cannot be just a random problem on one device. I've seen the same description of the problem on various forums.
Has Nokia responded on this?
The funny thing is that I live in Greece, the device was bought during a trip abroad and it's not covered by warranty! Regarding Nokia's amazing support policy I have written details at my blog nextbeta.com.
(I'm not a smartphone user that cannot understand what is a bug and what is a hardware problem, 8 years MVP for Mobile Devices and founder of the Greek Mobillity Club in 2001...)
Have you flashed the newest ROM or an older version? Perhaps you might want to try it with the Release ROM to see if that fixes things. Aside from that I fear your only option is to turn it in at a service center and let them figure out what is wrong.
Given that the Flash rewrites the whole system it somehow has to be connected with the hardware.
I have a stock rooted G3 running ZV8. One day last week, my rear facing camera stopped working. No warnings or anything like that beforehand, just no longer working. I get a black screen with only a back button and the last pic taken icon, but nothing else. When I try to access the camera from another camera app I get the message that the camera can't be started or is in use by another application.
The front facing camera seems to still be functional, but can only be accessed by a camera app that goes directly to it, like Camera360. I'm at a complete loss as to ideas about whether this is a software issue, or a hardware issue. If anyone else has had issues with their camera no longer working, any info you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
I am having the same problem, and it just appeared out of nowhere as well... I have tried clearing the camera apps cache and data and have wiped davlick from twrp but to no avail. Going to try wiping and reinstalling the rom and will get back to you if it works.
I am running the stock rooted rom :S