Same problem here, colleague if mine as well, we both got our new FP2’s just recently.
I had this problem in september 2018 about. Suddenly I couldn’t use the rear camera, because the phone said that it didn’t exist even thought it was still there. Well, my dad called the support and got advices, like restart, reboot system, return factory settings, take off the rear camera and put back. Unfortunately I can not say if they worked, because then my FP2 stopped charging so we had to sent it to FP and when it came back it was okay.
About month after that rear camera problem my front camera stopped working, but I restarted phone and it was fine again.
Now I’m having a problem with the microphone.
Seriously, when one problem is fixed another comes out…why…?
You can try return the factory settings, that’s what I got for advice when I asked from support in last september. Can’t say if it worked I couldn’t try (phone didn’t start) but I guess it’s worth of trying, I mean it doesn’t do anything bad either.
Hi everyone. I have an issue with my fairphone and wanted to know if more people are in my case. I bought my fairphone in May and received it in June 18. Just one month after the camera module started not working. It was saying it can’t connect and the screen is covered by coloured and black lines… Fairphone sent me a new camera module. It had the same problem. Then they replaced my phone and the new one had the same problem… So all the modules or fairphone I had had the same problem with their back camera. Did anyone faced the same problem? How did it end for you?
I am asking some help on the forum as well because I don’t feel so helped by the fairphone support. They are very slow to reply and I cannot use my phone properly during that time. I am really disappointed.
I ask the support if I could return my phone and be refunded but they told me the value of my phone is now 399 euros whereas I bought it 525euros. My phone phone started to have problems since the first month I got it. And they found out I was not responsible for it when I returned my phone. Did someone experienced something like this? I don’t find it normal as I was not responsible for the problem and it has been proved. Why should I pay for the mistake? My only mistake was to buy a fairphone 2…
Is there someone in the same situation. Thank you a lot for your help!
Best regards,
My Main camera has the same Problem. I am using open camera. Sometimes it is working and sometimes it is showing vertical colourful lines.
Is it poasible, that it is a driver issue?
I got the impression, if i am starting the camera in bright conditions (like a sunny day) it almost always works and if i am starting during dark conditions (like candle light) it almost never works.
Pics oft my camera in an old post
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I had the same problem as described above: My back camera (also called main camera) was sometimes working, but sometimes it was not. In the latter case I saw only fine vertical lines in blue, purple, grey and black. After a while a message appeared stating that the camera could not be connected.
Fortunately I could solve this problem in the meantime:
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I cleaned the three contacts on the back side of the main camera and also the three contact areas on the board vis-à-vis. I used a cotton swab and pure alcohol for cleaning.
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I bent the three contact tongues a little bit more so the pressure between contact and contact area on the board is a little bit higher now. I used tweezers with a long needle-like tip for bending. Please be cautious!
Good luck!
Here is a picture with two of the three contacts marked red:
Here is my detailed original post in German some days ago:
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Ich hatte das selbe Problem, bin aber auf diesen Post hier erst gestossen, nachdem ich das Camera Modul ausgebaut und die Kontakte zum Modul an sich gereinigt hatte. Es geht jetzt wieder. Falls der Fehler wieder auftritt, werde ich die 3 Kontakte im Modul (wie von dir beschrieben) untersuchen und hier das Ergebnis mitteilen.
Danke an alle Tippgeber. Da dieser Fehler häufiger aufzutreten scheint, sollte fairphone sich mal mit den Qualitätsverantwortlichen des Produzenten unterhalten (entweder des Camera moduls oder der Endmontage). Offensichtlich gibt es da ein Problem, könnte natürlich auch konstruktiver Natur sein.
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Same problem.
After three days the earphones output stopped working, had to get a replacement part and that fixed that problem. A few days after that problem was fixed, however, the camera just stopped “connecting”. I also experience the purple glitch visuals and it asks me to report/dismiss. So now the camera doesn’t work, basically.
I have to suggest… Don’t roll out your product before it’s actually ready? It’s not especially great if two vital components of your product malfunction within the first week.
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This is a community forum, not the company.
But it’s very visible here in the forum that the quality consistency of the parts is lacking.
You can be lucky, you can be unlucky … and that’s not how it is supposed to work for customers.
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+1
I have the same situation here with a non working rear camera. It displays coloured lines and crashes with the message “Kamerafehler: Keine Verbindung zur Kamera möglich”
I suddenly had problems with my camera, some months after changing the old camera module to the new one. I have tries everything, posted on this site, to try and fix the issue, but still does not connect to the camera. Which also means the torch app, does not work either. So, I have brought my old Olympus Mu3 digital camera, out of retirement, to carry around in my pocket. It is about twenty years old, waterproof, dustproof and shockproof!
Is there a type of electrical contact grease which could be used to make the connection stay connected longer and reduce the number of times we have to open up the phone and clean it?
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…
The general your… One’s product, if you will. Not necessarily a specifically directed “your!”.
But yes, it sucks and I will be in touch with them directly as I have been for the literally immediately malfunctioning earphones output.
I’m glad they are trying to make things fair on the production side of things, now let’s have them make it right on the consumption end as well. They should have exercized patience if the product (clearly) wasn’t ready.
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I had the same problem with random vertical colored lines and crashed mediaserver. Finally the display was black and the mediaserver crashed. The tips cleaning the contacts of the camera module with alcohol worked for me. I think it could be happend that the modul loosened after falling down several times before. Thanks for your solution suggestions
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I have suffered with the crashing FP2 camera for some time, Fairphone sent me a replacement module last summer. I have tried the hardware-based advice, but the problem always re-appears. For me it appears to be a software issue.
I found that 3rd party apps could launch the camera when the stock camera app failed, and this would temporarily fix the problem. I concluded this is an Android problem, and so no point in replacing or trying to fix the camera module. Android 7 update made no difference and the camera has since got worse.
I found this advice online from Google via user Josh Hudsy at androidcentral.com:
"Go to Settings > Apps,Camera, and then touch Force stop.
Go to Settings > Apps, Camera, and then touch Clear cache.
Go to Settings > Apps, Camera, and then touch Clear data. Caution: Any data saved in this app will be erased.
Then restart your device without opening the camera or any other applications that use the camera "
I tried this last week and the camera has been great! Beforehand, the camera would mostly fail. Since I did the above, it has failed only once or twice for many launches over 4 days!
Hope this helps.
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uhmmmm, you’re a genius! thanks, Iain! i did what you suggested and after not working (at all!!!) for the past week and longer rather than once every ten times, it actually has worked immediately now! and another time for verification. i’ll report back in a few days how it evolved. thanks again, dude.
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That sounds like a good plan - but you need to move the photo files off the phone surely, or are they left in place?
I press the camera and screen together when the camera shows the purple lines. The camera then behaves itself - until change apps. The force stop / clear cache / clear data / restart approach sounds like a longer term solution. I might try without doing the clear data step.
unfortunately… it’s already screwed up again 
100% also. literally every time i try now it’s again the purple glitch thing again with “Cannot connect to camera”.
too bad 
(and kind of enfuriating :))
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That is one of the fields, where Fairphone needs to do their homework. Fix new-camera-module related bugs and look into Wifi issues with Android 7+. Currently no one seems to know, WHAT or if they are working on any important bugs or if now what is happening in the development team :-/.
I have experienced the same issue with the new FP2 generation (bought June 2018).
The disassembling/reassembling “solved” the issue for my phone only for a couple of weeks, before I had the same issues (over) again.
Now I have found a “solution” that is stable for months which I would like to share here (maybe worth trying for some of you):
The main camera module is tightened by three screws: two screws at the electric contacts and one screw close to the camera lense. The latter (screw close to lense, see picture below) I did not tighten during reassembling - instead I kept it almost completely loosened (maybe you can also just remove that screw completely…).
This way I hoped that the electric contacts are more stable (without any forces bending the piece away from the contacts). For me, this works now reliably for months.
Hope this helps!
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