Camera is often "not ready"

Since the last update the camera of my FP3+ crashes or so. Often (especially when using in apps like Signal) the camera is “not ready” when I try to trigger a photo.

Sometimes when I double click the power button to start the camera and I press the trigger button no photo is taken/stored. Also the Panorama mode often leaves no resulting photo.

This is really a nasty bug. I’m currently in vacation and taking photos spontaneously is not possible because I always need to check if a picture was taken. Mostly I need to take pictures several times before I get one stored :rage:

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Well that’s little to go on, What OS : Update : Camera et.

Anyway please check your memory available, you will probbaly need 6GB free as swap.

If you have an SD card ensure it is formatted as Portable i.e witht eh eject icon to the right of it.

All that done with no improvement try a restart in safe mode to disable any non default apps.

if that fails you may want to try a factory reset.

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Wow that was a fast response.

OS: Android 10
Build number is: 8901.3.A.0129.20210805
Free memory: 33GB
SD Card: 256GB (has an eject icon)
Camera is 48MP

I’ll try the save mode soon and will tell you if it works.

Factory reset seems a little invasive - may be I try it at home where I can make a backup or so.

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Yes don’t try the factory reset unless you are prepared to do a lot of work but safe mode start only removes some apps config’s, not the apps, nor deletes all your data

have you tried deleting the phone apps cache etc > Settings >

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I did clear the camera cache. Will see if this works when I take pics tomorrow.

Is there a way to delete all the cache of all apps?

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I think the App SD Maid should be able to do this. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.thedarken.sdm&hl=en&gl=US

Hope you will be routed to an EN explanation

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I took the liberty to fix the link in that regard. (hl=en instead of hl=de :wink: )

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I gather that “camera” is a fork of “open camera” and it’s not the latest version. I installed “open camera” and have had no problems with it at all. I would happily remove camera but can see no way to do so.

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Here’s how.

Never mind the /e/ forum, this is generic.
Package name should be com.android.fpcamera3, if they didn’t change it somewhen.

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I experienced the same issue with previous FP3 OS update. I have FP3 with 12 MP camera. I lost some photos due to this issue.
I don’t shoot photos so often, so I still do not know if I will experience this issue with the August OS update, which I installed.

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The UI looks very different but nice. Doesn’t look like a fork to me because everything on the surface is so different but Open Camera seems to start faster and I like all the settings for customisation.

Great hint. I will try it a while an report back after I got some further experience.

Thanks!

I get this a fair bit but also I used to get a lot of problems with the camera not starting up on a redmi note 9 too. Many apps would take corrupted pics with the camera, and they work fine on the FP3+ camera. With the missing pictures thing - try disabling HDR.

I’m gonna install Open Camera now though!

I’ve been having this issue for a while where opening the built-in camera app and taking a picture results in nothing being stored and requires stopping and restarting the camera to successfully capture an image. It would be great if this could be fixed since the double-press activation of the camera is quite useful (I’m not sure if this can start Open Camera instead if it’s installed?), at least when I don’t accidentally trigger it when trying to activate the phone…

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If you install Open Camera an then double press the power button you will be asked which app you wanna use. You can then select Open Camera/every time. After that the double press starts Open Camera automatically.

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Thanks, good to know!

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The /e/ APK app says “No apps found” when searching for “fpcamera3”. Google play refuse to install on my /e/ phone, and they won’t let me download an apk … even for the ones that I’ve paid for! Google have this market in a strangle hold and I’m not going to play their game.

That’s not surprising. It’s a preinstalled App in Fairphone OS. It’s not in the Play Store or anywhere I know.
I gave steps how to uninstall it here, not how to install it.

You do realise that /e/ is a degoogled Android OS and not having Google stuff on it is the exact point of it?
If you need Apps from the Play Store, install Aurora Store. It’s an Open Source client for the Play Store. It can get you cost-free Apps from there with an anonymous account. It should also be able to get you access to your Apps in the Play Store if you use your own Google account with it.

But be aware that whether your paid Apps work depends on how those Apps check their paid status, there are ways which work and ways which don’t work on /e/.

/e/ doesn’t simulate every Google stuff there is. That’s also the reason why not every Google-dependent App works on it. If Aurora Store says an App is GSF-dependent (Google Services Framework), then better don’t take for granted that it works. It may not work, or it may fail after a while.

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  • Are you still having a problem removing a/the camera app?

  • As far as accessing other apps there is F-droid
    https://f-droid.org/
    and various other sources such as
    https://apkpure.com/
    Both of which I use

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After some time using Open Camera I can say that I like it a great deal and it’s fine for my use case. Slight problem with panorama orientation but that may be sensor calibration. At any rate, it works with all the apps and never appears to be unprepared as described in OP.

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