Camera stays black - possible to restart (via terminal)?

jojumaxx

VP Quintus OTA-8

Every now and then the camera app does not come up and the screen stays black. I haven't figured out exactly yet, when that happens. To be able to use the camera again I have to reboot the phone.
That is not an OTA-8 thing, I had this also on OTA-7.

My question now is: Is there some command like

sudo systemctl restart camservice

or similar to restart the camera which avoids a reboot?

Moem

@jojumaxx This sounds like the problem I've been having. Please check out my bug report. And if you feel it's the same problem please comment and add your experience!
https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/apps/lomiri-camera-app/-/issues/210

Sorry, I've only ever been able to fix it by rebooting. Usually it takes a cold boot.

kugiigi

@jojumaxx Have you tried switching to the front camera then back? I've encountered this issue in some UT devices since like forever and switching to front camera always fixes it. The only camera issue that needed a reboot for me is when there's an actual error dialog that shows up.

Moem

@kugiigi said in Camera stays black - possible to restart (via terminal)?:

I've encountered this issue in some UT devices since like forever and switching to front camera always fixes it.

How do you do that if the screen is completely black?

kugiigi

@Moem Oh it's completely black. I thought only the viewport is black. Then I don't know I don't think I've ever encountered that.

domubpkm

Does the problem also exist on the RC channel? If not, maybe an OTA-8- RC -OTA-8 round trip could fix the problem. Or even stay on the last RC if the problem does not exist. I do not refer specifically to this problem but to a method that can (without guarantee) work to fix problem with all smartphones.

Moem

@domubpkm said in Camera stays black - possible to restart (via terminal)?:

Does the problem also exist on the RC channel?

Yes it does.

jojumaxx

@Moem said in Camera stays black - possible to restart (via terminal)?:

@jojumaxx This sounds like the problem I've been having. Please check out my bug report. And if you feel it's the same problem please comment and add your experience!
https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/apps/lomiri-camera-app/-/issues/210

Sorry, I've only ever been able to fix it by rebooting. Usually it takes a cold boot.

Sorry for answering late. Yes, that sounds similar.
Yet I suspect that my camera always works once but not a second time.
But a normel reboot suffices for me, a cold reboot is not necessary in my case.
And I always have the same behaviour (complete black screen while switching between apps and closing the camera app is possible). I don't experience the other described scenarios.

I don't have a Gitlab account therefore I haven't commented on this, yet.

jojumaxx

I am using Waydroid and Waydroid Freezr quite a lot. I just got aware that a hint on the Waydroid Freezr store page says:

"UT camera may not work when Waydroid is freezed".

I'll observe that on my device and come back then.
Maybe this is also a hint for others having this issue.

Moem

@jojumaxx Not in my case, since I don't use Waydroid Freezer at all.

Rondarius

Hi
Before OTA-8 I had the same problem with a totally black screen, but now it doesn't happen anymore after I updated to OTA-8.
I'm on 20.04 Pixel 3A.

Rondarius

Hmm
There was an update too to the camera app, version 4.0.7, this could be the solution to the black screen too

Moem

@Rondarius Alas, I have that version and it still crashes just as hard.

Rondarius

@Moem
I started the camera app on 3 of my 4 pixel 3a in the household and they all works. I thought that maybe my phone is working differently because I'm using the latest drivers.

Moem

@Rondarius said in Camera stays black - possible to restart (via terminal)?:

I started the camera app on 3 of my 4 pixel 3a in the household and they all work

Would you be so kind to try taking a photo directly from Teleports and sending it? That seems to be one certain way to crash my camera app. It reliably crashes for me every day or two days. But never instantly after startup.

It seems that using the content hub in certain ways is the problem.

Rondarius

@Moem
I was able to take a picture through Teleports and send it to myself without the camera app crashes.

Rondarius

@Moem
I have now sent six pictures to myself without any problems.

Moem

@Rondarius Thank you for testing! I would like to do the same but my camera has crashed so I'll need 2 restarts.

Rondarius

@Moem
I had my first black screen in my camera app today. It hasn't done this for a long time. I needed to restart my phone only once to get the app to work again. No clue to what caused the app to crash.

MV

@jojumaxx Same issue with Vollaphone22 with dual boot (VollaOS and Ubuntu Touch on the SD-Card). I've never head before this problem with previous version (till 2024). I tried to unmount and mount again UT but the problem still remain. Black screen