Camera app cannot be installed

Fish

(I use a Fairphone 3+ with Ubuntu Touch 20.04 (OTA 5) The following problem: The camera app keeps crashing. A restart is normally sufficient.

This time, however, the camera app was gone afterwards. So I tried to reinstall it. Clicking on the ‘Install’ button leads to a progress bar (forwards and backwards) and then ... nothing. Instead of ‘Open’, ‘Install’ appears again.
Then I tried to delete the app completely and remove all traces (cache, config, local/share). The same result when installing. I then tried it via the open-store.io website with the current and previous versions. Nothing. Installing the packages via UT-Tweak-Tool shows that it is installed, but this is not true. The app is still missing.

Then I tried using the terminal and sudo apt-get install and as names lomiri-camera-app and camera-app. Package not found. Now I don't know what to do...

What can I do? I don't want to do without the camera. But I also don't want to reinstall my whole system (and lose all data..) - especially since I don't know if it would do anything.

AppLee

Hi human (I'm sure you're not a real fish)

@Fish said in Calender app cannot be installed:

What can I do? I don't want to do without the camera. But I also don't want to reinstall my whole system (and lose all data..) - especially since I don't know if it would do anything.

You do not have to loose all your data when reinstalling.
With the UBports installer, you have an option to not erase your data but still reinstall the system.
For this, do not tick the checkbox with the label Wipe Userdata it is normally unchecked, but be aware of its existence and status.

Or you can use a simpler method but it takes longer and switch channel.
You did specify whether your are in stable, devel or RC, my advice would be to switch between RC and Stable.
So imagine you're on Stable.
Go to System settings > Updates then click on the cogwheel
Tap on Channel and switch to another one (RC).
When you go back to the Update menu you will have the update being downloaded and when done, an option to install it.
Do it and when your phone as done the installation, do the same thing to select back the Stable channel.

I hope this will help you getting the camera app back.

Fish

@AppLee I have tried changing the channels. Unfortunately, the camera app is still missing ... and cannot be installed. It almost looks like there are no more photos for me now...

arubislander

@Fish please see this post.

Fish

@arubislander I have tried this:

cd /opt/click.ubuntu.com/.click/users/@all
sudo rm camera.ubports

The camera.ubports folder was then also gone.
Unfortunately, this does not lead to the result either. Or the same as before...no camera app and no possibility to install it...

Fish

Restarting the phone: the app is still gone, but the folder is back...

AppLee

@Fish

What do you see when ls -la /opt/click.ubuntu.com/.click/users/@all after the reboot?

Fish

@AppLee
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 50 Sept 21 1 1:12 camera.ubports -> /usr/share/click/preinstalled/camera.ubports/4.0.6

Before and after other app entries

AppLee

@Fish

Weird, I have:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 juin 15 06:07 camera.ubports -> /opt/click.ubuntu.com/camera.ubports/4.0.6/

So basically there are two locations for the camera.
First in the preinstalled folder:
/usr/share/click/preinstalled/camera.ubports
The other in the regular folder:
/opt/click.ubuntu.com/camera.ubports

What I would do is copy the data from the preinstalled folder to the regular folder then reset the links pointing to the regular folder.
Reboot and see what it did...

Fish

That does not work. Nothing is copied. Not even via the terminal. The error message -r not specified appears. However, the path to the destination is correct.

Bolly

@Fish said in Camera app cannot be installed:

@AppLee I have tried changing the channels. Unfortunately, the camera app is still missing ... and cannot be installed. It almost looks like there are no more photos for me now...

I suppose that apart from changing them, you installed the downloaded image, right?

Fish

@Bolly Naturally. Otherwise there would be no point.

Fish

This morning I tried to see if a new installation (without ticking the ‘wipe userdata’ box) would be successful. Unfortunately, the camera app is still gone and can no longer be installed... I don't understand this anymore. What is the reason for this? Surely it must be possible to reinstall this app somehow? There must be some very strange bug behind it!

AppLee

@Fish said in Camera app cannot be installed:

There must be some very strange bug behind it!

Not necessarily a bug.
What one cannot comprehend is not an anomaly.

To understand better, you have to consider that core preinstalled apps have a particularity, they used to ship with the system image and could only be updated via a full system update.
Now they can also be updated through the open-store which is great but lead to some unexpected behavior with unplanned scenarios like removal of these apps.

The error message -r not specified appears. However, the path to the destination is correct.

That's a weird error message.
And I guess it should be possible to copy the files, I would dig in this direction if I were you.

arubislander

@Fish said in Camera app cannot be installed:

The error message -r not specified appears. However, the path to the destination is correct.

What is the exact command that produces this error?

Fish

@AppLee The copying has now worked. Apparently I have to write “sudo” in front of everything. But that didn't help either.

Well, with the bug I also meant that the camera app somehow removed itself. It was simply no longer there after the restart. And now I can no longer install it. That's kind of annoying.

AppLee

@Fish
Oh, I thought you purposedly removed the camera app to try to reinstall it.
Can you give us the exact command you typed?

Fish

Im Verzeichnis /usr/share/click/preinstalled/camera.ubports
sudo cp -f -r camera.ubports /opt/click.ubuntu.com/camera.ubports

arubislander

@Fish I get:

cp: cannot stat 'camera.ubports': No such file or directory

which is correct since there is no camera.ubports directory in the /usr/share/click/preinstalled/camera.ubports folder, only 4.6.0 and current, which is a symlink to 4.6.0

Fish

@arubislander I have the camera.ubports directory in the /usr/share/click/preinstalled/camera.ubports folder. But there was none in /opt/click.ubuntu.com/camera.ubports, where AppLee's folder ist located.