Help Samsung Galaxy S2 Faulty Camera Software

[Dinlas]

The camera on my Samsung Galaxy SII has been faulty for a long time now. I was hoping that upgrading to Android 4.1 would re-install the firmware for the camera but this wasn't the case.

As you can see from the attached screen shots, the camera will fail on opening. On some very rare occasions, I'd be able to open the camera, snap a picture, before it would crash. This shows that it is not the hardware that is faulty, but the firmware instead. Usually on these occasions, the screen will display what the camera is pointing at (as it should) before glitching, showing vividly coloured lines and patches instead, before crashing. On top of this, any flashlight apps that utilise the flash of the camera will function for a short time before they too crash.

Since updating to 4.1, I can open the camera but it will just hang, there won't be an image on screen, just black, and there are also no error messages. I then cannot back out of the camera, without using the home button and closing it in the task manager (with a great delay between pressing the home button and the camera actually minimising).

I was hoping that there is a firmware fix for this, as I don't want to have to go and buy a new phone for merely faulty hardware, when the camera itself is fully functional.

As an addition, I have recently restored factory settings, before flashing the OS back to the default 4.0.3 and the camera still does not work.

If you need any more information, feel free to ask.

Cheers,
Will

 

[El Presidente]

Have you tried any 3rd Party Camera apps? Does it do the same? Have you cleared the cache and data of the camera app?

You're probably not going to want to hear this, but if the issue has persisted after a software upgrade and a factory reset, the issue is most likely hardware, sorry.

 

[Dinlas]

Any apps that require the use of the camera hardware, such as the camera app or any flashlight app will crash.

I know it isn't a hardware error as last night, after installing what felt like 100 update packages, I was able to use the camera once. After it had closed and I tried to use it again, the screen glitched out and it crashed again. I haven't been able to use it since.

In regards to clearing the cache, that was the first thing I did when it crashed for the first time. That too doesn't work.

 

[ironass]

If you are willing to bite the bullet, I would strongly suggest a, "vanilla", re-installation of your firmware as it has been seen, time and again on these forums, that a corrupt update, particularly an OTA update, can cause problems that even a Factory Reset cannot solve.

For more information and instructions, see, Firmware update problems... what you can do!