Help Camera Suddenly not Working

[Myles Jarman]

Hi all,

I know this is a common fault, but I'm seriously at my wits end.
Today I went to take a picture of my friends new car to show someone, and the camera app crashed and the message "Camera has stopped working" was displayed. I found that strange, and so looked into it.
It appears that Last Pass is a major contributor when it comes to this problem, but I don't have this installed.
I then had the "gapps" process error where the error message repeatedly came up on screen to the point where the phone was rendered unusable and I ended up factory resetting the phone.
Fresh from a factory reset, the "gapps" error is gone, however I'm back at square one with my camera not working. It was working fine when it dropped out my pocket getting out the car, cracking the screen. It was also fine when I dropped a dumbbell on it last night as i took some pictures of my girlfriends cat after doing so and it all worked perfectly.
I havent installed any new apps between now and then, I'm running a completely stock phone, and I have uninstalled the Google Applications Service app or whatever it was called. Ive cleared the Cache and the data on the camera app, again, I dont have lastpass installed, and I'm currently losing my patience rather rapidly

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, as I'm just using this to get me through to Project Ara's release and then this can take a long nap in my little box of spares just in case.

Thanks,
Myles.

 

[Myles Jarman]

So I bought a new rear camera module, and fitted it today after work.

Clicked on the camera app: self facing "selfie" camera came up. Sweet. Swipe to use rear facing camera. No rear facing camera.

I switched to the non stock camera app, and the rear facing camera is upside down.... it's an OEM part, and it's brand new too.

Any suggestions ?
Thanks,
Myles.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Try the RE Myles, and Welcome to Android Forums! But seriously... You put the module in yourself? Mad skills dude.

 

[Myles Jarman]

Try the RE Myles, and Welcome to Android Forums! But seriously... You put the module in yourself? Mad skills dude.

Sorry, but what do you mean RE? I'm not used to using forums Yes, took me about 30-40 minutes to strip down (it's not as big of a task as it sounds really) and then half that to reassemble it. Most of the time i spent making sure if i moved something, it didn't break something else.

Thanks for your help,
Myles

 

[dontpanicbobby]

The RE is the stand alone camera that HTC came out with last year. They're on sale until the end of the month. Most people don't like it but I think it's neat. Anyway I couldn't do what you did. I'd have sent it to a shop or back to HTC for repair. Sorry I don't have any relevant suggestions for you but it seems like you'll get to the bottom of it.

 

[Myles Jarman]

The RE is the stand alone camera that HTC came out with last year. They're on sale until the end of the month. Most people don't like it but I think it's neat. Anyway I couldn't do what you did. I'd have sent it to a shop or back to HTC for repair. Sorry I don't have any relevant suggestions for you but it seems like you'll get to the bottom of it.

Ive just looked the RE up and it looks pretty sweet actually. If i could get one cheaper, I might be able to justify buying it. As for the rear camera, I'm one of those "If its broke, I'll fix it. If it breaks further, I'll buy a new one...maybe..." kind of people. I just researched how to strip it down, and took my time. I think ill strip it down again today and then rebuild it all. Something must not be connected properly, or the camera module is orientated the wrong way... which i dont think is possible since the flexi isn't long enough to allow that. Anyway! Thanks for your help thus far I'll keep updating the thread so that if people in future have a similar issue, they can look to do this.

Thanks,
Myles.

 

[Myles Jarman]

So I took my phone apart again, connected it all back up, and still nothing. So my next port of call is to buy a donor phone (broken in some other way to make it as cheap as possible) and steal the sisterboard from that one. Does anyone know if there will be any sort of compatibility issues with this sort of transplant? It will be the exact same make and model, just from a different phone.

Thanks,
Myles

 

[Myles Jarman]

So, just to update.
I purchased a faulty HTC M8 off eBay for a rather good price. It's arrived, and ive just spent the last 45 minutes stripping the camera sisterboard out of the purchased one and fit it into my handset. All works perfectly. So one can only assume that my sister board was broken in some way or another.
Regards,
Myles.