Root camera - every 3rd picture is bad

[chronodekar]

A few weeks back, when I was considering to switch to Galaxo or not, we had a thread here mentioning an odd issue,

Every 3rd picture taken with the camera app would be bad (or just a dud).

At the time, I couldn't reproduce the issue and it didn't bother me. But, just today afternoon (and a bit early in the week), I encountered something similar - every other picture had a 50% chance of being bad (just blank). It got to the point that the camera was just un-usable. I spent a good bit of time investigating this and I think I have an explanation. But first, let me walk you through what I did.

By default, I keep my camera to take 5 Megapixel shots at "super fine" setting. With that, I couldn't take any good shots AT ALL. I reduced it to 1M and "normal" setting. Things were a bit better, in that now only every other shot was bad. But, at least I was able to use the camera.

I use 3 desktop screens filled with widgets. I disabled most of my widgets and reduced the number of screens to 2. (I'm running Drakaz's darksense theme for Galaxo 1.6.3 ). With this, the camera was MUCH better. In fact, I could take 5 shots continuously without any problems (testing at home).

In some ways, it looks like I was stretching the limits of my i7500 a bit too much and so, the camera just didn't work right, but I can live with fewer screens and fewer widgets.

I miss the Handcent SMS widget, but from what I observed, its too resource-intensive for my needs. The only widgets I use now are from "Jorte" , the organizer app (really good too!) and "SMS Im Away".

So, for those of you who need the camera in working order, consider disabling a few screens and widgets.

-chronodekar
PS: I'm going on a trip tomorrow and will be using my camera a bit. I'll update this thread with my findings after that.

 

[cma353]

Try to use swap if it can fix the problem!?

 

[Frojd]

Good work testing that! It explains why my camera has been working since I decided to run with minimal RAM-usage.

 

[inFECT]

I use ADW with 5 screens and 12 widgets and have no problems with the cam at all.

This is with 8mb compcache and 30mb swap.

 

[sgx100]

Dude I never faced any issues with the camera.
Hv the camera at full settings - 5 MP + super fine - and have used it intensively quite a bit.

Im on 1.6.3.3 and till date no photo has gone bad.
Also my phone is loaded with applications with SET CPU, System Panel, Battery Minder running all the time. To add to it I use one custom keyboard application running in the background all the time.

My system usually has around 23 - 33 MBs of free RAM(I have stopped using Task Killers)

I guess you must have accidentally played with the camera firmware and I know it can play havoc.

Point is; lets see your pictures when you return back...Post a couple of bad ones here...Then we might be able to do some justice to the phone.

Last resort - You may have to reflash

Have a Happy Trip

A few weeks back, when I was considering to switch to Galaxo or not, we had a thread here mentioning an odd issue,

Every 3rd picture taken with the camera app would be bad (or just a dud).

At the time, I couldn't reproduce the issue and it didn't bother me. But, just today afternoon (and a bit early in the week), I encountered something similar - every other picture had a 50% chance of being bad (just blank). It got to the point that the camera was just un-usable. I spent a good bit of time investigating this and I think I have an explanation. But first, let me walk you through what I did.

By default, I keep my camera to take 5 Megapixel shots at "super fine" setting. With that, I couldn't take any good shots AT ALL. I reduced it to 1M and "normal" setting. Things were a bit better, in that now only every other shot was bad. But, at least I was able to use the camera.

I use 3 desktop screens filled with widgets. I disabled most of my widgets and reduced the number of screens to 2. (I'm running Drakaz's darksense theme for Galaxo 1.6.3 ). With this, the camera was MUCH better. In fact, I could take 5 shots continuously without any problems (testing at home).

In some ways, it looks like I was stretching the limits of my i7500 a bit too much and so, the camera just didn't work right, but I can live with fewer screens and fewer widgets.

I miss the Handcent SMS widget, but from what I observed, its too resource-intensive for my needs. The only widgets I use now are from "Jorte" , the organizer app (really good too!) and "SMS Im Away".

So, for those of you who need the camera in working order, consider disabling a few screens and widgets.

-chronodekar
PS: I'm going on a trip tomorrow and will be using my camera a bit. I'll update this thread with my findings after that.

 

[DaSchmarotzer]

I remember the original thread; I was even one of the few with such an issue.

However, it got sorted out when I did a Nandroid restore and it never happened again. I was using 7 home screens and lots of widgets at the time, so it might have something to do with that.

 

[Frojd]

Mine has also been better after a nadroid, but then it has returned...and disappeared again. It's a very strange issue.

 

[MichaelW]

I changed nothing else other than setting flash to off instead of auto. I still get very occasional bad photos but nothing like as frequent with it set to auto.

I'll have another play around checking memory etc.

 

[Himmagery]

I haven't tried reflashing anything, but the problem seems to occur less than it used to. For a while, I was seeing the same as some others, every 3-5 photos would have one bad one, but lately I've only had one (it took the photo, but didn't show the usual little preview picture afterwards, so I just took it again).

Time for more speculation: Given the comments about fewer widgets running improving things, could it be timing out trying to write the image file? I store my photos on the external SD (originally they were stored internally), which is probably slower to write to. More apps running would slow things down, too. If Galaxo has really aggressive killing of old processes (i.e. take photo, then exit camera app immediately) to save memory, could the process be getting shut down while it's still thinking about writing data in extreme circumstances?

 

[chronodekar]

Well, I came back from my trip and my word, we've had quite a discussion here when I was gone, eh?

Still, my findings are like this,

I have taken 176 photos and 8 short videos. One of the pics turned out to be blank and the camera crashed/jumped-back-to-home-screen twice, but overall, MUCH more reliable than before. Some of the pictures turned out blurry, but that was probably due to my hand shaking.

What I conclude from all this is that there IS some kind of a connection with the number of widgets/home-screens and the camera app. For now, I think I'll stick with just 2 home screens.

The nandriod backup idea seems ... not conclusive. It seems to work for some and not for others. I know the benifits of increasing the "swap" partition on a linux desktop, but I didn't know we could do the same with our phones! How do you guys mange it? Some app I haven't heard about, or a special setting?

As for pics, sorry, but they are all private.

-chronodekar

 

[Lelouch]

nice question chronodekar
I'm interested to about the "swap"

 

[inFECT]

http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/17804-enabling-sd-swap-galaxo.html

 

[sgx100]

As for pics, sorry, but they are all private.

-chronodekar

Eh no issues
Good as far as you managed to get over the problem
Well using 3 home screens with some widgets wont be a problem for you I guess.

 

[chronodekar]

http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/17804-enabling-sd-swap-galaxo.html

This is a MOST interesting thread. I'm glad you brought it to my attention. From the bits I read (first glance), it looks like I'll need a micro-SD card installed in my phone for swap to work?

Hmm... thinking over, it DOES seem technically sound to me. An indirect way of getting over the VERY limited memory that comes with the phone. I'll try it out as soon as I'm able to buy a new card. (I busted my old one in some experiments, NOT phone related)

-chronodekar

 

[sgx100]

http://androidforums.com/samsung-i7500/17804-enabling-sd-swap-galaxo.html

inFECT bro.....will it have any advantages
I mean speed or stability related advantages

Anyways ... The thread seems very confusing
Any idea of a tutorial/guide or something on the web


BTW - Im on yours AWD Donut Launcher...It Raaaawkss bro...
Great Work

Hope you do something for the impending FROYO Release

 

[stephnd]

there are two reasons that have kept me from updating to galaxy 1.6.3.3
1.st the camera problem like mentioned here in this thread
2.nd i have recovery 5 so I will have to flash the other one of 1.6 galaxo.

But i feel i shud move to galaxo 1.6.3.3, Tried the latest nightly builds of froyo, GAOSP and I'm just waiting for the camera to get done!

 

[Lelouch]

camera on froyo still a looong way till it's there anyways (preview is running ), and I'm on the night build (camera is not a issue for me)

This is a MOST interesting thread. I'm glad you brought it to my attention. From the bits I read (first glance), it looks like I'll need a micro-SD card installed in my phone for swap to work?

Hmm... thinking over, it DOES seem technically sound to me. An indirect way of getting over the VERY limited memory that comes with the phone. I'll try it out as soon as I'm able to buy a new card. (I busted my old one in some experiments, NOT phone related)

-chronodekar

busted in experiments??? what kind of experiments (hope nothing dangerous)

 

[inFECT]

This is a MOST interesting thread. I'm glad you brought it to my attention. From the bits I read (first glance), it looks like I'll need a micro-SD card installed in my phone for swap to work?

Basicly, you just need at least a Class6 Micro SD Card, plug it in, boot in recovery, format a swap partition with it and enable compcache via Galaxo Config. (or activate ony swap with "swapon /dev/block/mmcblk1p2")

Any idea of a tutorial/guide or something on the web
Hope you do something for the impending FROYO Release

I have the latest Froyo System Versions also online.

Swap Howto -> [Tutorial] Enable Swap without Compcache @ Galaxo 1.6.3.3 (Page 1) - Tutorials - Drakaz's Android stuff

2.nd i have recovery 5 so I will have to flash the other one of 1.6 galaxo.

Just put the rectools from 4.x on the SD card and you should be able to install galaxo

 

[stephnd]

Just put the rectools from 4.x on the SD card and you should be able to install galaxo

And then I can flash both the 1.6 galaxy and 2.2 nightly whenever i want?

 

[Lelouch]

for the nightly, you will need drakaz recovery 5 (the newest version of course)
as stated here

NightlyBuilds - gaosp - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

[inFECT]

Correct, so you need to move the right rectools back on place

 

[chronodekar]

I go shopping for a microSD card, come back home with it, login here and find THIS. A bit more digging (30 mins) and I discover that I bought a Class 2 card. Well, I don't have anything to lose by using it, so I put it in the phone and followed these instructions (using compcache). Once I did that I notice there is an option "Disk size" next to Compache in Galaxo Config. What should I put in there? By default it's "25600". And the swap I made is the default 32MB.

Lelouch,
I have a DS and a flash-cart. I was doing some coding with it and ended up corrupting the card beyond repair. I took that as an opportunity to discover what the innards of a microSD card look like. Unfortunately, even with my magnifying glass, apart from a few wires, all I could see was black.

-chronodekar

NOTE: We lost some replies in this thread when the forum crashed so, I'm reposting this again. (Hoping for a reply too)

 

[Lelouch]

I go shopping for a microSD card, come back home with it, login here and find THIS. A bit more digging (30 mins) and I discover that I bought a Class 2 card. Well, I don't have anything to lose by using it, so I put it in the phone and followed these instructions (using compcache). Once I did that I notice there is an option "Disk size" next to Compache in Galaxo Config. What should I put in there? By default it's "25600". And the swap I made is the default 32MB.

Lelouch,
I have a DS and a flash-cart. I was doing some coding with it and ended up corrupting the card beyond repair. I took that as an opportunity to discover what the innards of a microSD card look like. Unfortunately, even with my magnifying glass, apart from a few wires, all I could see was black.

-chronodekar

NOTE: We lost some replies in this thread when the forum crashed so, I'm reposting this again. (Hoping for a reply too)

I forgot what I replied here before the crash

Oh yeah, remembered it...

To bad for your purchase, maybe you should've wait more and see what inFECT would've wrought...

Did you try returning your bought micro sd Class 2 card and take (buy) the new micro sd Class 6 card)??? Happened to me more then one time so the dealer was more then happy to replace my order for the correct one.

So all you could see was a pitch black darkness of your micro sd card. cool

note: well it isn't quite the same reply as before, oh well