How to release camera when camera is opened?

Question

My app controls the camera and recently there have been a lot of crash reports by devices that cannot open the camera. Pressing the back button releases the camera but also disables the background mode. Pressing the home button doesn't release the camera, causes a crash when opening camera, and yet enables background mode.

How can I release the camera when the camera app itself is opened?

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 29 '15 at 04:41

1

When you use android hardware camera in your android application you should release it so other application or your application can use it. It is good practice to release camera before moving to another activity in your app.

Use below code -

protected void onDestroy(){

  if(camera!=null){
        camera.stopPreview();
        camera.setPreviewCallback(null);

        camera.release();
        camera = null;
    }
}

above code will release hardware camera,which you was open using Camera.open(); method.

and if you have your custom preview then you have to use in side your surfaceDestroyed method -

public void surfaceDestroyed(SurfaceHolder holder) {

    if(camera!=null){
        camera.stopPreview();
        camera.setPreviewCallback(null);

        camera.release();
        camera = null;
    }
}

Hope it will help you.

edited Apr 29 '15 at 04:41

La bla bla

8,558
13
60
109

answered Apr 29 '15 at 04:33

Ravi Bhandari

4,682
8
40
68

This could benefit from some comments, or explanation. Also, there are some typos (`onDestory`). – Patrick McLaren Apr 29 '15 at 04:33
Doesn't answer the question. It needs to be only when the camera app is opened. – Skyfall Apr 29 '15 at 04:34
so inside your activity onDestroy method put my code.And if you want to close camera after image is captured then you can use same code there. – Ravi Bhandari Apr 29 '15 at 04:43
You still do not understand Ravi. Is it possible to stop the app completely when the camera is opened? – Skyfall Apr 29 '15 at 04:50
Ok, in that case check this - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6330200/how-to-quit-android-application-programmatically answer – Ravi Bhandari Apr 29 '15 at 04:53
You can try getActivity().finish(); System.exit(0); this solution – Ravi Bhandari Apr 29 '15 at 04:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 30 '18 at 16:29

It is considered safe practice to release camera when onPause() of the relevant Activity is invoked. In line with that, I'd encourage not to pass active Camera object from one Activity to another. I often use Fragments to change the UI while still keeping the Camera active.

There are some special cases, when the app must use the camera even after onPause(), see e.g. Detect when another app tries to use the camera. Not in all cases this is possible, but never it is easy to handle.

How to release camera when camera is opened?

2 Answers2