What Can I Do About The Can’t Connect To Camera Error On My Android

I’ve been regularly using an Android phone as my primary phone for almost a month now, it’s the Nexus 5 and it’s given me an appreciation for larger screens. Among other features and apps that I love on the phone, the camera app is what I consider the crown jewel. It’s amazing; great focus, that new blur feature is cool, and I’m able to take half-way decent photos that I never could before. One recurring error that I have been experiencing with the camera app is that sometimes when I launch it, it tells me ‘Can’t connect to camera’. Normally, switching to my home screen and back to the app would be enough to get rid of this error but it
was yesterday when the error just wouldn’t go away and I had to Google my problem. It seems the Can’t connect to Camera error is quite common among Android users, particularly with Nexus 5 users. For Nexus 5 users, it seems to be consistent and has been acknowledged by Google as a bug which will be fixed in an update. The problem isn’t unique for Nexus 5 handsets so here’s what might be causing the error and what you can do about it.

Possible Triggers

My Nexus 5 isn’t rooted (yet) and if you search online, a lot of users might suggest the error has something to do with whatever ROM you’re using. This may or may not be the cause of it but generally there are two reasons for the error. One is that another app is using the camera. If you’ve recently installed a new camera app on your phone, try quitting it to see if that fixes the problem. Skpye has been identified as the culprit in case of the Nexus 5.

The other reason for the error is how you exit the camera app in the first place. It seems that if you hit the home button to exit the app, you are more likely to get the error. If you’re in the habit of using the home button to return to your home screen (and why wouldn’t you be?) consider using the back button instead to exit the app.

What Do I Do About It?

Here are four things that might get the app to start working again. One of these four have always done the trick for me when the I get the error.

1. Switch to another app and then back to the camera app. Hit the back button to exit the camera app and then tap to open it again. This has the least success rate, to be honest, but it does work and it’s the quickest solution.
2. Exit all apps that might be using the camera. Go to Settings>Battery and check if mm-qcamera-daemon  is running. Exit it and launch the app again to see if the camera connects.
3. Exit the app and relaunch it. This works most times. If it doesn’t try to force stop the app and clear the cache. The measures sound drastic but it has a high success rate.
4. If all else fails, restart your phone. Exit every app that’s running before restart it. I found this to work when nothing else would and so far the error hasn’t popped up again.

Can I Avoid this error?

The home/back button trigger is something I only learned about two days ago and I haven’t had sufficient time to test if that alone is the cause. If you’re getting the error a lot, check how you exit the app. If a change in the button you use to navigate away from the app reduces this error then you’ve got your answer. If you’ve recently installed a new camera app, try removing it. A few apps that users identify as problem apps are Skype (an update for Skype has been released to address the problem), Snapchat, and Whatsapp. It seems there is little you can actually do to avoid it but these quick fixes seem to work.

On a different note, some users have stated this could be a problem with hardware and taking a look under the hood was what fixed it for them, in which case you might have to take your set in for a check up if nothing else works. Nexus 5 users will have to wait for the Android 4.4.3 update and make do with these temporary fixes.