iPhone Camera Not Working? My Solution
Recently, my Apple Iphone’s camera stopped working with an issue that looked like this: when I went to the camera roll to view any picture I’d taken, it appeared that the image had not been saved except for a small gray outline where the picture thumbnail would normally live (I’ve enhanced the gray outline in the thumbnail to the right). When I touched the small gray-outlined box, the program would appear to crash and return to the home position.
But - good news. After a couple of days of attempting to find a solution, victory was mine. For those running into problems with the camera on their iPhone, here’s what I did to fix it.
The Fix
I was running iPhone firmware 1.1.4. I regularly sync the iPhone and noticed the camera stopped working when I upgraded from 1.1.3 to 1.1.4.
At first, I tried to “Restore” to my previous iPhone settings which means I would sync to the settings I had saved earlier in the day. I was dubious that this would work, but I went through with it and waited for the phone to re-copy all the settings including 7 gigabytes of music. As I suspected, it did not work.
My next option involved “Restore”-ing to my October 2007 settings and software. I wasn’t going to do that.. I might as well as “Restore” as a new phone which would have meant a lot of work to get my iPhone back to the state it’s currently in. Bookmarks, contacts, text conversations all would have been lost.
Then, after hunting through many posts on the web and in the Apple Support Discussion on the Apple website, I found this post:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1183455&tstart=0
The response by “jkeegan” was the key:
“One file, which for me was named f1b43d3b3ecf259a3626c13a8b0cebd8ba513117.mdbackup, seemed to talk about image numbers for photos <snip>
So, I disconnected my iPhone from the dock, and then tried deleting that file from the actual Backup directory that iTunes looks at.. I reset the iPhone according to option #2 (Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content and Settings).”
That did the trick.. Delete the file located here:
C:\Documents and Settings\yourcomputer\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
f1b43d3b3ecf259a3626c13a8b0cebd8ba513117.mdbackup
Then, reset the phone to your last settings. Actually.. just before you re-set but after you delete the file above, try the camera - that might be all you need to do, but I did the re-set anyway.
Hopefully, this will help you fix your camera and avoid resetting the iPhone as a new phone. Good luck.
14 Responses to “iPhone Camera Not Working? My Solution”
Thanks for posting this. I had the same problem and this fixed it - much appreciated.
[Reply]
By Jeremiah on Apr 17, 2008
Hey, thanks for posting this.
I’ve had my always up-to-date iPhone, trouble-free, since launch.
On a week-long, beach vacation (friends’ wedding) and started seeing this image problem. WOuld have been nice to stumble across this before performing a Restore (that didn’t fix). But still, tanks again.
Curious how one can tell that f1b43d3b3ecf259a3626c13a8b0cebd8ba513117.mdbackup says anything about “image numbers for photos??”
Regardless, and again, thank you.
[Reply]
By lazyrighteye on Apr 21, 2008
very well done. Helped a lot. thanks keep posting to help us.
[Reply]
By vignesh on Apr 21, 2008
From this - “Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content and Settings”
I could not reset. for some reason this button wouldn’t work and I didn’t know how to erase all content…
but I found another method that worked!
——————————————————————–
Re: Camera will not save pictures to phone after snapping photo
Posted: Apr 14, 2008 8:19 PM in response to: Kevin Barron
Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email
This series of steps works perfectly. It is from another web page. I’m posting it here for a few reasons, the main one of course is to help others looking, and secondly, since no one on the apple support pages uses these resources correctly. Posting a reply to someone’s request for help stating “This is also happening to me” is just plain stupidity. This thread is like a garbage heap with a lost ring at the bottom. Anyway, rant over, here is a simple fix:
1. Make sure your phone has been synchronized in the version of iTunes you are using.
2. Restore your phone. (in itunes in the summary tab click the restore button)
3. After JUST the phone settings are restored, DO NOT restore your personal information from a back-up. It will prompt you for this, don’t close this screen just hold off on it for now. Disconnect the iPhone and take a photo. The photo should now appear in the camera roll, as usual.
4. Reconnect the phone and import the photo into iPhoto; do NOT delete it from the iPhone. (after importing it choose “keep originals”)
5. NOW go back to itunes and restore your personal information from a back-up.
Now your iphone will have everything on it, and picture taking works again.
[Reply]
By olemono on Apr 22, 2008
Regarding the previous comment, I’m not sure about that solution. Seems to me I did this, too, and it didn’t work. the gray box came back with the crashing.
But, it may work for some.
[Reply]
By East Village Podcasts blog on Apr 22, 2008
it works! Yeah!!!!!
It points to a file for PC, but it’s the same file name for Mac, located:
Home/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup
In the folder named “f9dbd4d84a57c764de1876d5864f4f93fdf6640c”, delete the file named “f1b43d3b3ecf259a3626c13a8b0cebd8ba513117.mdbackup”.
Then Reset iphone erasing all settings, then re-sync with iTunes and restore from your backup-Voila!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
[Reply]
By Dave on May 1, 2008
Hi There, just to say I just this second used the fix that Olemono suggested, and it worked on my UK O2 phone. Thank you so much, my child like wonder is restored!
[Reply]
By Rools on Jun 5, 2008
Thanks, Rools. Glad to hear it.
[Reply]
By EastVillagePodcasts.com on Jun 6, 2008
Easy Peasy!!!
Erased phone settings and restored with last sync minus the f1b43d3b3ecf259a3626c13a8b0cebd8ba513117.mdbackup file.
Thanks for bringing my camera back to life!!!
[Reply]
By Karyn on Jun 9, 2008
I just wanted to say that the fix from olemono works until the next time I use iPhoto and select “delete originals”. It’s not a permanent fix.
[Reply]
By Erich on Jun 18, 2008
Btw: “reset the phone to your last settings” is very unclear: Do you mean “synching iPhone and iTunes” or something else?
Also, what you suggest is
1. select “Erase All Content and Settings”
2. make a photo
Well, I cannot make a photo at this point, the problem still persist.
[Reply]
By Erich on Jun 18, 2008
Order of steps to take
Here’s what I did, and the camera still works, even after numerous restarts, iTunes synchs and iPhoto downloads:
1. Reset the iPhone (Settings->General->Reset->Erase All Content and Settings)
2. Make a picture - it should indeed work now again
3. Delete the file that starts with “f1b43d3″ on your Mac
4. Synch iPhone with iTunes
That’s it
[Reply]
By Erich on Jun 24, 2008
seems apple should just fix the software. $400+ seems reasonable to expect.
[Reply]
By jen on Jul 3, 2008