You might wanna check on your Google Pixel 3 before you go out on an adventure to take a bunch of pictures because there are a lot of reports of camera failure tailing the new Android flagship phone.
People who bought the Pixel 3 are reporting both error messages and failure to launch when trying to access the Pixel 3’s camera functionality. Those that do get the camera to somehow function are eventually greeted with a camera error message.
Users are trying multiple work arounds, including resetting the phone and using the camera until the inevitable message pops up again. This isn’t working for all Pixel 3 owners and some can’t even get the camera app to launch at all.
And, as you can imagine, they’re making their displeasure known far and wide on the Internet.
In a bit of tech journalistic sleuthing, publication Charged has narrowed down the problem to those users who attempt to use third-party apps in tandem with the camera. The publication writes: “If a third-party app is authorized to access the camera it becomes unusable until a reboot of the device is completed…The camera will pop up a number of errors including ‘could not connect to camera,’ ‘camera encountered fatal error’ or ‘The camera device encountered a fatal error.’…Any app attempting to access the camera will crash or complain about hardware errors — and some apps like Instagram require camera access to function. It’s unclear what causes the issue, as the hardware functions fine, but when affected there is no fix.”
Charged further guesses that something is going wrong with the apps attempting to access the camera and being told it is in use though it is not.
In a response to Buzzfeed, Google acknowledged the problem and told users to wait for a software update to address this specific issue. People who buy expensive smartphones tend to be a discerning lot, and this bug hasn’t sat well with many of them. Some have attempted to return their device only to be turned down because it’s a software, not a hardware, issue.
