'Camera Failure' pop-up error message
Have apple patented the pop-up error message yet?
Samsung's latest phone the Galaxy S5 has a fatal flaw that has been appearing in the wild. The flaw has meant that some owners report that after a few days of using the phone they are confronted with a "Warning: Camera Failed" message that makes the earslab's high-quality camera stop working. Some of the owners have said that …
Even the name wasn't origiinal.
"iPhones" existed (as a horrible internet email toy) while Apple were still selling PowerPCs (long before iMacs hit the market). I remember evaluating and rejecting it in 1994 as a limited, expensive device with an even more limited and expensive mail server which was only available as a solaris binary.
Cisco has a device named IPhone in their line up, as well as their routers using the operating system: IOS. If that isn't trademark violation, I don't know what is.
(IOS being an operating system for a device with networking capabilities and the IPhone being a phone, albeit not a mobile phone as far as I can remember)
Oh well, there probably were some backroom deals for this, or Cisco was dumb enough to not trademark vaguely enough...
You think the problems with Maps and "you're holding it wrong" are worse than a camera that COMPLETELY fails? If Apple released a phone that had a hard failure in such basic smartphone functionality as a camera the fandroids would be screaming from the rooftops about it, but I see excuses are the order of the day when it is Samsung's flagship that fails.
Look, this is The Register, no one likes Apple round here ok! Samsung and Android means that there are settings for us to play with and strange quirks to discover! This "just works" Apple mentality isn't welcome in these parts.The important thing is Samsung have held their hand up and are fixing it.
I look at that slick iphone with easy to use intuitive menus and it makes me feel sick! :D
I disagree, it's not a myth! After owning a couple of them (iPhone and MBP) my experience is that they *juuuuust* work ;p
There are going to be issues with new phones, that's the fun of being an early adopter. The question is how is it handled. Telling people they are holding it wrong is not a good way of dealing with a phone that doesn't, where as 'call this number of visit your carrier and we'll sort it' sounds like a more reasonable response.
You think the problems with Maps and "you're holding it wrong" are worse than a camera that COMPLETELY fails?
A camera is a nonessential function on a phone, unlike the phone antenna.
No excuses. It's a fuck up that needs fixing. However, even without a camera, you can still make calls. Something you couldn't do on the iFlaw if so much as a pinkie finger got in the way.
@M Gale "...even without a camera, you can still make calls..."
In this case, apparently not.
"Some of the owners have said that they were not able to bring their phone back to life..."
Overall, it appears to me that Samsung are having plenty of Design and QA issues lately. Plenty of people I know can't even recharge their Note 7-inch tablets. Refunds all around. Not to imply Apple are perfect, they aren't. Their battle against non-genuine cables is way past funny.
I have mulitiple devices within each ecosystem, because it's better that way. Being a one brand fanboi is daft; a failure deep within the reptilian brainstem. Fanbois should get that fixed.
"I have mulitiple devices within each ecosystem, because it's better that way. Being a one brand fanboi is daft; a failure deep within the reptilian brainstem. Fanbois should get that fixed."
I only need 1 device. Should I now buy an IPhone just in case my Samsung S4 goes feet up? Even at that, the first thing I would do is install Google apps so I can check the 1 email address I need...
The difference is: The S5 are beeing replaced, aren't they? No one told the customers they pressed the camera button in a wrong way...
And it is, probably, a bad batch of cameras. A fuckup, no doubt, but hardly a fundamental flaw of the project.
And I don't even like Samsung...
"You think the problems with Maps and "you're holding it wrong" are worse than a camera that COMPLETELY fails?"
Nope. But they did release phones (IPhone 5c) where, to save about 90 cents, they used substandard motion sensors so all those "tilt the phone to play" games may or may not actually work depending on how bad your particular phone's sensors end up being.
"If Apple released a phone that had a hard failure in such basic smartphone functionality as a camera the fandroids would be screaming from the rooftops about it, but I see excuses are the order of the day when it is Samsung's flagship that fails."
When the above happened, Android fans pretty much DID scream from the rooftops about it, and Apple fanbois dismissed it. *shrug*
That's not to excuse these S5s failing.
Has Samsung ever fixed their defective phones? Not applied a firmware patch to make the phone slightly more likely to work, but actually fixed it? My Sprint S2 was always defective (self-overheat, no GPS, BT crashes, soft buttons crazy on 3G, radio driver crash after no signal, panics in weak 3G) no matter what I tried to get it fixed.
Upvote: Your phone remains with major features (calls, sound, graphics, camera, GPS, WiFi, data, running time) broken.
Downvote: Samsung repaired your phone and it remained working longer than 2 weeks.
1) Newer batch = problem solved.
2) Newer batch uses different camera module.
3 Newer batch uses different revision of the board.
If the camera was one of a faulty batch from the manufacturer, then the next batch may very well be fine. Even though it is the same model number, same spec, same everything.
The parts used, the PCB, and sometimes, even the machinery used in manufacture are not necessarily the same from unit 1 to the last one to roll off the line. So a new unit of the exact same model can often be quite different inside.
In the electronics world, even high end test gear that costs thousands is not immune to having a few little bodge wires put on at the factory or a different revision of the board used part way through the product's manufacturing life.
"In the electronics world, even high end test gear that costs thousands is not immune to having a few little bodge wires put on at the factory or a different revision of the board used part way through the product's manufacturing life."
If anything, it is more common for the high end test gear to have blue wires etc.
On the cheap high volume stuff you cannot afford to do the extra hand work so you respin the boards.
On the more expensive low margin stuff it is cheaper to have someone fix the issue.
Some years ago, we bought a new emulator for HP (it made test kit back then). There were about 5 boards inside - all had extensive fixes to them.
>If its Hardware related, and presumably ALL SGS-Vs have this Bug.
A presumption, as you say.
Samsung often use different parts for phones with the same model number... witness the S4 which had an octocore SOC in some markets, and the S3 - some versions of which boasted a Wolfson DAC (so sought after by some audio-heads, apparently.)
If its Hardware related, and presumably ALL SGS-Vs have this Bug. Then pray tell us how replacing it with yet another buggy Phone of the same type, is gonna solve anything when the Timer on that Bomb is now ticking down?
I'm sure therer are a lot of Samy-fanboys here.... I can't say that I'm not One of 'em. But what exactly is the "flaw" in my statement that has you lot down voting me? I mean if you can point out the my fallacies I'll go away.
Till then this is NOT a known bug, that is effecting ALL Samsung Galaxy Fives?! 'Cause if so... Wouldn't you not just be trading One dead Phone, for One that's just ready to die? Either Samsung need to release a Firmware Fix... Which is likely gonna be the "fix". Or to recall all these Phones, and fix the Hardware issue in them.
Simples....
But lol I'm bad mouthing our beloved Shamy, so I must be some Apple, and or MicroShrill...
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You know these things are made in batches, right? Maybe it's a faulty batch? As opposed to, you know, a faulty design decision.
Yeah... and, most of the time your "Store" will have gotten Stock from that "One" Batch of Stuff... Thats usually the way it works don't it? Ya make a "Batch" Sell it to the Retail (End User) = FANTASY SALES OF MILLIONS OF DEVICES reportedly in the hands of users on Day One.. No less. Then you make some more...
So your telling me that your local Best Buy can rotate an entire stock of Phones with-in a week? Possible, but not IMHO very likely.
If you look at the specs you will see that the S5 is rated as IP67. The IP rating is used to provide a more quantifiable measure of dust and water protection than terms like 'waterproof' or water resistant.
The S5 is rated about the same as Sony's Xperia tablet and phone which I can personally attest work fine after being dunked in water.
For reference IP67 means the following:
Water
Immersion up to 1 m Ingress of water in harmful quantity shall not be possible when the enclosure is immersed in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1 m of submersion). Test duration: 30 minutes
Immersion at depth of at most 1 m measured at bottom of device, and at least 15 cm measured at top of device
Dust
Dust tight No ingress of dust; complete protection against contact (dust tight)
Every phone (in my experience I mean EVERY) has something on it that doesn't actually work, because 'smart' phones have so many features. But in most cases it's something that you don't use. Personally I don't use the camera a lot so probably wouldn't even notice for a few weeks if it wasn't working but if 'scratch resistant' screen (like that on my old xperia z) turned out to actually be a scratch magnet, I would notice because I tend to be a little rough with my phone and they get scraped etc. If the FM radio app didn't work (like on my Moto G) I wouldn't, and don't care, as I never use it. Or any of the bundled sony connect apps (none appear to actually do anything).
Some people will think it's the worst thing in the world their camera doesn't work and others will be less annoyed, it's a pretty core feature so I would expect it to be fixed but the point I'm trying to make is that people on here saying that it's worse than that of Apple or Nokia etc, well it is... and it isn't, it depends if you use it or not. If you want it fixed they've said they'll fix it, in the same way that I'm sure if I really wanted the FM radio to work on my Moto phone I would pick up the phone and ring them to fix or replace it.
One more point, as a previous root cause analyst I think it's funny how people are commenting on the cause of the problem based on the problems reported in the media without any root cause analysis having been carried out. If they're all identical, configured, delivered, stored and used in an identical way they will perform identically but they're not. There are hundreds of processes with millions of permutations possible, some resulting in a broken camera and some not... Give them some time to work out the dodgy path and they will know exactly how much traffic is on it (how many are impacted).