Encountered strange camera issue

[Ceez]

I have been using this Lumia 920 since November and have had no issues whatsoever up until tonight. I loaded up my camera and encountered this glitchy noise which I screenshotted:


It froze like that after about three or four seconds. I went back to the homescreen and started the camera once more and I get greyed out camera options and simply a black screen:


Did a regular power off/on cycle and still the black screen. Opened CamWoW which starts up with the front facing camera to see if that camera still works and it does. The moment I switch to the outer camera though, I just get stuck at a "Loading ...." screen.

(Edited in) I tried the regular reset and the Vol Down+Power+Camera variation and both failed. I am now in the process of doing a factory reset to see if it'll resolve the problem and will update as soon as I can.

Any other suggestions are welcomed and hopefully it's something this reset can fix. Not sure exactly if AT&T (no insurance on phone) or Nokia would fix this if it's a hardware issue.

Edit: Whee. Was up all night (6am here!) trying to fix this and as of right now my camera is operational. It wasn't necessarily because of the factory reset though.

I believe that the camera hardware failure had arisen from an app. Earlier last night I used the Flashlight XT (free version) app at work for no more than 20 seconds, pressed Home, and put my phone away. (This becomes relevant). So I encountered my problem, did all that I stated above, and the camera still did not function. I retraced my steps of what I did with my phone last night and remembered using the Flashlight XT app. I redownloaded it and attempted to use it but to my surprise the LED flash would not turn on. Found it peculiar so I downloaded two other free flashlight apps (Flashlight and Flashlight-X) and tried those and they didn't work either. Flustered, I did the Vol. Down+Power+Camera reset again and tried the camera for the **** of it and it worked. There was a quick flash of the purple stuff but as of right now it's working perfectly fine.

Could apps like those actually "break" hardware components of the phone? That's a quite unsettling possibility.

(Thanks again Worzel for giving me a reply.)

 

[WorzelGummage]

I'd try the Volume down + Power button reset first. Failing that Volume down + Power button + Camera button until phone vibrates then release the power button but keep the other two pressed for 5 seconds then release. Both of those resets won't delete ant data on the phone. If the camera is still playing up then a full factory reset via Settings > About > Reset your phone should be done. This will delete all data. If still no good then it may be a hardware problem. In which case you should get it looked at under warranty (no insurance required).

 

[Ceez]

Thanks for replying Worzel, I actually just added an update to what's happening in my initial post.

I did indeed try those two types of resets before having to do a full factory. Sorry for not clarifying that.

 

[sideden]

Hi, I have the same problem here, and I have that Flashlight app installed. After reading your post, I removed the app, and some other camera/lens related apps as well. Do the resets (no factory reset, though). And I still have the same problem. Any sugestion?