Droid Maxx suddenly lost option to switch to rear facing camera

[lmgriese]

Been using this phone's camera successfully since May 2015 when it was new and all has been fine. Last week (on 11/4/2015) a system update was done and sometime between then and now there is no longer an option to use the rear facing camera.

The camera app always opens with the front facing camera and I have no option to switch to the rear camera. This is critical as I use the phone daily for work and need to be able to take photos for my job.

I cleared the app's cache, uninstalled and reinstalled the app, tried other camera apps, booted into recovery and cleared the system cache partition all to no avail.

I do not want to do a complete factory reset since I am not at all confident that will resolve the problem - found a ton of posts online about other users having the same problem throughout the years and the factory reset did not help. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any posts that do have a fix.

So... is there some known issue in the last system update? (Version 24.13.3.en.US) Is there any way to roll back that release?

Any help you can offer to get my rear facing camera working again would be greatly appreciated.

[johnhans]

You are not alone.  My camera has been acting up ever since the latest October 2015 Verizon security update.  I will NEVER install another patch from verizon unless I have watched these forums for problems resulting from the patch.  There is no doubt in my mind that the update broke our camera software.  This would be impossible for all of us to have a hardware issue at the same time.  I called verizon support and they had me clear cache and reboot, and the camera worked for a few minutes after the reboot, but now nothing I can do will bring the camera back.  There are many people complaining about it, but on various forums, so it may not get verizon's attention.

[johnhans]

Correction.  My update was done on Nov 4, 2015 to version 24.13.3.en.US.  Camera worked fine before update.  Now I keep getting "Camera Error - Please restart camera."

[lmgriese · Accepted solution]

Wow, thanks for the feedback. Too bad we have to go through this but I have an update for you ... we called Verizon tech support tonight and told them just what I said in my post above.  We now have a new phone on the way, shipping free as a warranty replacement, no charge to us. They understood it occurred after the update but is a manufacturer problem, hence the free phone replacement. We are pleased with the outcome.

[johnhans]

Thanks,

I'll see if I can get the same level of service.  I tried the factory reset this morning, and it is just a myth, because it takes you to version 24.13.3.en.US and not the "original factory version".  Rear camera is still dead and I need it at work to scan QR codes.  What a pain.

[johnhans]

Yep,  they are sending out a replacement.  They tried to get me into boot mode and have me erase some file that would fix it, but I guess they knew I was an old geezer that could brick the phone, so they are sending out a replacement.  If it had been one simple file, you would think they would put instructions online.