14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung’s latest and greatest phone, the Galaxy Note 9, is reportedly hit by what could be a widespread bug causing the camera to freeze right when taking photos or recording videos.
For the time being, it looks like only Snapdragon models are impacted, like the ones in the United States. I can confirm I haven’t noticed such behavior on my Exynos model.
A discussion thread on Samsung’s support forums in the US has more than 58 pages, with users complaining that the software updates released in the last few months haven’t fixed the issue.
For now, there’s just one temporary workaround that appears to resolve the bug for a limited time until the freezing re-occurs. Clearing the system partition cache helps prevent the camera freezing for a while, but judging from user posts, the issue can return at any point after the device is rebooted.
The camera glitch seems to occur in both the stock camera app and third-party apps, and a warning revealing that the camera failed is displayed on the screen.
Fix is on its way
By the looks of things, Samsung is already investigating the issue and a fix is on its way, but no ETA has been provided just yet, so the only thing users can do is wait.
Others claim the latest camera update published in October resolves the issue, while a number of customers turned to Samsung support for further investigation. Samsung has reportedly resolved the issue in its labs, but units that were serviced were once again hit by the same bug only a few days later. New phones are affected too.
“Recently purchased the HK version of Note 9 (Snapdragon 512GB), encountered this issue within 2 weeks of purchase. Build number M1AJQ.N9600ZHU1ARJ6 with no updates available. For now only regular rebooting avoids the issue,” one user explains.
The Note 9 is currently getting the November security patch, and once the fix is complete, the emergency update should follow sometime in the coming weeks.
Via SamMobile