I have that famous Bold Camera problem that seems to transcend many Bold models and OSs. When I try to start the camera, I get the "another application is using the camera...". I also get "cannot start viewfinder" when I try the video camera.
There has been many posts on this issue already - there seems to be several new posts on this issue every week. Regardless of all the "solutions" that have been posted, my problem is yet to be resolved in spite of all my efforts. I am at my wits end with this. Here is what I have done:
1) Reset - I have rebooted and rebooted and pulled the battery for minutes and hours - no luck.
2) Applications - I have made sure that there are no offending applications running that might interfere with the camera. I have also uninstalled all my third party apps and have made sure there is sufficient available memory. No luck. I really don't have any applications that would use the camera resources anyway. I used to have a flashlight app, but I uninstalled that a while ago and haven't reinstalled it since.
3) Reinstall OS - this has worked for me. But it isn't a permanent solution. After several days of the camera working properly, it goes back to "another application is using the camera...". Note that I have also reinstalled all my apps again after the OS reinstall - but it would be rather terrible if I was never able to install apps on my BlackBerry. I can find no correlation between any particular app and the camera problem. As stated in (2), I have uninstalled app - one by one, with reboots in between uninstalls - and no luck with the camera
The last time I got the camera to work, it was after a full OS reinstall. Unfortunately, it went back to the problem while I was using the videocamera in HD mode. While in the middle of running the video camera, the viewfinder shut down and I got the message "can't open viewfinder". And the camera also wouldn't work. An OS reinstall takes a lot of time and effort - and I really don't want to be doing this for everytime I want to take a picture.
I did find a half **bleep** way of fixing the problem - soon after starting the camera, I quickly went into options and changed the camera resolution settings and saved before the camera shut down. I had to do this very quickly because there are only a few seconds between starting the camera and the camera shutting down again. After changing the resolution, the camera started fine. Like the OS install, it wasn't a permanent fix and the camera started screwing up after a day or so. This fix has only worked for me once - I have not been able to get it to work since, primarily because the camera shuts down soon after I start it, and I can't seem to get to the options screen fast enough.
I have read a post somewhere that, if this camera problem persists, and the reboots and OS reinstall doesn't work, I should exchange my unit for a new model. This is also a bit of effort but I am willing to do this (my Bold is only 3 months old). But I would like to know if I have really exhausted all other possible fixes. Any help would be VERY welcome.
Best Regards,
Des Power
