Android ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent

Question

this is a well documented bug in some versions of android. that is, on google experience builds of android, image capture doesn't work as documented. what i've generally used is something like this in a utilities class.

public boolean hasImageCaptureBug() {

    // list of known devices that have the bug
    ArrayList<String> devices = new ArrayList<String>();
    devices.add("android-devphone1/dream_devphone/dream");
    devices.add("generic/sdk/generic");
    devices.add("vodafone/vfpioneer/sapphire");
    devices.add("tmobile/kila/dream");
    devices.add("verizon/voles/sholes");
    devices.add("google_ion/google_ion/sapphire");

    return devices.contains(android.os.Build.BRAND + "/" + android.os.Build.PRODUCT + "/"
            + android.os.Build.DEVICE);

}

then when i launch image capture, i create an intent that checks for the bug.

Intent i = new Intent(android.provider.MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
if (hasImageCaptureBug()) {
    i.putExtra(android.provider.MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, Uri.fromFile(new File("/sdcard/tmp")));
} else {
    i.putExtra(android.provider.MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI);
}
startActivityForResult(i, mRequestCode);

then in activity that i return to, i do different things based on the device.

protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent intent) {
     switch (requestCode) {
         case GlobalConstants.IMAGE_CAPTURE:
             Uri u;
             if (hasImageCaptureBug()) {
                 File fi = new File("/sdcard/tmp");
                 try {
                     u = Uri.parse(android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.insertImage(getContentResolver(), fi.getAbsolutePath(), null, null));
                     if (!fi.delete()) {
                         Log.i("logMarker", "Failed to delete " + fi);
                     }
                 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
                     e.printStackTrace();
                 }
             } else {
                u = intent.getData();
            }
    }

this saves you having to write a new camera app, but this code isn't great either. the big problems are

1. you never get full sized images from the devices with the bug. you get pictures that are 512px wide that are inserted into the image content provider. on devices without the bug, everything works as document, you get a big normal picture.

2. you have to maintain the list. as written, it is possible for devices to be flashed with a version of android (say cyanogenmod's builds) that has the bug fixed. if that happens, your code will crash. the fix is to use the entire device fingerprint.

I know this has been answered before but I know a lot of people get tripped up on this, so I'm going to add a comment.

I had this exact same problem happen on my Nexus One. This was from the file not existing on the disk before the camera app started. Therefore, I made sure that the file existing before started the camera app. Here's some sample code that I used:

String storageState = Environment.getExternalStorageState();
        if(storageState.equals(Environment.MEDIA_MOUNTED)) {

            String path = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getName() + File.separatorChar + "Android/data/" + MainActivity.this.getPackageName() + "/files/" + md5(upc) + ".jpg";
            _photoFile = new File(path);
            try {
                if(_photoFile.exists() == false) {
                    _photoFile.getParentFile().mkdirs();
                    _photoFile.createNewFile();
                }

            } catch (IOException e) {
                Log.e(TAG, "Could not create file.", e);
            }
            Log.i(TAG, path);

            _fileUri = Uri.fromFile(_photoFile);
            Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE );
            intent.putExtra( MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, _fileUri);
            startActivityForResult(intent, TAKE_PICTURE);
        }   else {
            new AlertDialog.Builder(MainActivity.this)
            .setMessage("External Storeage (SD Card) is required.\n\nCurrent state: " + storageState)
            .setCancelable(true).create().show();
        }

I first create a unique (somewhat) file name using an MD5 hash and put it into the appropriate folder. I then check to see if it exists (shouldn't, but its good practice to check anyway). If it does not exist, I get the parent dir (a folder) and create the folder hierarchy up to it (therefore if the folders leading up to the location of the file don't exist, they will after this line. Then after that I create the file. Once the file is created I get the Uri and pass it to the intent and then the OK button works as expected and all is golden.

Now,when the Ok button is pressed on the camera app, the file will be present in the given location. In this example it would be /sdcard/Android/data/com.example.myapp/files/234asdioue23498ad.jpg

There is no need to copy the file in the "onActivityResult" as posted above.

I've been through a number of photo capture strategies, and there always seems to be a case, a platform or certain devices, where some or all of the above strategies will fail in unexpected ways. I was able to find a strategy that uses the URI generation code below which seems to work in most if not all cases.

mPhotoUri = getContentResolver().insert(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, 
            new ContentValues());
Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
intent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, mPhotoUri);
startActivityForResult(intent,CAPTURE_IMAGE_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE_CONTENT_RESOLVER);

To contribute further to the discussion and help out newcomers I've created a sample/test app that shows several different strategies for photo capture implementation. Contributions of other implementations are definitely encouraged to add to the discussion.

https://github.com/deepwinter/AndroidCameraTester

I had the same problem where the OK button in camera app did nothing, both on emulator and on nexus one.

The problem went away after specifying a safe filename that is without white spaces, without special characters, in MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT Also, if you are specifying a file that resides in a directory that has not yet been created, you have to create it first. Camera app doesn't do mkdir for you.

The workflow you describe should work as you've described it. It might help if you could show us the code around the creation of the Intent. In general, the following pattern should let you do what you're trying.

private void saveFullImage() {
  Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
  File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), "test.jpg");
  outputFileUri = Uri.fromFile(file);
  intent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, outputFileUri);
  startActivityForResult(intent, TAKE_PICTURE);
}

@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
  if ((requestCode == TAKE_PICTURE) && (resultCode == Activity.RESULT_OK)) {
    // Check if the result includes a thumbnail Bitmap
    if (data == null) {    
      // TODO Do something with the full image stored
      // in outputFileUri. Perhaps copying it to the app folder
    }
  }
}

Note that it is the Camera Activity that will be creating and saving the file, and it's not actually part of your application, so it won't have write permission to your application folder. To save a file to your app folder, create a temporary file on the SD card and move it to your app folder in the onActivityResult handler.

To follow up on Yenchi's comment above, the OK button will also do nothing if the camera app can't write to the directory in question.

That means that you can't create the file in a place that's only writeable by your application (for instance, something under getCacheDir()) Something under getExternalFilesDir() ought to work, however.

It would be nice if the camera app printed an error message to the logs if it could not write to the specified EXTRA_OUTPUT path, but I didn't find one.