Opening Camera takes 2-3 minutes and causes status bar to disappear in ionic 3 app

Question

We have an ionic 3 application that uses a camera and gallery to select images. I am showing an action sheet and the user can select either gallery or camera to select an image.

Error

When trying to open the camera in the app, It takes a long time to ask for permission and start capturing the image. In the meantime app just freezes. And after capturing the image, the status bar disappears. It throws the following stack trace;

  Main Thread Checker: UI API called on a background thread: -[UIImagePickerController init]
PID: 3140, TID: 1450459, Thread name: (none), Queue name: com.apple.root.default-qos, QoS: 0
Backtrace:
4   ManyTutors                          0x00000001027a87a4 +[CDVCameraPicker createFromPictureOptions:] + 112
5   ManyTutors                          0x00000001027a2d1c __25-[CDVCamera takePicture:]_block_invoke + 1148
6   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c3bcc _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32
7   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c56c0 _dispatch_client_callout + 20
8   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c80ec _dispatch_queue_override_invoke + 952
9   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030d8ae0 _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 364
10  libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030d9488 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 140
11  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x00000001f6dbb7c8 _pthread_wqthread + 216
12  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x00000001f6dc275c start_wqthread + 8
2021-01-11 17:13:01.703428+0800 ManyTutors[3140:1450459] [reports] Main Thread Checker: UI API called on a background thread: -[UIImagePickerController init]
PID: 3140, TID: 1450459, Thread name: (none), Queue name: com.apple.root.default-qos, QoS: 0
Backtrace:
4   ManyTutors                          0x00000001027a87a4 +[CDVCameraPicker createFromPictureOptions:] + 112
5   ManyTutors                          0x00000001027a2d1c __25-[CDVCamera takePicture:]_block_invoke + 1148
6   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c3bcc _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32
7   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c56c0 _dispatch_client_callout + 20
8   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030c80ec _dispatch_queue_override_invoke + 952
9   libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030d8ae0 _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 364
10  libdispatch.dylib                   0x00000001030d9488 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 140
11  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x00000001f6dbb7c8 _pthread_wqthread + 216
12  libsystem_pthread.dylib             0x00000001f6dc275c start_wqthread + 8


[Camera] Failed to read exposureBiasesByMode dictionary: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4864 "* -[NSKeyedUnarchiver _initForReadingFromData:error:throwLegacyExceptions:]: data is NULL" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=* -[NSKeyedUnarchiver _initForReadingFromData:error:throwLegacyExceptions:]: data is NULL}

What is expected to happen?

When I select a camera for the first time, it should ask permission right away, and after giving the permission it should take a photo and use that photo in the app.

What does actually happen?

When I click on the camera for the first time, It takes more than 2 minutes to show the permission dialog and after clicking the picture when we come back to the app, the app header disappears and the app starts lagging and doesn't work properly.

Environment, Platform, Device

I only face this issue in IOS apps. Android works fine. For IOS, I have tested it on an emulator, on a real device in debugging mode, and also by uploading it to test flight.

Version information

  cli packages: (C:\nvm\v10.15.1\node_modules)

    @ionic/cli-utils  : 1.19.2
    ionic (Ionic CLI) : 3.20.0

global packages:

    cordova (Cordova CLI) : not installed

local packages:

    @ionic/app-scripts : 3.2.4
    Cordova Platforms  : android 7.0.0 ios 5.0.1
    Ionic Framework    : ionic-angular 3.9.10

System:

    Android SDK Tools : 26.1.1
    Node              : v10.15.1
    npm               : 6.4.1
    OS                : Windows 10

Versions:

    Xcode Version   : 12
    IOS Version       : 14
    

Any Suggestion will be appreciated.

Answer 1

The slowness problem is answered in this post. You need to edit src/ios/CDVCamera.m to move a block of code, as described in the other post.

see also the mess at this GitHub issue, where no one is merging the fix.