"ErrorMessage: CAMERA_ERROR (3): The camera device has encountered a serious error." error message from Xamarin.Form

Question

I'm coding a cross platform app and trying to create a camera preview page where users can see the live camera view. I'm using Xamarin Community Toolkit CameraView and am stuck with a problem. This is my code for the XAML file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:xct="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2020/toolkit"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             x:Class="Test.CameraPreview"
             
             NavigationPage.HasBackButton="True"
             NavigationPage.HasNavigationBar="False">
    <ContentPage.Content>
        <Grid x:Name="cameraGrid">
            <xct:CameraView x:Name="xctCameraView"
                            CaptureMode="Photo"
                            MediaCaptured="MediaCaptured"
                            HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand"
                            VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand"/>
            <StackLayout VerticalOptions="EndAndExpand">
                <StackLayout Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" BackgroundColor="Transparent">
                    <Frame CornerRadius="15" x:Name="videoFrame" WidthRequest="48" Padding="7">
                        <Label Text="Video" HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" x:Name="videoLabel" BackgroundColor="Transparent"/>
                    </Frame>
                    <Frame CornerRadius="15" x:Name="pictureFrame" WidthRequest="48" Padding="7">
                        <Label Text="Picture" HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" x:Name="pictureLabel" BackgroundColor="Transparent"/>
                    </Frame>
                </StackLayout>
                <ImageButton Clicked="CapturePhoto" HeightRequest="120" WidthRequest="120"
                             HorizontalOptions="Center" x:Name="captureBtn" BackgroundColor="Transparent"/>
            </StackLayout>
        </Grid>
    </ContentPage.Content>
</ContentPage>

And this is the C# code for the CameraPreview class that takes care of taking the photo and changing the photo into byte and sending it to another page:

private void CapturePhoto(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            if (isPictureSelected)
            {
                if (xctCameraView != null)
                {
                    Debug.WriteLine($"xctCameraView is not null");
                    xctCameraView.Shutter();
                    Debug.WriteLine($"camera picture taken");
                }
                else
                {
                    DisplayAlert("Error", "Camera view is not available.", "OK");
                }
            }
        }
    private void MediaCaptured(object sender, MediaCapturedEventArgs e)
        {
            switch (xctCameraView.CaptureMode)
            {
                default:
                case CameraCaptureMode.Default:

                case CameraCaptureMode.Photo:
                    Debug.WriteLine($"media captured is passed");
                    if (e.Image != null)
                    {
                        Debug.WriteLine($"e.Image is not null");
                        var imageSource = (StreamImageSource)e.Image;
                        using (var stream = imageSource.Stream(CancellationToken.None).Result)
                        {
                            using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
                            {
                                Debug.WriteLine($"var memoryStream = new MemoryStream() went through");
                                stream.CopyTo(memoryStream);
                                photoData = memoryStream.ToArray();
                                // Use the byte array 'photoData' as needed
                                Debug.WriteLine($"navigating to EditPostPage");
                                Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(() =>
                                {
                                    Navigation.PushAsync(new EditPostPage(userId, textId, photoData));
                                });
                            }
                        }
                    }

                    break;


                case CameraCaptureMode.Video:
                    break;
            }
        }

The problem is that when I take a photo it works since Debug.WriteLine($"camera picture taken"); is shown in the output. However, somehow MediaCaptured(object sender, MediaCapturedEventArgs e) doesn't go through because none of the debug statements show up on the output. Instead after the picture is taken, there is an error message saying "[0:] CameraView: Error camera access" and "ErrorMessage: CAMERA_ERROR (3): The camera device has encountered a serious error." What is the problem? I tried to restart the app, the emulator, and change it to a different device but the error message keeps showing up in the debug output.

Answer 1

If you are using a webcam on your development computer to simulate the back-facing camera on the emulated device, this value must be set to webcamn, where n selects the webcam (if you have only one webcam, choose webcam0). If set to emulated, the emulator simulates the camera in software. To disable the back-facing camera, set this value to none. If you enable the back-facing camera, be sure to also enable hw.camera.

You could try the following method:

Click on Tools -> Android -> Android Device Manager. Then edit the Android emulator, set the hw.camera.back and hw.camera.front to emulated.

For more info, you could refer to Editing Android Virtual Device Properties.