"Unfortunately, camera has stopped" on camera intent

Question

So im trying to allow the user to take a picture which I would then send to a server. I am a bit of a noob in android so i followed this tutorial on how to do so. I've seen a few questions similar to mine but not quite the same. The app does launch the camera app and allows me to take a picture, it's when I hit the "check" to accept the image so to say that I get the message "Unfortunately, camera has stopped" and the app returns to the activity where I don't get the thumbnail nor the image aparently. Logcat shows nothing from the moment the camera launches to when it stops working. Here is my code:

Activity

package com.example.ignacio.androidchat;


import android.content.Intent;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.location.LocationManager;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Environment;
import android.provider.MediaStore;
import android.support.v4.content.FileProvider;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Base64;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.LinearLayout;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URI;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Date;


public class TaskCompletionForm extends AppCompatActivity{

    private static final String TAG = "TaskCompletionForm";
    private static int REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE = 1;
    ImageView formImageView;
    private String currImagePath;

    private final boolean submitTime = false;
    private final boolean submitGPS = false;
    private final boolean requestImage = true;
    private final boolean requestQRRead = false;
    private final boolean requestRFID = false;

    private LinearLayout formContainer;


    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_task_completion_form);

        formContainer = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.ll_formContainer);

        final Button b_submit = (Button) findViewById(R.id.b_submit);
        b_submit.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                submitForm();
            }
        });

        final Button b_takePicture = (Button) findViewById(R.id.b_takePicture);
        b_takePicture.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View view) {
                dispatchPhotographIntent();
            }
        });

        formImageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.formImageView);

    }

    private void submitForm() {
        final int childCount = formContainer.getChildCount() - 1;
        JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
        try {
            // add text fields
            int textFieldCount = 0;
            ArrayList<String> entries = new ArrayList<>();
            for (int i = 0; i < childCount; i++) {
                View v = formContainer.getChildAt(i);
                if (v instanceof EditText) {
                    entries.add(((EditText) v).getText().toString());
                    textFieldCount++;
                }
            }
            jsonObject.put("fieldCount", textFieldCount);
            jsonObject.put("fields", new JSONArray(entries));

            // add image
            if (requestImage && !currImagePath.equals(""))
            {
                Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(currImagePath);
                ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
                bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, byteArrayOutputStream);
                byte[] byteArray = byteArrayOutputStream.toByteArray();
                String encodedImage = Base64.encodeToString(byteArray, Base64.DEFAULT);
                jsonObject.put("image", encodedImage);
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        WebSocket.getInstance().submitCompletionForm(jsonObject);
    }

    private void dispatchPhotographIntent()
    {
        Intent takePictureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
        if (takePictureIntent.resolveActivity(getPackageManager()) != null)
        {
            File photoFile = null;
            try{
                photoFile = createImageFile();
            } catch (IOException e)
            {
                e.printStackTrace();
                // handle exeption
            }

            // continue only if the file was successfully created
            if (photoFile != null)
            {
                Uri photoURI = FileProvider.getUriForFile(this,
                        "com.example.ignacio.androidchat.fileprovider",
                        photoFile);
                takePictureIntent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, photoURI);
                startActivityForResult(takePictureIntent, REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
            }
        }
    }

    private File createImageFile() throws IOException
    {
        String timeStamp = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd_HHmmss").format(new Date());
        String imageFileName = "JPEG_" + timeStamp + "_";
        File storageDir = getExternalFilesDir(Environment.DIRECTORY_PICTURES);
        File image = File.createTempFile(imageFileName, ".jpg", storageDir);
        if (!image.exists())
        {
            image.getParentFile().mkdirs();
            image.createNewFile();
        }
        currImagePath = image.getAbsolutePath();
        return image;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
        if (requestCode == REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE && resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
            Bundle extras = data.getExtras();
            Bitmap imageBitmap = (Bitmap) extras.get("data");
            formImageView.setImageBitmap(imageBitmap);
        }
    }
}

Manifest

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.ignacio.androidchat">

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />

    <!-- To auto-complete the email text field in the login form with the user's emails
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PROFILE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS" />-->

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA"
        android:required = "true"/>
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
        <activity android:name=".HomeScreen"
            android:launchMode="singleTask"/>
        <activity android:name=".TaskDescription" />
        <activity android:name=".TaskCompletionForm"
            android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"/>

        <service android:name=".WebSocketIntentService" />
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.version"
            android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version"/>

        <provider
            android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider"
            android:authorities="com.example.ignacio.androidchat.fileprovider"
            android:exported="false"
            android:grantUriPermissions="true">
            <meta-data
                android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
                android:resource="@xml/file_paths" />
        </provider>
    </application>

</manifest>

file_paths.xml

---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<paths xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <external-path name="my_images"
        path="Android/data/com.example.ignacio.androidchat/files/Pictures/" />
</paths>

Answer 1

I hypothesize that the camera application on older Samsung Android devices (api 17 in my case) requires a uri in the format "file:///.....". The problem is the file uri format causes Android Nougat (api 24 and greater) to throw the FileUriExposedException.

I got this to work:

Uri imageUri;
// N is for Nougat Api 24 Android 7
if (Build.VERSION_CODES.N <= android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT) {
    // FileProvider required for Android 7.  Sending a file URI throws exception.
    imageUri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(getContext(),"com.<your name here>.fileprovider",imageFile);
} else {
    // For older devices:
    // Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" 2 (Samsung GT-P3113 Android 4.2.2, API 17)
    // Samsung S3
    imageUri = Uri.fromFile(imageFile);
}

The ideal is to only use FileProvider in Nougat or higher.
You may want to lower the api version of Build.VERSION_CODES. YMMV, depending on your tolerance for on the file uri exposure.

See: Android Documentation for note on FileUriExposedException in Android Nougat.

Answer 2

So I found a solution, but still have no idea to the problem. What worked for me was to change the "dispatchPhotographIntent" to the following:

private void dispatchPhotographIntent()
{
    Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
    imageFile = createImageFile();
    Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(imageFile);
    intent.putExtra(MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, uri);
    startActivityForResult(intent, REQUEST_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
}

Here I am not using a file provider nor keeping track of the Uri of the file generated by the function "createImageFile". Instead I generate the file and get the Uri directly from it. I hope this is useful to someone or someone finds the problem itself since it still intrigues me.

Thanks to all who comented and tried to help!