All the solutions I've found on the internet about this bug where the camera won't save pictures anymore require completely restoring your iphone from scratch. Of course, most of those people didn't have their phone jailbroken so there isn't any other way for them. I was just determined enough not to go through a full restore to do this so I dug through the system to find the cause.
This solution will fix these symptoms:
- The Camera app (or a replacement) works like normal, but the pictures don't appear in the camera roll.
- The previews of pictures in the camera roll are completely black, but when you open them up you see them properly.
- You've tried restoring your phone, and the camera works fine only on a clean install. Once iTunes restores your settings the apps are broken again.
Note: Your phone must be jailbroken to perform this.
1. If you have any pictures you need to copy off of your phone, do it now without using iTunes.
2. SSH into your phone and go to the folder: /private/var/mobile/Media
3. Set the permissions of the DCIM folder to chmod 0777 (read, write, execute for all users), and make sure to apply permissions recursively.
4. Delete everything in that folder (should be .MISC and 100APPLE).
5. If you have ever synced your images through iTunes, go to the folder that they are saved in and delete the folder called iPod Photo Cache, then move any pictures there to a different location for now.
6. Restart your iPhone.
7. Sync your photos with iTunes (there shouldn't be anything there to sync, but do it anyway).
8. Go to the Camera app and take a picture. It should show up properly in the camera roll. If not, delete it and restart the phone one last time - the system may have to reload the new cache that was generated.
At this point the camera and photo album should work properly again, and syncing with iTunes will be safe.
The problem seems to stem from the DCIM folder permissions, which at some point prevents the camera from writing pictures to it. And once the camera takes a picture that it can't save, the entire image cache gets screwed up and no longer works properly. So going through these steps clears everything. It also should ensure that everything works at least until you restore/update the firmware (at which point the DCIM folder's permissions get changed back to default). But I can't make any promises other than the fact that these steps have fixed my phone, and if you have the same bug it should fix yours as well.
This solution will fix these symptoms:
- The Camera app (or a replacement) works like normal, but the pictures don't appear in the camera roll.
- The previews of pictures in the camera roll are completely black, but when you open them up you see them properly.
- You've tried restoring your phone, and the camera works fine only on a clean install. Once iTunes restores your settings the apps are broken again.
Note: Your phone must be jailbroken to perform this.
1. If you have any pictures you need to copy off of your phone, do it now without using iTunes.
2. SSH into your phone and go to the folder: /private/var/mobile/Media
3. Set the permissions of the DCIM folder to chmod 0777 (read, write, execute for all users), and make sure to apply permissions recursively.
4. Delete everything in that folder (should be .MISC and 100APPLE).
5. If you have ever synced your images through iTunes, go to the folder that they are saved in and delete the folder called iPod Photo Cache, then move any pictures there to a different location for now.
6. Restart your iPhone.
7. Sync your photos with iTunes (there shouldn't be anything there to sync, but do it anyway).
8. Go to the Camera app and take a picture. It should show up properly in the camera roll. If not, delete it and restart the phone one last time - the system may have to reload the new cache that was generated.
At this point the camera and photo album should work properly again, and syncing with iTunes will be safe.
The problem seems to stem from the DCIM folder permissions, which at some point prevents the camera from writing pictures to it. And once the camera takes a picture that it can't save, the entire image cache gets screwed up and no longer works properly. So going through these steps clears everything. It also should ensure that everything works at least until you restore/update the firmware (at which point the DCIM folder's permissions get changed back to default). But I can't make any promises other than the fact that these steps have fixed my phone, and if you have the same bug it should fix yours as well.
