Video only recording sound, black picture

[Thumper427]

Hoping someone can help me here. My M4 is only a month old and today while recording 4 videos they have all come out as a black screen with only the sound recorded, no picture at all. Absolutely fuming as it was a really important moment I was capturing and this £300 piece of junk has ruined that!

I reset the phone, took the sim card out, did a factory reset and it still doesnt record any visual, just sound with a black screen.

A 26 second video is showing as 1.26MB's. When uploaded to the PC it's still a black 'video' with just the sound.

This is not the first Sony I have had problems with, I gave them a second chance and now I feel that was a complete and utter waste of time. Any ideas?

[Bulut]

Hey there,

As a developer, my observations:

I'm using xperia Z2

When I was using stock rom there was no problem at all.

Then I bored and unlocked my bootloader without backing up TA partition which has the unique DRM keys. So I lost my DRM keys.

Now if I use AOSP based roms like cyanogen mod, I don't have an issue about camera but camera functions lesser than stock rom ofcourse.

But if I use custom roms based on sony's stock rom like Existenz, or I use directly original stock sony official firmware, im facing with that issue. This is how issue occurs:

Everything is normal for a while, you can record video with every app (stock camera, snapchat, whatsapp etc). After some time when you try to record video with stock camera app or snapchat etc boom! It says can't record. If you restart the phone issue fixed. I think it's about drm keys. Because before I unlock my bootloader, I never faced that issue. I did debug and I can post the exception if you want.

[valyo_bg]

My boatloader is locked, phone is stock, but still problem exist.

[Rickard]

@FtOrNiK @valyo_bg

Can you please check so that "USB-debugging" is enabled under Settings -> Developer options? If this is turned off, "Take bug report" will be greyed out and can't be selected.

Also check so that the internal storage is not full.

[valyo_bg]

Yes, USB Debugging is enabled and I have 3.1G free internal storage (from 16G) and 22G free on SD card. Bug report is not working when problems with video clips recorded with camera (black screen only sound) and YouTube error occur.

[Rickard]

@valyo_bg

That's strange. It might take a minute or so but you should get a notification when it has created one.

Are you by any chance familar with connecting to the phone using ADB from a computer? We could try to get a log that way instead.

[valyo_bg]

Yes, we can try. You can explain me what I need to get log via USB.

[Rickard]

Great, i'll send you a private message.

[FtOrNiK]

my usb-debugging is enabled, i have 0.9GB free internal space and 45GB free on sd card.

send me a private message about usb debugging please

[delaguilaluis]

Why does this issue has a response marked as "solution" when it's clear that the PCC thing is just a temporal fix just as restarting the phone is?

I got this phone one week ago. Guess why? Because I wanted to shoot some nice photos and videos. I was happy for recording lots of memories yesterday to come and realize that they were all 1.5 MB useless files with just audio on them.

Such a bummer that now I have to buy another phone, since OTAs wouldn't come fast to my country/carrier (if they ever fix this) and I don't want another M4 that will fail anyways (clearly not a HW problem).

EDIT: issue is fixed after updating to build 26.1.A.3.1xx (on E2306 model)

[Oracleoct]

Hi, is there any way to recover the black videos? I have some very important footage I really need. Please let me know!

I really expected the footage to come out fine with no problems so I'm very disappointed in this...We should not be required to check if the videos come out fine right after. It defeats the purpose of filming in the moment or important speeches etc....The moment can never be recorded again..