camera button xperia z3 compact wont work

[stepic7]

It is quite a while that the camera button on my Xperia Z3 compact does not work. Probably it happened after a system upgrade, I don't remember which one thou.

What the camera button does is activate the notification bar drop down menu, clearly a software related issue.

Diagnostics does not help either since the button is indeed working although doing something else.

When fully annoied I scored all the forums as I am doing now. No PC companion, No restore to initial settings please, this will just make you waste time.

These guys who are supposed to help are not doing their job, that's all.

I am even thinking it was a feature purposedly introduced to avoid, see other discussions, that the phone did take shots without intention to do so due to the extreme sensitivity of that button

[Uliwooly]

@stepic7

I'm a bit confused on the issue, could you explain the issue a bit more clearly? 

also try, settings > apps > all > camera > clear data > restart the phone.

Keep in mind that this is a user based forum.

[stepic7]

certainly:

Camera button is hardware  the button on the top right supposed to act the camera when hit taking a shot. It is a feature on which Sony built a lot mentioning as one of the important features of this phone, pls see various comments on the web on this.

As I said in my post, this botton, the camera button, DOES NOT work, in the sense that it does not work in camera mode: completely inactive, does nothing.

It does however do something else: pushing this camera button it recalls the dropdown notification menu.

nothing else.

Is it clear now?

[Uliwooly]

@stepic7

Try my suggestions

1 settings > apps > all > camera > clear data > restart the phone 

2 boot on > safe mode

Test the camera physical button and report back. 

[stepic7]

Hi uliwooly

thanks for suggestions

1 settings > apps > all > camera > clear data > restart the phone 

2 boot on > safe mode

done both in sequence, no change with respect to post already summarized, in particular

in camera mode the hardware camera button does NOTHING

Not in camera mode on home screen pressing the camera hardware button twice the notification window comes down as shown in the screen recording you can download at

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55348319/ScreenRecord_2016-02-04-11-06-30.mp4

In conclusion the camera hardware button works but it does something different with what is supposed to

I add that there are two camera Apps one ca 2Mb the other ca 440KB, I deleted both data and restarted in safe mode.

thanks again

[MarkMRL · Accepted solution]

In Settings, About Phone, Diagnostics, Test you can test the buttons.  Scroll to the camera button test.

Normally the camera button "clicks" twice, the first click (halfway through) is to focus, the second click (all the way down) is to take the pic. The second click also starts the camera from any screen. In the diagnostics screen the icon will light up, showing the button is working, on the second click.

If your button isn't working, maybe it's stuck or defective. If that's the case then take your phone to a service center to get it fixed.

The fact that your camera button takes down the notification bar is very weird, is your phone rooted and have you installed some kind of mod? If that's the case reflash your system partition through flashtool or factory reset through PCC. Other than that the only thing I can think of is that your phone has some weird anomaly going on with the motherboard.

Good luck.

[stepic7]

sorry took a while to respond

summarizing question:

hardware button doesn't take a shot nor focuses

It does work tough since pushing one feels the double action, it clicks twice doing the following

While sleeping:

first click does nothing

second click wakes up the phone and starts the camera

pushing it again while in camera mode does nothing

When awake

first click pulls the notification bar down

second click starts the camera

I don't think it is an hardware issue, It must be related to some system update since it started after I updated the phone: don't know which update though since initially was working correctly

[Uliwooly]

@stepic7

Repair the phone with PCC and report back, since you marked the post as answered other users won't reply since they assumed that your post has been answered.