'Camera Album' won't start, hangs...

[dougwzz99]

The Camera Album application won't start up for me...I get the title bar appear and the 'busy' multicoloured icon spins in the middle of the screen and...thats where it sits! The phone is not locked up completely, if I press the OK key I can get back to the Today screen with no problem.

Same thing happens if I try to access Camera Album after having taken a photo...

Anyone else seen this?

[windows]

Not seen any problems like that, has it always been that way or is this a recent problem?

[dougwzz99]

This is the first time I've tried to use Camera Album (I've had the phone about a month), so it's never worked at all for me. I wonder if theres some 'rogue' file somewhere that its trying to process but for some reason is hanging up on?

Do you know what directories Camera Album looks in to find image files when its starting up?

[Bassey]

I was thinking the exact same thing. On the storage card, it looks for a DCIM folder (like most digital cameras). In main memory it is "My Documents->My Pictures".

Are you running a standard ROM or have you installed a cooked ROM?

[windows]

Hmm a strange one, usually it looks in 'My Pictures' on machine. It may be time if you can affrod it to do a hard reset and verify that this resolves the issue.

[dougwzz99]

Its a standard ROM, I haven't changed that at all. I have loaded some packages on (Resco Explorer, Phone Alarm and a few other bits), but I wouldn't think they would cause this? I'll try cleaning out those folders that you have suggested and see if that gets it going.

I've also found after some looking that there are some CAB files about that claim to be 'HTC Album', looks like its a way to get the Camera Album loaded if your device didn't have it in the first place. I wonder if a reload using one of these CAB files would fix it (or would you not recommend this?).

I'd like to avoid a hard reset if at all possible, I've got a fair amount of things loaded and tailored and I'd hate to have to redo all that...

Thanks for any help!

[Bassey]

I understand the reluctance to hard-reset. You could always take a full backup (SPB Backup or SPrite Backup), then do a hard reset. See if the Photo Album app launches. You can always revert to the previous state by restoring the backup but at least you'll know!

It's well worth trying one of the .cab files - again, take a full backup first though.

And I'd still try clearing out those folders first to see if it's a corrupt image file causing the problem.

I suppose it could even be a corruption to the formatting of the memory card. So another step might be to copy everything off the memory card to a PC and then copy it all back on again. Sounds daft I know but it has worked for other issues in the past. Just re-creating the data o the card seems to sort out formatting issues.

[firstbuddha]

a quicker test is to remove your storage card from the device and then start the album.

I'm guessing if you haven't been using the album it has to generate the thumbnails, etc and that could take some time. another consideration is a corrupt file that is stopping the thumbnails generating.

remove the card, take a photo (saved to internal memory) and run the album then.

let us know how you get on.

[dougwzz99]

I've solved the problem!

After much tinkering around with removing image files from various folders (and removing the memory card completely) with no success I got to thinking - what have I got on this device that could interfere with this app getting access to the display (because thats what it looked like it was trying to do). The answer - my Stowaway/Igo bluetooth mouse. I remembered when I installed it there were 2 modes for running the mouse driver, enhanced and safe, and the install notes talked about possible display problems when running enhanced mode.

Up to now I've had no problems, but I decide to change the mouse driver to safe mode and voila! - up comes Camera Album with no problems The mouse still seems to work just fine in safe mode so thats where I'll leave it.

I guess the mouse driver must 'hook' the display driver at a low level to be able to move the mouse pointer around the screen at all times, and there must be something about enhanced mode that Camera Album doesn't like...

Thanks to all for the help.

Doug.

[neilm]

That's a great pice of detective work dougwzz99

We'll store that in the mempry banks for future use! Glad you sorted your own problem out, and probably helped others into the bargain.