There have been an escalated number of low-rated reviews for Google’s native camera app on the Play Store for a few months now. What now transpires is that the software is not necessarily to blame for the glitchy performance of the app; the fact that it’s happening to the in-house Pixel phones is a tell-tale indication that it is more of a hardware issue. Coincide that with the slew of complaints about Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 series phones in the last year or so, and you know where the issue lies.
According to some users of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 3 devices, the rear-facing camera freezes while working. That’s accompanied by a black screen or the app crashes entirely. Interestingly, the issue sometimes affects third-party apps like Snapchat and Duo also.
Another reason it points towards a hardware problem with the rear camera of the Pixel phones is the fact that even after erasing app data and cache also, it still persists. A factory reset is also not able to resolve the issue, so you know where the fault actually lies.
Ever since this issue has been out there, many theories have claimed that a phone’s software update triggered the problem. Other theories say that bringing a magnet in close proximity to the device can solve the issue.
Out of the two, Pixel 2 seems to be the most affected by the camera bug. Then there are some Pixel 3, 3a, and Pixel 4 users as well that have been affected. According to Android Police, Google themselves have recently acknowledged that wear and tear to the hardware could be attributed to the occurrence of these error messages while using the camera app.
Google has invited users having the issue to contact customer support and let them look it with their expert team to know the facts. Only after making enough data-driven study along with analyzing the hardware behavior can it be actually known what the actual cause is.