Some unusual and deeply frustrating camera bug has surfaced on Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P devices recently, wherein any photo taken on the stock camera app of the handset is found to disappear after some time for no apparent reason. Users can reportedly see just the thumbnail preview of the image once at the right-hand bottom corner of the camera interface, before all the photos stored in the memory including the Gallery app will mysteriously disappear.
The issue is said to be random as only some photos are affected while the others are retained in the phone's storage memory.
However, it is evident that the issue is isolated to all those photos captured on a device without a data connection. It is quite unnerving to note the fact that there is no need for a data connection to store the photos locally on a device.
Fixes for camera pics disappearing issue on Nexus 5X and 6P
HDR processing issue
The issue seems to affect all users running the HDR+ mode on the stock camera app in their handset. It is believed that the issue could be triggered by the HDR processing in the background which could uncache and remove the application data from the memory.
It is advisable to turn off the HDR+ mode before you capture pictures on the stock camera.
Camera app getting removed from RAM
Some users are reporting that the stock camera app is inadvertently being wiped out from system RAM, before the data gets refreshed or copied into the cache and thereby preventing the Google services from backing up those images to Google Photos or Google Drive.
There is only one fix to resolve this issue, wherein you are required to open the captured photo once on the camera, so that it gets stored locally on your handset.
Reappearing pictures
There have also been reports of disappeared pictures showing up unexpectedly after a few months.
If you are facing a similar problem, you can try clearing the Camera app's cache memory as well as wiping the cache partition via recovery. As a workaround, you can also try reopening albums for around 3-4 times in the Google Photos app to restore disappeared photos.
Here's how you can clear the Camera app cache or wipe the cache partition:
Clearing Camera app cache
- Launch Settings and select Apps.
- Browse and select the Camera app.
- Tap on the Camera app to launch its App info page.
- Choose the Storage option and then select Clear Cache.
Clearing the Cache Partition
- Power off your device by pressing and holding the Power and Volume Down buttons together until the Android logo appears on screen.
- Your device should boot into fastboot mode.
- Now press the Volume button to open recovery mode screen and the hit Power button to choose it.
- An Android bot lying on its back should now appear on screen.
- Now press and hold the Power and Volume Up buttons to boot into recovery.
- Use either of the Volume buttons to navigate to Wipe Cache Partition and then press the Power button to select it.
Update system date and time
Another quick fix involves reverting the system date and time to the current time and date as a few users are reportedly seeing their handsets showing an older date and time from the 1970s. Besides, the location of saved pictures is also showing up incorrectly as per user reports.
It is believed that these mixed up time and location settings could be resulting in syncing issues with Google Photos and local storage. Setting the correct date and time should help resolve this issue as per several user reports till now.
Updating system firmware
As a last resort, you can try updating the system firmware or the operating system to the latest version. Several users have confirmed that they were able to save the photos correctly after doing the system software update while a few haven't had any luck with any of these fixes.
If everything else has failed for you, just try downloading and installing Google Drive app or Open Camera app as a workaround to fix the disappearing photos issue at least temporarily, until a bug-fix update is rolled out by Google for the stock camera app.
[Source: Google Product Forums]
